The "Inside Baseball" books have started to come out about the recent election. This one purports to tell us how Hillary reacted to her loss. I'm sure she said something along the lines of "Oh, shit. Is there more wine?" I'm sure after extended reflection she said something along the lines of, " Oh well, fucked that up." I doubt if the exact content of those two sentiments will ever be known. I can't see that content makes any real difference. To quote Mrs Clinton," What difference does it make?" The books will sell mainly to other members of the "chattering class." They'll chatter on about what they mean.
It has been fairly widely reported that Bill Clinton repeatedly warned that the sentiment of populism that powered the Brexit vote was being ignored. I assume he thinks we somehow share a cultural ethos with Britain. No, we don't. Alec Guinness and Terry Thomas are just not that funny. The British have been doing stupid things for centuries without our help and without influencing us. Sorry Bill, that wasn't it.
There's going to be a lot of these books and since no one so far has pointed out what was really done wrong these books will be less than informative.
So, Oh Bumpkin Sage Sitting on the Banks of the Ohio, what did go wrong? First: I don't know that anything did go "wrong". We're a representative democracy with rules. You could make the case those rules were followed. I can tell you what the Clinton people did wrong and it's actually very simple. They didn't listen to themselves.
The primary objection to Trump both from the left and the establishment in general was he was totally unqualified to be President. His resume, behavior, grasp of issues rendered him totally illegitimate. That became one of the primary talking points of the Clinton Campaign. Why in the world did they begin to treat him as though he were somehow legitimate? It had the effect of contradicting what they were saying and elevating Trump to a level he didn't deserve. On an almost subliminal level people noticed.
The Clinton campaign or at least their surrogates began to directly attack Trump by June of 2016. I thought it was a mistake and said so repeatedly. I think the problem was the Clintons and the apparatus that had grown up around them were totally invested in the processes of the establishment. If Trump was supported by large numbers of people then the process said he must be legitimate and should be treated as such. Nah, that was a mistake. They lent him credibility that put the lie to what they were saying. It looked like even they didn't believe what they were saying. That's a major no-no in American politics.
The only proper way to deal with Trump would have been to totally ignore him. Never respond to anything he said or proposed . Speak only about your own ideas. He never should have been debated. The process says debates are the norm but there is no law requiring them. Obviously, a refusal to debate would have caused an uproar to which the response should have been: the republicans had no legitimate candidate immediately followed, always followed by detailed policy proposals. Not the quest for sound bites.
The "Not My President" and the #Resist movements get this. Trump says something and the response is to demand to know when he'll pay for the Russian collusion. Sessions says something and the response is to question when he'll be indicted for lying to Congress. Imagine how effective that would have been during the campaign. Just never allow any attempt to move the agenda.
So what? So, the post mortem books are a waste of time and energy. The chattering class and the Clinton people are so invested in the process they'll never be able to think outside of it and never get the point.
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