Some observations

[Filuwaúrdjan]

1. The decision of the Obama era Democratic Party to embrace ethnic headcount politics was foolish to the point of negligence. Jaichind is not the most popular poster here and his politics are... um... bad... but he was right to highlight the possibility of what is described in Indian political jargon as 'consolidation' from the majority community in response.

2. The expected collapse of the Republican vote in affluent suburbia did not happen. At best there were some weak swings, but often not even that. It was not particularly clever to factor this into electoral strategy.

3. The collapse of the white Democratic vote (outside selected locations) was about as bad as it could have been and is just extraordinary to look at. This wasn't really a class thing - overall it skews heavily as a working class collapse because there were more working class votes to be lost this way - so much as an across-the-board meltdown. Really horrific stuff.

3b. I.e. check out the Midwestern Democratic farming vote (not working class). Oh wait you can't because it's gone as well.

4. Perhaps in retrospect running a candidate with a quarter of a century of negative publicity (built up to the level of absolute toxicity) and who was known to be under criminal investigation was not really a brilliant idea either.

4b. Which, of course, does not make the political intervention of the FBI late in the campaign anything other than deeply concerning for your democracy. Particularly as it clearly swung the election.

[Ljube]

I said she shouldn't have run.

[Storebought]

That sounds like the Democratic Party should run as a pure patronage and wealth transfer mechanism, at least concerning the Midwest. Would Clinton have carried IA if she promised bigger ethanol subsidies? Would anyone have heard her through the din of the email scandals -- media postmortems (is that a correct Latin plural?) all say that she had trouble getting her message out. It all sounds very 1988 to me.

[Devout Centrist]

My main observation is that identity politics works. Also expect to see a left wing tea party rise to prominence very soon.

[Ljube]

That sounds like the Democratic Party should run as a pure patronage and wealth transfer mechanism, at least concerning the Midwest. Would Clinton have carried IA if she promised bigger ethanol subsidies? Would anyone have heard her through the din of the email scandals -- media postmortems (is that a correct Latin plural?) all say that she had trouble getting her message out. It all sounds very 1988 to me.

No, she wouldn't have carried Iowa under any circumstances. Nobody trusts anything Crooked Hillary says.

[ApatheticAustrian]

That sounds like the Democratic Party should run as a pure patronage and wealth transfer mechanism, at least concerning the Midwest. Would Clinton have carried IA if she promised bigger ethanol subsidies? Would anyone have heard her through the din of the email scandals -- media postmortems (is that a correct Latin plural?) all say that she had trouble getting her message out. It all sounds very 1988 to me.

No, she wouldn't have carried Iowa under any circumstances. Nobody trusts anything Crooked Hillary says.

she is more trustworthy regarding her political positions than trump...eher enemies and friends both say so.....the voters just don't care and went for the loot box with unknown treasure.

[Confused Democrat]

My main observation is that identity politics works. Also expect to see a left wing tea party rise to prominence very soon.

How could that possibly be the thing that you take away from this election? God help us if we see a left wing tea party rise.

I never wanted Trump to be my president, and I fought hard to elect Hillary Clinton, but Democrats moving further to the left is not the answer. We need to humble ourselves and seriously re-evaluate the direction are party is heading towards.

[Devout Centrist]

My main observation is that identity politics works. Also expect to see a left wing tea party rise to prominence very soon.

How could that possibly be the thing that you take away from this election? God help us if we see a left wing tea party rise.

I never wanted Trump to be my president, and I fought hard to elect Hillary Clinton, but Democrats moving further to the left is not the answer. We need to humble ourselves and seriously re-evaluate the direction are party is heading towards.

It's not a good observation, but it's clearly going to happen. The left is furious and emboldened. 2018 is going to be a primal scream of young, embittered millennials. And it's only going to get more divided from here.

And it's now clear that identity politics works. Donald Trump did it masterfully.

[Mr. Smith]

A left-wing Tea Party is exactly what has to happen [more specifically, something akin to what Goldwater-Reagan were to the mainstream GOP in the 70's] , and given how close Georgia, Arizona, Texas, Florida, and the likely outcome of NC had black turnout stayed level, identity politics is probably here to stay.

We do need to go further left, but we have to SELL why going left is a good idea and how it'll help everyone.

[ApatheticAustrian]

tea party and the goldwater project are two totally different beasts.

the goldwater-reagan thingie was a long-term change and a purity test, from an ideological point of view, coming from elites.

the tea party was a raging bottom - up concept, which killed the electoral chances of the party (in full-turnout years) and harmed its reputation even more.

trumpism is in fact the death of the tea party, even while the rage connects both.

[Ban my account ffs!]

My main observation is that identity politics works. Also expect to see a left wing tea party rise to prominence very soon.

How could that possibly be the thing that you take away from this election? God help us if we see a left wing tea party rise.

I never wanted Trump to be my president, and I fought hard to elect Hillary Clinton, but Democrats moving further to the left is not the answer. We need to humble ourselves and seriously re-evaluate the direction are party is heading towards.

It's not a good observation, but it's clearly going to happen. The left is furious and emboldened. 2018 is going to be a primal scream of young, embittered millennials. And it's only going to get more divided from here.

And it's now clear that identity politics works. Donald Trump did it masterfully.

No.

If you really think identity politics is how the Democratic party will win....then we will never win.

The Democrats are so so SOOOOOOOO delusional right now.  We are toxic.  We think it is only the right that is full of piss, vinegar, divisiveness, and hate...and we're very wrong about that.  Just cuz we're a group of many smaller parts raging at a monolithic block doesn't mean we're not promoting patronizing divisiveness.

This Democratic party is seriously losing the white people of northern Minnesota...the last holdouts, along with New England...because we've belittled them, mocked them, finger wagged at them...and treated them like we know better.  They need to check their privilege and shut up and listen to your patronizing truths about the world.

And if that's what you want...fine.  The Republican party is going to eat you alive.

[White Trash]

My main observation is that identity politics works. Also expect to see a left wing tea party rise to prominence very soon.

How could that possibly be the thing that you take away from this election? God help us if we see a left wing tea party rise.

I never wanted Trump to be my president, and I fought hard to elect Hillary Clinton, but Democrats moving further to the left is not the answer. We need to humble ourselves and seriously re-evaluate the direction are party is heading towards.

It's not a good observation, but it's clearly going to happen. The left is furious and emboldened. 2018 is going to be a primal scream of young, embittered millennials. And it's only going to get more divided from here.

And it's now clear that identity politics works. Donald Trump did it masterfully.

No.

If you really think identity politics is how the Democratic party will win....then we will never win.

The Democrats are so so SOOOOOOOO delusional right now.  We are toxic.  We think it is only the right that is full of piss, vinegar, divisiveness, and hate...and we're very wrong about that.  Just cuz we're a group of many smaller parts raging at a monolithic block doesn't mean we're not promoting patronizing divisiveness.

This Democratic party is seriously losing the white people of northern Minnesota...the last holdouts, along with New England...because we've belittled them, mocked them, finger wagged at them...and treated them like we know better.  They need to check their privilege and shut up and listen to your patronizing truths about the world.

And if that's what you want...fine.  The Republican party is going to eat you alive.

This is crucial. The Democratic Party has built victory after victory on the coalition of minority interests and the interests of labor and agriculture. It's clear that central parts of this coalition are either going to the Republicans or just staying home. Michigan and Pennsylvania should not have gone blue, and Minnesota had no business being that close.

[ApatheticAustrian]

there must be sensible middle ground between college campus faux-feminism/racism-outrage and trump-style racist/sexist-personating.

i for one won't accept any kind of "silver bullet" explanation for narrow voting patterns in 4 states.

in the one REAL battleground of cultural politics this cycle, north carolina, even while rurals soared like everywhere, the main crusader of the whole thing, the republican gov himself, seems to be losing.....

which just shows that everything in life is complicated.

[Devout Centrist]

My main observation is that identity politics works. Also expect to see a left wing tea party rise to prominence very soon.

How could that possibly be the thing that you take away from this election? God help us if we see a left wing tea party rise.

I never wanted Trump to be my president, and I fought hard to elect Hillary Clinton, but Democrats moving further to the left is not the answer. We need to humble ourselves and seriously re-evaluate the direction are party is heading towards.

It's not a good observation, but it's clearly going to happen. The left is furious and emboldened. 2018 is going to be a primal scream of young, embittered millennials. And it's only going to get more divided from here.

And it's now clear that identity politics works. Donald Trump did it masterfully.

No.

If you really think identity politics is how the Democratic party will win....then we will never win.

The Democrats are so so SOOOOOOOO delusional right now.  We are toxic.  We think it is only the right that is full of piss, vinegar, divisiveness, and hate...and we're very wrong about that.  Just cuz we're a group of many smaller parts raging at a monolithic block doesn't mean we're not promoting patronizing divisiveness.

This Democratic party is seriously losing the white people of northern Minnesota...the last holdouts, along with New England...because we've belittled them, mocked them, finger wagged at them...and treated them like we know better.  They need to check their privilege and shut up and listen to your patronizing truths about the world.

And if that's what you want...fine.  The Republican party is going to eat you alive.

It's not what I want, it's what the base wants. We have dark days ahead for this country. The left is going to off the rails.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Many of us were trying to get it through Democrats' heads that we needed to be more than a rainbow coalition of cosmopolitan neoliberals if we wanted a true working coalition of power. I'm just gutted that this is what it took for people to see that.

Snowguy nails it, as usual, that we need to stop lecturing people for being "improper" and start working together on the bread and butter issues that matter no matter who you are or where you're from. Clinton's arrogance in assuming that places like rural Minnesota and Wisconsin were in her camp no matter what, and thus she never had to do a thing to get them, was astounding. And running some awful Katy Perry ad in the final days as our closing argument? Yeah, that'll really get the rural whites of Ohio riled up for you.

The Democratic Party was a party capable of doing more for women, minorities, and people of color, when we were a party that still embraced a populist style and catered to people enough to have a wing of rural whites. Now, paradoxically, we've embraced a stricter liberal language, and we're shut out of power on a nearly unprecedented scale nationwide. Good going.

[ApatheticAustrian]

regarding the state-house question, i am quite optimistic that the pubs are overplaying their hand hard.....exhibit A and B would be kansas and louisiana, which both got crushed through republican over-domination.

since unions are going to tide for sure as part of the recent wave......dems of course are going to need new organizations to help working-class people, which can't be knee-capped so easily.

could be one of the reasons dems are so friendly to latinos...they are mostly more union-friendly than the white population.

[WMS]

The political class has demonized the working class because the political class no longer represents the working class.  Neither Republicans or Democrats.

In my signature for 10 8 years. Payback's a b!tch, isn't it?

[courts]

i would also have mentioned the violence. the dallas shootings, the milwaukee riots, orlando and all those nasty stories coming out of europe. those definitely played a huge role. i remember you being very worried after dallas in particular.

[courts]

honestly i expected wisconsin to flip after that the riots. but didn't make a huge deal out of it to avoid sounding ridiculous on the other place. whatever our differences i think we were of similar minds there

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Note that Snowguy hails from rural Minnesota, one of the places that swung particularly viciously this election. Nearly cost Clinton what had been viewed as a safe state.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

there must be sensible middle ground between college campus faux-feminism/racism-outrage and trump-style racist/sexist-personating.

Of course there is. We shouldn't attack someone's supporters for all being supposedly white males. We shouldn't claim people are voting just because of racism or sexism. We should reject these divide and conquer approaches. But of course racism and sexism exist, and we should fight for BLM and against racist drug sentencing, and for women's right to choose.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Those who remember Atlas of a decade ago will note with some amusement that, yes, here we are: jfern and WMS (hi!) singing from, if perhaps not the same hymn sheet, then at least from the same hymnbook. Thanks Obama!

[Cruzcrew]

It seems that Trump won not because of racism but because people are pissed off with the contemporary politically correct culture of the left that talks down on them as deplorables. Trump didn't win solely because people were mad at the Mexicans or the Muslims but because they feel left behind in this country and his drastically different attitude distinguishes him from those typical, seemingly elitist politicians who they feel have screwed them over for decades while simply taking their votes over and over again. People say Hillary lost mostly because of the emails, but the deplorables comment certainly took a toll because it fed into the narrative that Hillary Clinton is another elitist, establishment politician who thinks she's better than them and wants to nag at white people for what others have said for being improper and ultimately, being less than them. The more people keep saying Trump won because of racism, the more they ultimately encourage further Trump support because it seems like 47-48% of the country is sick of the idea that if they prefer this one candidate the left hates that they're dumb, racist, inferior rednecks. I understand why many of you are infuriated about Trump getting elected but if you keep talking down to everyone who is a Trump supporter and assuming every sane person should be like you like many others on the left, you will serve to deepen that support base of Trump. What the left should do, politically speaking, is not keep letting these struggling white working class voters bleed to the Republicans, but prove that they understand their struggle, that they aren't all saved by this idea of white privilege, and show that they aren't their superiors. Show that they can be one of you. Show that the cosmopolitan party has room for those without a college degree. That's what they need to survive in 2018.

[Fuzzy Bear]

My main observation is that identity politics works. Also expect to see a left wing tea party rise to prominence very soon.

How could that possibly be the thing that you take away from this election? God help us if we see a left wing tea party rise.

I never wanted Trump to be my president, and I fought hard to elect Hillary Clinton, but Democrats moving further to the left is not the answer. We need to humble ourselves and seriously re-evaluate the direction are party is heading towards.

It's not a good observation, but it's clearly going to happen. The left is furious and emboldened. 2018 is going to be a primal scream of young, embittered millennials. And it's only going to get more divided from here.

And it's now clear that identity politics works. Donald Trump did it masterfully.

But if just a few votes shifted to where Hillary Clinton eked out a victory from AZ, FL, and an increased Hispanic vote in NC, we'd say she did it masterfully, if we were honest with ourselves.

Donald Trump beat Hillary to the realignment.  Arizona is going Democratic, but Ohio and Iowa are going as Missouri have gone, and Michigan and Wisconsin are now on the watch list.  Georgia and Texas aren't moving Democratic fast enough for the Democrats to keep doing what they've done in this election. 

The Democratic Party doubled down on a campaign that focused on identity politics and support for social liberalism across the board.  Those who needed the Democratic Party to stand for working folks, and who grew up seeing them in that light received a rude awakening in this election.  Thomas Frank noted that this was the "New Democrat" strategy of the Clintons in What's the Matter With Kansas?.  He referred to it as a "criminally stupid" strategy.  Really, this electoral outcome should have surprised no one.

[All Along The Watchtower]

^It may have been a criminally stupid electoral strategy, but it sure rewarded leading Democratic politicians and those who worked for said politicians with top positions in the financial, nonprofit, and think tank sectors!