We didn't sell.
We had by far the better product, both in our candidate and our platform. We lost because we thought we were in an idealized election when we were, in fact, in a cutthroat competitive sale.
In an idealized election, a group of informed, rational, fair, well-meaning, virtuous adults meet to vote on what is better for the future of the country, themselves, and their fellow Americans. So, yeah, someday we should strive to have an election like that. In the meantime, we should learn to sell.
What we were in was a cutthroat sales competition. It was, in fact, more of a sales mugging. The reasons we lost narrowly when we should have had a landslide are many. I'll try to list them. If you don't like them, fine. None of them have anything to do with coalitions of Steinbeckian working class sweeties being let down by corporatist plants. That would make a profitable (but not a good) movie, of course.
Republican abuse of power. The Benghazi Committee was an act of political criminality.
ISIS got what they wanted. They did for Muslims what "Jaws" did for sharks. Republicans assisted ISIS in the same way their leadership example George W. Bush assisted Al Qaeda, by fanning hysteria.
Putin got what he wanted, assisted by WikiLeaks. Republicans also assisted. Hackers weren't bad guys.
Colin Kaepernick created and starred in Republican "Willie Horton" ads which he broadcast during NFL games. Many other athletes at all levels did their own Republican ads, following Kaepernick's lead.
Clinton blew it with the "deplorables" comment, although it started out promising. She shouldn't have said it, but once she said it, she should have used it to get a bunch of free air time. Kellyanne Conway got that game; Clinton didn't.
Clinton kept saying things to try to get an angry country into some kind of group hug. That's great for the people who want to do a group hug. But you have to account for people who don't want to hug the other people on the team but still want to play for the team. A white, working class, rural worker with a family to feed would agree with a black, working class, urban BLMer with a family to feed on a $12 minimum wage or health insurance. They may not want to hug in many cases. Don't try to make them.
Trump is an effective salesman. He would obviously lose a traditional election, so he turned the election into something he could win, a sale. Lying is bad in an election. In a sale, it's standard practice. At least in a Trump sale.
Sanders divided the team. He started out strong, but he drifted into evil. His innuendo on Clinton's Wall Street speeches validated the Republicans' preposterous comic book portrayal of Clinton as corrupt. His portrayal of the Democratic primary process as rigged played into Trump's hands.
Republicans successfully suppressed the Democratic vote by eliminating polling places, purging voter roles, and pushing voter ID.
Democratic voters successfully suppressed the Democratic vote through apathy, laziness, unawareness of the stakes, and capitulation to discouragement and depression. Voting is not something one needs to be persuaded to do. Voting is the default. The burden of persuasion is on the non-voting argument. Having this backwards is the main reason we have so many Republicans, including Trump in offices they aren't fit to hold.
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