Dear Democrats: Nobody Cares About Your Feelings
Conservatives are much more clear-eyed—and that’s why they win so often
By Cliston Brown • 01/16/17 8:00am

Democrats have lost three of the last four federal elections—2010, 2014 and 2016—in large part because they are still clinging to the comforting but false notion that voters punish bad behavior.

The Democrats’ 2016 presidential campaign essentially focused on proving Donald Trump was too boorish to be an acceptable occupant of the highest office in the land. And in the lead-up to the 2010 and 2014 midterms, Democrats railed against Congressional Republicans’ obstruction of President Obama, decrying the GOP’s refusal to give the administration any cooperation, even on issues where pollsters showed high levels of support from the public. Their complaints failed, and Republicans won.

More than two months after the stunning defeat of Hillary Clinton, there seems to be no evidence that Democrats have learned anything. They continue to harp on whatever makes Trump look “unpresidential,” and while there is unquestionably plenty of material there, it is also clear that there aren’t enough voters who care about such things to swing an election. If there were, Trump would not have prevailed.

Clinton won the popular vote, and she won it decisively, by nearly three million ballots. That brings us to another thing Democrats haven’t learned, but need to soon: the necessity of focusing on what’s important. In terms of winning and losing, it’s irrelevant that Clinton won the popular vote. Whether you like our unfair, undemocratic electoral college system or not (for the record, this columnist doesn’t), we’re stuck with it unless we change the Constitution or enough states band together to create a work-around. It’s fine that Clinton won by eight million votes in California, but strategically speaking, it would have been far more important for Democrats to turn out another 80,000 votes in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. If you can’t change the rules, you have to figure out how to win by the current ones.

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The Tea Party movement that started early in Obama’s first term has been decried by the left for its positions and tactics, but the Tea Party undisputedly understood power. It organized, took down hundreds of incumbents at all levels of government, and it became a powerful force that establishment Republicans were afraid to cross for fear of being challenged at the primary level.

Progressives need to take a lesson from the Tea Party if they want to advance their own agenda. Merely being loud and visible isn’t going to cut it. They have to organize, and they have to vote in every election: presidential, midterm, primary, and special. Only when they demonstrate a credible threat to politicians’ jobs will they get what they want. Winning, not whining, is what creates change.


http://observer.com/2017/01/democrats-need-to-learn-how-to-win-elections/