I know that I have been writing a lot more than usual. I am generally not the type of person who shares a lot of my opinions in long, written rants. But I am currently going through one of my phases where politics seems to be on my mind constantly.

I am not going to post the numbers, since most of the people here are incredibly, politically aware, but the Democratic Party, outside of the office of POTUS, has been pretty much an abject failure locally, statewide, and nationally. We hold a minority in the Senate, the House of Representative, governorship, state legislatures, and probably offices all the way down to city councils and school boards. You would think that this would be an opportunity for the party to reevaluate the way it does things…you would be wrong. Instead of reflecting on the party, and what it could do better, Democrats always place the blame at the voters. In a recent conversation, someone said this to me when I mentioned that the Democratic Party is awful at articulating its message:

Oh yeah the dumbed down electorate have zero to do with it. Go on the street sometime and ask people random political, scientific, geographical, historical questions and get back to me on your results.

So many Democrats think that their ideas are so superior that they don’t have to do the work of winning over the electorate. To these hyper-partisans, it should be obvious that the Democratic Party is the “party of the people” and that the party shouldn’t have to do any work courting voters. They seem to have no motivation to articulate a vision in terms that people understand. While I believe that progressive (not Democratic Party) policies are more beneficial to the people, the Democratic Party has done a piss poor job explaining to the people why that is the case.

The Democrats have given ground to the Republicans, or “regressives,” in setting the policy debate in this country. The party is largely at fault here. I think that much of the reason that the regressives have had more enthusiasm in their primary is because DWS ceded most of the airtime to them. The party assumed that the American public would hear the regressives’ crazy ideas and come to the same conclusions as we have. They believe that the Republicans are so crazy that everyone will see through it.

One of the many problems that Democrats have is that they believe politics is rationality vs. irrationality. It isn’t. Politics is about framing. It is about connecting with the voters. It is about telling the voters why our ideas are better for them. Winning elections requires the public to believe that the person on stage is a leader. The Democratic Party is always telling people “why their ideas are worse.” This is no way to win an election. The Democrats appear to have no new ideas. The Democrats appear to be the reactionary political party. The “presumptive” nominee of the Democratic Party embodies this more than anyone I have ever seen. She waivers in the wind. Her best policies in this election cycle were framed, and shaped by Bernie, her primary opponent. She has never led on anything, as she is a fair weather politician. When she does “lead” it is always from behind. Her political courage is not existent as she only supports ideas for which there is no political liability.

For all his faults, and there seem to be endless number of them, Donald Trump is not like this. Trump does not follow. He is, for lack of a better word…bold. The Democratic Party is failing to understand why Trump appeals to the people, as they failed to understand what Bush’s appeal was. They won because they were not seen as people who would say anything. While their policy ideas sucked, they were/are seen as having beliefs and vision. They, despite all their faults, did what they could to move America a direction consistent with that belief. Barack Obama was the same way. Bernie Sanders too is like this. It is why a 74 year old “socialist” was able to fight Hillary Clinton so long despite having almost no establishment support. Hillary Clinton lacks this.

If leadership is important to voters, she will have a hard time winning the general election.

If Hillary Clinton fails, do not blame the voting public. Blame the nominee for a lack of vision. Blame the nominee for not giving the voters a reason to vote for her. Blame the nominee, and the Democratic Party, for not taking the voters seriously enough. Blame them for not truly engaging them beyond trying to scare them.

*Edited grammar mistakes found after the fact.