Stop. Letting. Them. Frame. The. Fucking. Narrative. Don't let them gaslight you!

[panfluteman]

40. There Is a Political Double Standard in This Country...

Republicans just have to get within cheating / stealing distance to win an election.

Democrats have to win an election by doing so well that it is out of stealing / cheating range by the Republicans.

Our whole political system is sick and way out of balance, and its immune system or ability to defend / correct itself is very weak. Instead of reinventing themselves and making their conservative messaging more relevant to the emerging demographics of a younger, more diverse electorate, they have remained the party of old, angry white men, and consequently have gotten more and more desperate to win elections, to the point of voter suppression, cheating, etc... With our political balance and immune system thus weakened, enter the Russians and their cyber-warfare as an opportunistic infection.

I agree with Ladybug that the Democrats should not spend so much time morbidly second guessing themselves with a "What did we get so wrong?" approach. Hillary would definitely have won if any one of the following had NOT happened:

1) The Republican / Conservative / Corporatist leaning Supreme Court voted to gut the Voting Rights Act
2) Comey released his damaging letter about some new Clinton emails
3) The ratings-beholden media gave Donald Trump at least 2 billion dollars in free airtime
4) Russian cyber warfare to interfere in our election.

Maybe you can put forth some others. At any rate, the election was very, very close, and if anything had happened differently, the election could have been just out of stealing range, and Hillary would have won. Of course, if we had gotten rid of the Electoral College, the Republicans wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell of winning an election - they would have an RIP sign on their tombstone in he American political graveyard, right alongside the Whig party.