Lepore on the Clintons, 2

Jill Lepore sums up Hillary Clinton's defeat in the presidential election as follows:

The more obvious explanations for Clinton's loss went, on the whole unstated. Obama had failed to raise up a new generation of political talent. The Democratic National Committee, believing Clinton's nomination and even her victory to be inevitable, had suppressed competition. Clinton, dedicating her time to fund-raising with wealthy coastal liberals from Hollywood to the Hamptons, failed to campaign in swing states and hardly bothered to speak to blue-collar while voters. After Trump won the nomination, she failed to do much of anything except to call out his flaws of characters, even though Trump's most vocal supporters had pointed out, from the beginning, that a call-out approach would fail.

 These Truths: a History of the United States (W.W. Norton, 2018); Chapter Sixteen: America Disrupted; p. 776

I never thought Hillary Clinton a good politician, as in being able to press the flesh needed to get a vote, and I think Professor Lepore supports my opinion. And what we got was Donald J. Trump. I'm thinking of a Blaster's song, "A Common Man," which always before I associated with Ronald Reagan and now have to consider a broader application of these particular lines:

With one hand on the bible,

He swears he’s only here to serve.

While everyone says “for better or worse,”

We get what we deserve.

I'd like to think we do not really deserve Trump.

I am certain we can no longer afford the luxury of thinking we can stay free and democratic without any effort on the people's part.

One more break. One more entry for Lepore's book. If you have not decided to find the book and read it, go do it now. Please. George Santayana famously said "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it." 

You don't like being scammed by politicians or used by pollsters or victimized by political interest groups, then read your history. Then decide what you will do with your life, with your vote.

sch

3/18/20