Why Hillary Lost - The Final Answer

After the Kansas primaries last month, a friend asked the Curmudgeon for a primary recap. I declined, as I'm not really qualified to analyze the primaries, especially across multiple states. I leave such work in the capable hands of people like Chris Stirewalt, who does an excellent job of it.

However, I've recently been musing (as I'm wont to do) over The Reason Hillary Lost. That topic, after all, has taken on such a life of its own that it warrants the capitalization of the phrase. Herewith, my thoughts, and the implications for the mid-terms.

The Captain Obvious answer is that Trump garnered more votes in the 2016 Presidential election.

I'm talking about electoral votes - you know, the ones that actually count. The Dems embrace the Electoral College when it suits them, but decry it when their candidate wins the popular vote but loses the electoral vote, because hey, they're the Party of Sore Losers. There is nothing Democratic about the Democrat Party. Democrats would prefer a dictatorship to a democratic republic, if the latter means that in some years, a Republican might get elected - see Bush, George W., and Trump, Donald J.

Yes, that's the Captain Obvious answer, kind of like when you hear sports analysts breaking down why team X beat team Y, and some bright pundit offers up that team X scored more points. Duh.

Hillary, of course, has her own myriad reasons: Russia, James Comey, Russia, sexism, Russia, the Deplorables, James Comey, etc., ad nauseum.

She'd never acknowledge that she was a flawed candidate, that she's one of the most polarizing political figures in American history (note: some would argue that Trump is polarizing; I'd say it's not Trump that's polarizing, it's we the people that are polarized, again because half of us can't accept the fact that you win some elections and you lose some), that her voice makes nails on a chalkboard sound like Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, that she has a history of corruption that makes John Gotti look like Mother Teresa, that she's a self-enriching carpetbagger who wanted to be President not for America's sake but for hers, or that she's an elitist who looks down on most of America with disdain.

However, none of those things are the real reason she lost.

Most political pundits - at least those who don't carry the bias of the left, which cites the reasons Hillary herself drones endlessly on about - agree that it's because she ran a flawed campaign. She didn't visit states like Wisconsin, which are generally blue, but which Trump campaigned in, and won.

That's true - but it's not the real reason she lost.

Hillary lost for another Captain Obvious reason, but it's the only important one:

Hillary lost because Trump beat her.

It wasn't so much about what Hillary didn't do as what Trump did, and I'm not talking about the states they each campaigned in. To make it about "why Hillary lost" is to imply that the election was hers for the taking, her right, if you will. No, it was a contest of two opponents, and one beat the other. It's not so much about why she lost as it is about why he won.

Let's go back to our sports analogy. If you're a football fan, nothing raises your ire more than to see your team beat another team, then have that team's fans lament, "We beat ourselves." (Democrats would blame the refs.)

In my experience, the only sport in which you can beat yourself is eight-ball (if that qualifies as a sport), by accidentally sinking the eight-ball before you've cleared your solids or stripes off the table. In other sports, it's about which team makes the fewest errors, or forces the most. Errors are part of the game, whether we're talking about football, politics or life, so one can't really "beat oneself" in those contests.

I came to this conclusion while watching a Trump rally (I don't recall where it was, and it doesn't really matter, because they're all the same for purposes of this analysis). I find his rallies cringe-worthy, laughable and awe-inspiring, all at the same time.

Cringe-worthy, because you never know what's going to come out of the man's mouth, and sometimes it just makes you cringe, or at least shake your head.

Laughable, because some of what he says is just plain ridiculous. Other things he says are outright funny, unless you're a Democrat, in which case you're perpetually angry, and in the words of Greg Gutfeld, being mad only leads to madness.

And awe-inspiring, certainly not because I'm in awe of the man, but because I've never seen a political figure work his base so masterfully. And I've seen some good ones. Reagan was an inspired speaker, and Obama also cut a pretty phrase. JFK likewise was an excellent orator.

But Trump speaks to his base more effectively than any of them. He speaks to their anger, their fears, their frustrations, their experience from the recent economic crisis, their disgust with our politically correct, identity politics-driven, partisan, obstructionist system of government.

That's why Hillary lost - because Trump won, because he's far more effective at tuning in to where so many Americans' heads are at. Not racism; that's just an excuse on the part of the left. I know many who voted for Trump, and there's not a racist among them (but I know a number of racists who voted for Hillary). Not sexism, another leftist excuse, because I know many women who voted for Trump.

We're talking about the broad swath of everyday Americans who live between the coasts who are sick and tired of politics as usual, who are kind, loving, tolerant, but want America to be America, who don't want a President who apologizes for America, who want fair trade and security and open markets and secure borders and equal opportunity for all, but not equal stuff for all.

(As an aside, while it saddens me that Meghan McCain made her father's funeral about Trump, I'm glad she made her comment about America having always been great. That's an important lesson for President Obama, who was in the audience, and who did apologize to the world for America being great. It is precisely to that matter that Trump speaks when he speaks of making America great again: he's talking about reminding Americans that America is great, so that we believe she is great again, like we used to.)

So what does that mean for the mid-terms? The Dems talk of rallying huge turnout at the polls in November, of a Blue Wave. However, there is no one on the left who is as effective at reaching the Democrat base as Donald Trump is at reaching the GOP base.

Certainly not the young Socialist candidate from New York, who can't articulate what Socialism is or why she campaigns as one, or even answer a simple foreign policy question. And not Andrew Cuomo, who also said America has never been great (then completely fumbled his retraction), and who can't even hold his own in a debate with a sitcom actress. To be fair, most of the voters who support those candidates don't understand the differences between Socialism and Capitalism either. They just like the "D" after their names, and the promises of free this-and-that.

However, the more the left trumps out (see what I did there?) candidates who lean so far left they make Bernie Sanders look like Richard Nixon, or bat-poo crazy candidates like Cuomo, the better the GOP's chances. But Trump is the real key to the mid-terms.

Just look at the primaries, or look at the Congressional and gubernatorial contests in 2016. For all his flaws, Trump has a pretty strong coat-tails effect. Combine that with his ability to rally the base, and we could be looking at a Red Wave in November instead of a Blue one.

But hey, the polls can't be wrong - can they? 😉