The lead to my prewritten Clinton wins story explains a lot about why she lost

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The lead to my prewritten “Clinton wins” story explains a lot about why she lost
Matthew Yglesias
Vox

Since Election Day, I’ve heard this point of view — that Clinton is relatively weak at electioneering that this explains a lot about why she lost the election — primarily from people who supported Bernie Sanders in the primary.

And that makes a certain amount of sense. Clinton’s supporters argued early in the primary that she was the more electable candidate, and this was an important part of several major liberal interest groups’ stated rationale for endorsing her early. About midway through the primary, Sanders’s supporters began mounting their own electability argument based on him faring better in head-to-head polling matchups. So arguing that Clinton was, in fact, a weak candidate rather than a strong one continues an argument that was important to Sanders supporters back in February and March.

If the big problem with Hillary Clinton’s campaign was that she was a veteran politician in a country that likes fresh faces, a Washington insider in a country that likes outsiders, and a subpar orator in a country that prizes charisma, then there’s no particular reason to think that Democrats need to revise their policy agenda in any particular way. They just need a standard-bearer who is ideologically similar to Clinton but better at electioneering and prudent enough to avoid doing buckraking speeches in the lead-up to a presidential campaign.

Sanders supporters will, obviously, go to their graves believing that their candidate would have beaten Donald Trump. Given the narrowness of the result and the idiosyncratic nature of Clinton’s email troubles, they may be right. (But given the difficulties of selling a carbon tax and middle-class income tax hikes in the Midwest, they may also be wrong.)

I think Yglesias analysis is wrong in his analysis about why Sanders supporters think Clinton lost. Yes she had deficits in electioneering, but the primary complaint from the left is about policy. There are two very different views of what went wrong in 2016; Yglesias represents the view where Clinton's loss is primarily about Clinton the candidate and not about policy. The other view is that Clinton lost because of primarily due to policy, specifically ignoring populist and economic issues.

So what we have is one side who looks at the election and says this was really close; Clinton won the popular vote; the platform is fine. The other side looks at the election and claims there's no reason it should have been so close- especially against Trump, Clinton lost on policy issues, and because she couldn't be separate herself from the banal corruption that exists between industry, particularly finance, and the Democratic Party.

To make matters even worse, there's a contingent in camp one that believes the general election was stolen from Mrs. Clinton, and on the other side a contingent that believes the primary was stolen from Mr. Sanders.

The nature of the loss, being so slim, is probably the worst outcome. A win for Clinton, no matter how thin, would have established third way politics for another decade. A definitive loss for Clinton would probably have assured a progressive ascendancy in the Democratic Party. This narrow loss leads to two factions, that have already existed for years, each laying claim to the "right" interpretation and the way forward.

The Democratic Party is divided, and any Sanders vs. Clinton arguments we see are not re-litigating the primary, but a proxy fight about the future of the party.