They have no one to blame but themselves. Democrats have lost up and down the ballot, and at a time when President Obama is well-liked and Donald Trump is not.
But for nominating Hillary Clinton, Democrats may suffer a wave election. And they deserve to lose. She was deeply flawed coming into this election. Anyone but Donald Trump — the woman-hating, everyone-hating candidate should have propelled her to victory. But Democrats were so busy protecting their deeply flawed candidate that they never considered someone could beat her.
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The result is that Hillary Clinton’s future is murky. It’s difficult to survive one loss in a presidential election — to a member of her own party — yet alone a loss to a misogynist, neophyte clown who has no business running the country. Democrats will make the argument that FBI director James Comey and his last minute announcement is the reason but frankly, Democrats should not have nominated a person so damaged and unelectable if they wanted to confront the Republicans’ deep bench, Trump included.
What’s next for Hillary Clinton? She might not have a serious voice in the political process. She was opposed by her left flank, and rising stars like Elizabeth Warren will likely fill her shoes quickly. The lack of a Democratic bench is a warning to the Democratic party to avoid protecting stars like Clinton in favor of developing a farm system so that the party has backups and up-and-comers instead of just inevitables.
In addition to the Hillary Clinton White House, her other businesses are now in question. How does the Clinton Foundation survive all of its scrutiny now that it’s come under such fire for its shady operations? The Clinton brand is now tainted by the intermingling of their official and their profitable. Do banks like Goldman Sachs still want to pay her for speeches now that Trump has tanked the markets?
Maybe Clinton becomes a bridge between Elizabeth Warren’s progressive wing and an anti-Trump Republican Congress, but more likely she is repudiated as a progressive fraud who couldn’t beat an authoritarian demagogue who put her away handily.
Contact Cupp at thesecupp.com
This column originally appeared in the New York Daily News.
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Follow S.E. Cupp on Twitter: @secupp
