You can't win elections if you don't grow up and stop hating voters [View all]

Yeah, yeah, Trump's just terrible. But this is a democracy and if the plan in the future is to grow the party enough to beat him and the party that produced him, then we'll have to win voters from his pool. Hating them does exactly the opposite, putting victory further out of reach.

The hatred for them has gotten way out of hand. Hillary's campaign really ginned that up, and it poisoned a lot of minds. I remember when the primary was still going, one of team Hillary's favorite insults was to accuse Bernie supporters of being the same as Trump supporters. And that's it--no attempt to explain why, just the assumption that it was self-evident that being compared to a Trump voter was the worst thing ever.

I work with and know tons of Trump voters, and while I think they're very wrong, I also know them well enough to know that they're not the cartoon monsters they're made out to be around here. They're actually pretty normal, and they'll respond to all the normal stuff the way normal people do. If you listen to what they complain about (by and large economic distress, bullshit like domestic spying, boondoggle military spending, and unresponsive government) and address it, they'll come over. If you mindlessly despise them, they'll stay beyond reach.

And I want to remind you of one of the most dishonest slurs thrown at Hillary: Breitbart and others tried to paint Hillary as racist because of her association with Senator Robert Byrd. In his youth, Byrd was as racist as they come--even started up a KKK chapter. But he got away from it and actually became one of the strongest civil rights advocates we've ever had by the time Hillary knew him. So, as his example shows, even among the worst people, there are still good ones. It takes a dishonest outfit like Breitbart to ignore that.

So, get over the campaign season brainwashing about deplorables and start treating people like people again if you intend to win anything more than pity.

Same goes for young voters who got turned off by the Hillary campaign or preferred to vote third-party. Painting them as lazy, stupid, and selfish guarantees that they'll ignore whatever else you might have to say. In the mean time, the republicans are endlessly talking up their potential as entrepreneurs and future leaders. Care to guess who's going to carry more sway with that group if nothing changes?