Matthew Yglesias on what really happened in 2016, in 7 charts. The my mother/my self: Nell Painter reviews The Destruction of Hillary Clinton by Susan Bordo. A wonk on the wild side: Hillary Clinton’s book is a technocrat’s lament. The Democratic campaign against complexity: Hillary Clinton’s loss to Trump was blamed partly on her wonky nuance — should Bernie Sanders’s simplicity represent the party's future? Sarah Lerner: “Steve Bannon got a 60 Minutes feature & Sean Spicer got an #Emmys cameo, but Hillary Clinton needs to ‘shut up & go away’? Mmkay”. Hillary Clinton’s legacy is huge and lasting: Far from being a historical footnote, she’s a pathbreaking pioneer.
Mark Lilla’s comfort zone: Kimberle Williams Crenshaw on how liberal discourse flattens out the work of critical race analysis. Mychal Denzel Smith on what liberals get wrong about identity politics. Blaming identity politics is like saying “all lives matter”. The Democratic Party needs to become a workers’ party. Josh Marshall on on the intra-Democratic divide. Democrats should stop fighting the last war. What do centrist Democrats even stand for? As Bernie Sanders and the progressive wing pull the party leftward, moderates are hoping to convince voters that they have big ideas, too.
John Judis on redoing the electoral math: “I argued that demographics favored the Democrats. I was wrong”. With their party’s future on the line in the states, Democrats can’t agree on a playbook. Democrats need to make a moral argument for their positions. Democrats, attack: The proper response to a small number of rich people systematically robbing the rest of us is not to suggest that they rob us slightly less — the proper response is to take their shit so they can’t hurt us any more. Angry about Donald Trump? Stop protesting and start writing.
