TRUMP

WHAT CAUSED IT TO HAPPEN? 157
personal traits: it was aloof, furtive, self-contradictory, and lacking in
clear principle. To some extent, then, these weren’t simply strategic
mistakes: they were the product of a type of Democratic Party mindset,
one that has made inroads among the wealthy (Obama and Clinton
have both received impressive amounts of support from Wall Street
donors 511 ) but has lost support outside traditional liberal strongholds.
Democrats therefore need to do more than just apportioning ad-buys
more strategically. They need to excise the specter of Clintonism itself.
Many people dislike Hillary Clinton for good reason: they have the
sense that she does not actually care very much about them, and does
not have any serious plans for how to improve their lives. And frankly,
this is accurate. Clinton didn’t really pretend to care much about the
lives of voters. She spent her time with rich donors, she didn’t have any
particular promises for her presidency, and she called a bunch of them
“deplorable.” (She also made some catastrophically stupid gaffes, like
telling West Virginians she planned to put “a lot of miners and coal
companies out of business.” 512 ) People are right to be suspicious of this
kind of Democratic politics, which sees itself as responsible for telling
the people what their interests are rather than listening to them to find
out what they think their interests are.
We shouldn’t focus too much, then, on the role of “strategy,” even
though strategy is essential to rebuilding progressive political fortunes.
Strategy is one thing. But making sure that we don’t produce self-enriching,
513 dishonest 514 politicians like the Clintons is also important.
2. THIRD PARTIES?
Was the election of Trump also partially the fault of Jill Stein
and the Green Party? Probably not, though it depends how we determine
what constitutes fault. Even if every single person who voted for
Jill Stein had voted for Hillary Clinton instead, Clinton still would