One Year Later, The Democratic Party Is Still “Sorting Through The Wreckage”

Today, almost a year after Hillary Clinton’s loss, the Associated Press took a look at today’s Democratic Party. They found the Party they found still consumed by the events of last year, unable to do much beyond re-litigating the contentious moments of that campaign:

“Time has not healed the Democratic party’s wounds. On Election Day 2016, Democrats suffered a devastating and shocking loss. A year later, they’re still sorting through the wreckage. The infighting, the divisive personalities and the questions about how it happened are still front and center, threatening to hold the party back in elections on Tuesday and into next year’s midterms.”

The real world impact of this constant focus on the past is that the Democratic Party has been unable to chart a path forward:

“The party has several big choices to make. Some argue for a greater focus on white voters who didn’t graduate from college, a demographic that swung sharply to Trump, especially in the Rust Belt states that handed the president his Electoral College margin of victory. Others contend the party has to reach out to more affluent, college-educated whites who may lean conservative but are disgusted by Trump. Still others call for an intense focus on young, black and Latino voters to turbocharge the base of the party.”

The Democratic Party’s inability to figure out a way forward is dangerous because the problems they face with key demographic groups is only going to grow. According to a recent left-leaning Center for American Progress report on the 2016 exit polls, the Democrats have even bigger problem with the white working class than first expected:

“The exit polls, they found, dramatically understated the percent of the total vote cast by non-college whites—that is, the category that best correlates to the famous white working class. Exit polls had non-college whites casting 34 percent of all 2016 ballots, and college-educated whites casting 37 percent. The actual numbers, according to the new study? College-educated whites were in fact just 29 percent of the total vote, and non-college whites were a whopping 45 percent of the vote.”

While the Democratic Party cannot afford to waste any more time on 2016, they show no sign of letting up. If this past year is any guide, 2018 is going to feature even more Democratic infighting.