What I posted elsewhere that more or less sums my thoughts up. I'll get back to the ACA when we have a thread on it
For the last year and a half, our attention has been fixated on each of Trump’s stupidities. As if it was news that a rich American treats humans like garbage and the world like his toilet. Leftist critique of his comments focused on repeating his stupidities and explaining what was wrong with each in order to expose him. But there’s no point in exposing a man who based his campaign on publicly exposing himself in the nastiest ways. You don’t flush a turd in a clogged toilet by repeatedly pulling the chain to make it spin around.
The left settled for being right, but it’s not enough to be right. It’s not enough to treat knowledge or facts like things that will overwhelm a person’s defenses if only you place them in proximity to each other. What you know isn’t the same as what kicks you in the teeth.
But the left has been kicked in the teeth now, and the biggest question is how it confronts its own failures. I don’t blame third party voters, or even those who voted for Trump. The left failed when it responded to legitimate concerns and disagreements, from both the left and the right, with patronizing intimidation rather than the hard labor of confrontation. Intimidation works for some things, but rarely for actually convincing someone that they’re wrong. Who would resort to intimidation when the facts are on their side? The left settled for generalized shock at the filth in the toilet--and mobilized around mopping up the overflow--rather than focused aggression on the obstruction in the pipes.
The way forward for the left is self-criticism.
