Granted, there was and is nastiness on both sides. That's wrong. It's always foolish to alienate people whose votes or help you'll probably need someday.
Don't be a hater, be a persuader.
10. The Democratic Party needs a "Democracy Spring."
Big money has dictated the priorities of the DNC and many Democratic candidates for far too long. The party needs a populist uprising, a re-democratization that energizes it with small-dollar donors and engaged activists.
Bernie Sanders and Keith Ellison understand that. So do Elizabeth Warren and Harry Reid and several other leaders. So do the thousands of engaged activists who are ready to support a party of real change.
But a party cannot serve two masters. Did Wall Street's money help Team Clinton gain more votes? Probably. But it also hurt Democrats by diluting their message.
11. The left isn't the enemy. It's the future.
Don't blame Bernie. When Clinton took the gloves off in the primary, he did too. That's how primaries work. If you're angry that Clinton's Wall Street speeches hurt her, be angry at her choices -- and at our political culture's tolerance for turning government service into private-sector wealth.
But don't blame Sanders voters for this loss. By the time of the Democratic convention, more than 90 percent of them had already indicated they would vote for Clinton. That's pretty selfless.
Clinton would still have lost if Jill Stein hadn't run (even if you assume, as neither Ben Jealous nor I do, that most of her voters would otherwise have voted for Clinton.)
Stein got less than 1 percent of the vote. 43 percent of eligible voters didn't vote at all. Which is more important?
Many nonvoters were the victims of suppression, but many others were the victims of despair. Studies have found that nonvoters are disproportionately young, low-income, and minorities -- all groups that lean heavily Democratic.
And yet some Democratic Party stalwarts are exploding with rage -- not at the leaders who caused this debacle, but at voters on the left who largely went for Clinton.
A fact: If millennials had determined this race, Hillary Clinton would have carried all but a handful of states.
Another fact: During the primaries, Bernie Sanders got more millennial votes than Clinton and Trump put together, and by a lot.
The future is left. That's a future to embrace, not one to fight. Democratic turnout increases nationally when candidates call for real change.
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