Every day I see a new article about the elite. In the daze of a Republican victory earlier this month, journalists are wondering where the Democratic party went wrong, how they could have done better, and what they plan on doing for the future of the party. They’ve used the word post-mortem, and they’ve concluded that there is a gap between everyday working class white men and the ‘Democratic elite.’ I’ve read most of these articles and I can’t tell you what the hell that means.
Of course, they are talking about Hillary Clinton. Among the complaints about her throughout the election were notions that she seemed out of touch or disconnected from the rest of the country. They blamed her thirty years of experience and accumulated wealth for her becoming ‘one of them’ rather than ‘one of us.’
I will never understand how billionaire real estate mogul Donald Trump seemed like a more relatable candidate to some, but let me dispel the Democratic elite myth, which is easy to do. In one of the Russia-powered leaks during the campaign, Clinton said that she admired President Lincoln’s notion of a public and private political persona. She got a lot of heat for that statement, but I actually kind of like it, because in the end it isn’t about what the candidate says, or even what the candidate believes. It only matters what the candidate does, and time and time again, Clinton proved to be a candidate for the people through legislation. Yes, she got money from banks and billionaires, but every one of her positions are rooted in the best interests of the very people who claimed she was too stuck up and ‘elite’ to understand them. Clinton would have worked tirelessly, as she has her entire life, for all American people. Trump will never lift a finger for any of us.
So when people ask where the Democrats go from here or what they need to change, it’s this: not a damn thing. Keep going. The people have spoken- Clinton won the election. The Democrats should do nothing differently because the problem lies not with them, but with the other side. We’ll win elections in the future only if we stay on track and continue to fight for what is right.
Lauren Alexis Reed 