Remember The Gumball Rally? There is a wonderful scene where an Italian racer settles into his car and removes the rear-view mirror. When asked why, he replies something along the lines of “What’s in front of me is important. What’s behind me doesn’t matter.”
Today’s the day Hillary Clinton’s book about the 2016 Presidential election, entitled What Happened is published. It’s still early and I have not read it. What I have read is a couple of articles about it online, most notably from www.msn.com last week. From the commentaries I have read, it seems to me that not only is the book incorrectly titled, but it continues to highlight how the Democratic Party is stuck looking in the rear-view mirror (one might say indulging in more navel gazing).
For example, according to one of the articles Mrs Clinton places some of the blame at the feet of Senator Bernie Sanders and his supporters. She claims the Senator damaged her campaign and reputation, much to the benefit of the Trump Campaign. In the process, Mrs Clinton was apparently urged by then-President Obama to not retaliate against Senator Sanders so as not to alienate his supporters. Maybe the book should be called Why It Happened. In the end, the election result does not appear to be Hillary’s fault because it is never the candidate’s fault. That’s even when the candidate cannot get a sufficient number of voters in support.
If Democrats are truly looking forward to this book, they are not necessarily looking forward. Instead, they are trying to justify a devastating result. Democrats need to learn that they must offer something to ordinary Americans. By contrast, it was because people thought he would listen to them was the secret to Mr Trump’s success.
So, if Mrs Clinton and the Democrats are prepared to ask What Happened, the answer is you lost. By all means they should look in the rear-view mirror. But to go forward by learning from it to come back stronger and humbler. After all, no one is entitled to hold any public office. After all, winning any election must be earned.