Why can't liberals accept the truth about Hillary's 2016 failure?

Excuses, excuses ...

Hillary Clinton supporters.

Like traumatized soldiers after a devastating and unanticipated defeat on the battlefield, a certain kind of partisan Democrat is still struggling with President Trump's (absurdly narrow) victory over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. Just witness the furious reaction occasioned by a New York Times excerpt from Amy Chozick's new book about Clinton's defeat. Because Chozick dared to write that Clinton lost "the most winnable presidential election in modern history," she (and others, like myself, who've made similar claims) inspired a tidal wave of criticism.

The liberal excuse-making begins like this: The 2016 election was never going to be a cakewalk for Clinton — because of what political scientists call the "fundamentals." A Democrat looking to succeed a two-term president of the same party will always have a tough time of it (just as Republican John McCain did in trying to succeed George W. Bush in 2008) because of the tendency of voters to prefer a change of party. For this reason, Clinton would have had a much easier time of it had she won the nomination in 2008 instead of Barack Obama.

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Damon Linker

Damon Linker is a senior correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is also a former contributing editor at The New Republic and the author of The Theocons and The Religious Test.