So in my last post, I explained why I think Hillary Clinton being the nominee, not any aspect of the Democratic platform, was one of the main reasons she lost the election. In this post, I will explain another catastrophic failure of strategy--a decision that seemingly every media figure made continuously from when Trump announced he was running for president until the day before Election Tuesday. This decision is what I am referencing in the title of this post, because it is reminiscent of the expression of "barking up the wrong tree"-which means that you are trying to do something other than what you should actually do.
What was this decision? To attack Trump as being racist, sexist, Islamophobic, and every other form of bigotry in the dictionary, instead of as a loose cannon who has no idea what he's talking about and, therefore, shouldn't be trusted with the power of the presidency. Calling someone racist/sexist/etc. (especially racist), especially if that someone is not in the same political party as you, doesn't do anything except further divide the two parties, and their constituent voters, from each other. Also, it encourages those who you are accusing of supporting a racist to be pissed off at you, thereby making the odds that they will vote for your candidate even lower than they were before. It also serves up a golden opportunity to them on a silver platter: namely, the opportunity to argue that, because liberals can't address any of Trump's policy proposals, they must instead resort to engaging in ad hominem attacks. This also provides a lush, nutrient-rich environment in which the GOP's infectious agents--hatred of political correctness and the mainstream media--can flourish and grow faster than they ever would if, say, you just ignored Trump instead of giving him $2 billion in free media.
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