Recommended: The Winners of 2016

Walter Russell Mead had a good piece in The American Interest Saturday: The Winners of 2016. The women's march across the nation this weekend, impressive as it was, highlights the stark divide in the country. FiveThirtyEight estimates that about 80% of the women were from states Clinton won, most of them from big cities.  And of course the march blocked participation by pro-life women. So while it was impressive, it masked the liberal's weakness across the nation, especially among the more religious.  Likewise, more detailed analysis of the voting patterns shows that, yes, Hillary won the popular vote, but only because she won overwhelming in deep blue California. Remove California and she lost the popular vote across the country.

All of which highlights the Democrats' current problem.  Having lost the monolithic support of the working class across the country, the Democratic base is now concentrated heavily in a few urban areas, which doesn't help them win either nationally in the electoral college nor in local gubernatorial or state legislature races. Winning decisively in California wasn't enough to win the nation as a whole.

As I have mentioned before, since the (nominally) Republican candidate won, the Republicans will do little soul-searching after this election, despite the obvious dysfunction in the party. The Democrats, having been beaten by a candidate they should have been able to overcome, are already (finally) beginning to do some thoughtful analysis of why they lost not only this presidential election, but the House and the Senate and so many state offices over the past decade.

But in a sense, both parties have the same problem: they have been seduced into fighting culture wars instead of focusing on the fundamentals of the economy (job growth or preservation, tax policy, infrastructure maintenance, worker education, etc).. And both parties have been captured by their big-money donors, and the issues these wealthy people care about, rather than attending to the day-to-day concerns of the mass of average voters across the country.