5 Things Democrats Can Do in Light of Trump Triumph
1. Realize that you are the natural majority - what you need to do is organize and inspire - inspire! - the people who already share your values and most of your agenda. I admire Hilary Clinton, but she did not inspire Democrats to show up on Election Day. Clinton won pop vote, but got fewer votes than Romney when he ran. As much as I'd like to blame this on voter suppression and Republican dirty tricks, low enthusiasm among Democrats seems to have been a problem even in states without voter suppression. That said, voter ID laws and other GOP tactics designed explicitly to depress turnout have a major effect not just by literally preventing people from casting ballots at polling stations, but also by generally confusing and demoralizing voters. These tactics are despicable, but they're not why Hilary Clinton lost.
2. Stop trying to be pre-emptively bipartisan. And stop trying to appeal to "moderate" Republicans while taking your own base for granted. You don't need to attract Repubs; there are enough Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents out there to give you a comfortable victory, so long as you inspire them. A strategy designed to avoid alienating Republicans is almost by definition UN-inspiring to Democrats. On the other hand, we know that plenty of people who ended up voting for Trump were initially attracted to Bernie Sanders during the primaries - clearly much of Trump's support comes from anti-establishment voters who are not necessarily "conservative" in any traditional sense.
3. Assume that Republican officials are acting in bad faith. Assume that they have no scruples and no honor. Assume they'll resort to any tactic no matter how devious, no matter how vicious, nihilistic, destructive. Assume that they will do anything - anything - to win. Assume that they have no care for the general welfare and no sense of responsibility for the well being of the millions of human beings who live in America - both today and in generations to come. Assume that they have no care whatsoever for the environment and nothing but contempt for environmentalism of any kind. Assume at all times that they are vicious, malicious, conniving, spiteful, cunning, and hell-bent on destroying everything you care about.
Of course this is a wild exaggeration and most individual Republicans are better than this, but the powers that be aren't, or at least behave like they aren't, which amounts to the same thing. If you take this approach, the worst case scenario is that you'll be prepared for anything that comes your way and you may well be pleasantly surprised once in a while.
4. Fight! For the love of God, fight! Happy warriors like Elizabeth Warren who aren't afraid of direct conflict and even relish it.
5. Don't nominate uninspiring, business as usual, incrementalist establishment figures who are out of touch with how Americans are living and what Americans are thinking and feeling. Democrats - especially progressives - should recognize that millions of Americans feel abandoned by and hostile to government itself, and by extension to both major party establishments. They do not trust technocrats and long-time establishment figures. Hilary Clinton, despite her campaign's outraged protests, is literally the single most establishment figure on the political scene today - thirty years in federal government, friendly to Wall Street (both figuratively and literally) and deeply integrated into the American plutocracy. She offered a progressive platform, but from a technocratic establishment perspective - she was basically proposing to tweak and improve the existing system, rather than smashing it to pieces, throwing the bums out, and doing something new and different, which is what millions of Americans want (including not only Trump voters but Sanders voters too). Trump received fewer votes than Romney in 2012 and about the same as McCain in 2008; he received almost ten million fewer than Obama in 2008. Clinton failed to inspire Democrats to come out on Election Day. This is not to ignore GOP vote suppression efforts around the country - they're despicable, and had a certain effect. But they simply were not effective enough to make the difference. What made the difference was that Americans wanted major change, which is something that Hilary Clinton, for all her admirable qualities, was very ill-suited to represent, even if her policies might have provided it.
5b. don't be so damn smug. Democrats, especially progressives, need to depersonalize their criticisms of policies they oppose and avoid suggesting that people who disagree with them must be intellectually or morally defective. The conservative backlash against "political correctness" just won a huge victory by making their champion president of the United States. This should show you how people react when you tell them that they're the bad guys - they tell you to go straight to hell.
It might be worth considering that people's resentment of elites is based on the fact that elites in America have actually shown themselves to be unworthy of trust and faith. When the party associated in people's mind with cultural elites talks down to people, a backlash is to be expected. If Democrats are at all puzzled by this, then that only proves the point that they are woefully out of touch.
5c. focus on local and down ballot in 2018