Columnist David MartinAfter the 2008 presidential election, and especially after 2012, it was all the rage for pundits to pen obituaries for conservatism and the Republican Party. So popular was the practice, the GOP issued its own autopsy report following Mitt Romney’s loss to Barack Obama.
Taking cues from pre-election polling data, it’s probably safe to assume that hundreds – if not thousands – of updated post-mortems had been saved as drafts on computers across the country, ready to fire off last Wednesday morning.
Then the returns started coming in.
As it became more and more evident that Donald Trump would defeat Hillary Clinton, my social media feeds began filling up with posts from my left-of-center friends frantically wondering “how in the world is this happening?” Actually, for that quote to be more realistic, it would need three or four exclamation points and a curse word or two.
Since Nov. 8, a library’s worth of articles attempting to address that question have appeared online. No doubt, you’ve read a few yourself.