For a while after election 2016, I worried about Democrats ignoring and/or not caring about white working class people. That's what I was hearing in the analysis, as Dems wrung their hands and began early and passionate debate about what went wrong.

Then, as Hillary's popular vote climbed into the 2 million+ range, I started to wonder. 

I still think Dems have missed a message and ought to re-group around the plight of people who feel forgotten and ignored by the Unites States government.

But it's unfair (to put it mildly) that Hillary, with a life-time of advocacy for and work on behalf of women and children, is told she doesn't get this demographic, while the substance-free man with the viscious sound bites and rouse-the-crowd rhetoric gets more Electoral College votes.

Shouldn't Democrats pay more attention to the 2016 popular vote result with its broad demographic range and decide to keep to the message of inclusivity? We don't have to discard or question the message to people of color, immigrants, LGBTQs, disabled persons, and women because the Electoral College is skewed to areas of the country that now vote mostly Republican. (Which also leads to the idea of Electoral College reform.)

So here's an article that addresses my concerns, and that I thought others may want to read:

It's from Steve Phillips, on Medium: HERE.

We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Elie Wiesel


I know we're supposed to think, well, the voters have spoken, the country will pull through this, just put your head down, do your best, wait and see, give it time.

I just can't.

Because the voters haven't spoken - the Electoral College has spoken, and has elected the candidate who lost the popular vote by 2.2 million and counting.

I can't because I have dear friends, good and loving people, who are now scared, who have sat on my couch and cried or met me on the street with frightened eyes. These people are immigrants or lesbians or persons of color, and, for God sake, women.

I can't because we have elected a man who brags about grabbing pussy.

i can't wait it out because I can't even believe I typed that previous sentence and it's true. But there's more: we have elected a man who mockingly imitates a disabled person, who impugns and derides entire nations and religions, who has never done anything but line his own coffers and pimp his own brand.

We have elected him while setting aside the woman who has been serving the public for decades, turning her cheek to smears and insults and attacks so that she can keep on serving. The one who did it all right, the way men have been doing it themselves: the best schools, the highest grades, working up the ladder, intense commitment. She did it the way men have been doing it and becoming President for a couple of centuries, only she is a woman and so it wasn't good enough.

Thirty years fighting for families, women and children wasn't good enough because "I don't like her" is, crazily, reason enough to disregard her. An 8-year Senate record of collaboration across the aisle, collegial relationships and maximuum preparedness for meetings and hearings wasn't good enough because "she doesn't give off a warm feeling." Competence, experience  and intelligence at the state, national and international levels weren't good enough because all the hounding and hearings and accusations since the mid-90's were, though they never proved anything, good enough for many people to cast doubt on her entire life and who she is at her core.

And so it's good enough to elect instead a misogynist, racist, bigoted man. 

And my friends are scared. I'm taking their side.

I'm scared. I'm angry. I'm won't be neutral.