For millions of Americans, this is a very dark day. An incomprehensible day. A day many thought would never come.

I’m deeply disappointed, too. After everything we know about Donald Trump, and everything he’s already put this country through, how is it possible we’re choosing to do this to ourselves again?

The chaos, the destruction, the incompetence and craziness — we genuinely decided we wanted more of this?

Bracing for another four years of Trump is a tough pill to swallow. Among the many disappointments is knowing that all of his crimes, lies, gaslighting, narcissism, bigotry, and greed weren’t punished on Election Day, but rewarded. It all feels so unjust, so unfair. Bad guys aren’t supposed to win, and he is without question a bad guy.

So, what can we blame for this devastating turn of events? We’ll undoubtedly look to societal ills like racism and sexism to explain how an able woman of color lost to a white man who is a criminal, a liar, and an ignoramus.

And those things exist, and surely animated some of his voters.

But perhaps the better question is, how did a qualified, competent, upstanding candidate like Vice President Kamala Harris lose to such a vile person as Donald Trump? What went so wrong that he was seen as the better option? What did Democrats miss that allowed him to win, and win big?

There will be so many lessons to be learned from this gut-punch of an election, and they will require not finger pointing, but introspection.

And that’s going to hurt. I speak from experience — as a movement conservative and former Republican, the 2008 and 2012 elections, where two very qualified, conservative, decent, and moral men like John McCain and Mitt Romney lost, were excruciating.

But we took our lumps. And when you’re sent to the woodshed by American voters, as we were, you go and think about what you’ve done.

I worked on the 2012 autopsy that examined our very real weaknesses among women, minorities, millennials and LGBTQ voters. We retooled our messages and our platform. We were ready to win over new voters with a hopeful, compassionate and inclusive agenda. Then Trump came along and lit it all on fire.

But now it’s Democrats’ turn to learn from this.

I spent this election doing something different. Instead of covering it primarily from the perch of a cable news studio in New York or Washington, I covered it through local news in the seven swing states, talking to voters on the ground for months about the issues that mattered most to them.

And they told me over and over again, they were worried about three things: the economy, crime, and immigration.

To be clear, they weren’t worried about China, fluoride, tampons in men’s rooms, migrants eating their pets, or any of the other garbage that Trump and his surrogates were pushing to inflame his rabid base.

But they were worried they couldn’t pay their bills, feed their kids, and put gas in their cars. They felt unsafe in their cities and towns. They were anxious about open borders and the problems that poured across them.

To those concerns, Democrats told them the economy was great — “strong as hell,” in fact — and they’re just not feeling it yet because of “lagging indicators.” No one trying to buy a house or a car or groceries is consoled by lagging indicators.

They were told crime is down, no matter how unsafe they felt. And when the FBI quietly revised its numbers in September to reflect a rise in violent crime, no one corrected the record.

They were told the migrant crisis wasn’t real — that the problems associated with an unmitigated flow of non-citizens into their towns and cities were anecdotal and incidental.

These weren’t people going to Trump rallies or watching the Nelk boys. They were normal Americans, with real problems. And Trump, for all of his ugliness, was acknowledging them.

Lumping these voters — the majority I believe — in with Tony Hinchcliffe, QAnon, Proud Boys, insurrectionists, and the rest of Trump’s ugly cohort may be convenient, and it may feel good. But it isn’t true, and it’s partly why Democrats lost. Ignoring what voters are telling you isn’t a winning strategy.

These are painful lessons, with even more painful consequences. But if we actually want to move past Trump and Trumpism one day — and I desperately do — it’s not just Republicans who need to look inward. It’s time for some soul-searching by Democrats, too.

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