After 2016 shock, Democrats scared of their own shadow in facing Trump

Three-and-a-half years after President Trump’s surprise victory over Hillary Clinton, many Democrats remain haunted by her failure to defeat the most unqualified, dangerous, and reckless person — in their view — ever to sit in the Oval Office.

To win in 2016, this line of thinking goes, Trump must have had some secret sauce, a hidden political genius invisible to most, which allowed him to triumph over an admirable figure such as Clinton, a former first lady, senator from New York, and secretary of state. That includes Trump cracking the vaunted “blue wall,” winning Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, which voted for the Democratic presidential nominee in six straight elections between 1992 and 2012.