Performers won’t perform.

Nearly four dozen members of Congress won’t attend the swearing-in.

What is going on here?

In an interview with Chuck Todd, civil rights icon, Congressman John Lewis (D-GA) said he would not attend the Inaugural, stating that Trump was not a “legitimate” president, citing a “Russian conspiracy” to get POETUS elected.

That very combustible and damaging narrative has been energetically promoted by activist groups opposed to Trump, and dutifully reported in mainstream news in an unvirtuous cycle that casts a pernicious odor over Trump’s presidency before it even begins.

It is all the more ironic when you consider that it was Hillary Clinton and the Democrats who, only 90 days ago, were horrified for the future of American democracy, and the existential threat to the legitimacy of the election posed by Trump for simply wanting to preserve his legal rights to a recount. Now these same Democrats, and their Progressive supporters, are actively working to delegitimize the new president by innuendo and inference before he has set foot in the White House.

It is as ominous as it is dismaying.

The unsparing truth here, which disolves the lie in these protests, is that Donald J. Trump won the election, fair and square, by doing precisely what the Constitution requires in order to secure victory. Nothing more, nothing less.

But instead of dealing with the loss and conducting a thoughtful review of what went wrong with their campaign and political assumptions, the Professional Left has remained in a state of epic denial, focusing instead on opportunistic pathways to pull the rug from underneath the president-elect, and obstruct an agenda before it has even formally been presented.

The truth is that the most basic research into Trump’s voting base, extrapolating for geography, would have  laid out Trump’s most likely electoral strategy. And just a cursory look at the Democrat primaries versus Trump’s potential General Election targets would have confirmed warning signs for Mrs. Clinton that were flashing red as early as spring 2016, well before WikiLeaks and the Comey fiasco.

No one on the Left seems to have taken that seriously, which is nothing short of political malpractice.

Donald Trump won the GOP primaries based largely on the votes of white working-class males, those without college degrees, and Evangelicals. There was no concerted out outreach to minorities, as that outreach has been traditionally understood.  By reviewing Exit Polls from 2012 and using Trump’s base as a filter, we get a clear understanding of where those potential Trump  votes were in a General Election campaign.

 

State	Electoral Votes	% Women	% Minority	% College Educated	% Religious
VIRGINIA	13	53	28 (70% white)	54	43 (23% Born-Again)
NEW HAMPSHIRE	4	52	7 (93% white)	52	25
COLORADO	9	51	23	49	25 (Born Again)
FLORIDA	29	55	30	48	24 (Born Again)
PENNSYLVANIA	20	52	19 (78% white)	48	N/A
NORTH CAROLINA	15	56	30	47	47 (35% Born Again
MINNESOTA	10	51	12 (87% white)	47	34 (24% Born Again)
MICHIGAN	16	51	19 (77% white)	46	28 (Born Again)
WISCONSIN	10	51	11 (86% white)	42	24 (Born Again)
IOWA	6	54	7 (93% white)	42	42 (38% Born Again)
OHIO	18	52	18 (79% white)	40	31 (Born Again)

The prominence of the Upper Midwest on the list should have given Democrats deep pause, particularly given Mrs. Clinton’s performance in two, key primaries, in states that make up the “Blue Wall;” states that have not voted Republican in a General Election since 1984-1988.

Specifically, in Michigan’s Democrat primary, Mrs. Clinton won only 10 of MI’s 83 counties, losing to Bernie Sanders by 1.4 percent. In Wisconsin, a month later, Mrs. Clinton secured only one county out of 72, on the way to a 13 point blowout by the Vermont senator.

This was in April.

Clearly, Democrat strategists assumed that all would be forgiven and the Sanders’ voters, and these states would come home to Mrs. Clinton as the Democrat nominee, but this appears to have been fatal conceit.

Instead of harping on Russian involvement in the WikiLeaks release of thousands of DNC emails, it would behoove the Democrats to revisit exactly those messages revealed – specifically, an active and concerted effort to secure the nomination for Hillary Clinton at all costs.

Say what you will about Trump, but the GOP primary process delivered what the most intense primary voters wanted. Trump was the most anti-establishment candidate among the 17 who ran. To their credit, he RNC did not actively move against Trump (see Trump’s incoming Chief of Staff for proof) even though a significant portion of the Party was appalled at the prospect of Trump as the nominee.

Not so with the DNC, which went so far as to provide Clinton with debate questions in advance, as part of an all out attempt to head off the insurgent Sanders campaign.   Indeed, the DNC actively worked to crush the only organic campaign on the Left in possession of energy and appeal to working class voters, which Clinton never had, and upon which the election would depend.

This chart shows the correlation of key demographics of Trump voters by state, to the final outcome. Race, education and religious involvement were mostly accurate predictors of Trump’s success.

 

State	% Minority	% College Educated	% Religious	Outcome
VIRGINIA	28 (70% white)	54	43 (23% Born-Again)	Clinton +5.3
NEW HAMPSHIRE	7 (93% white)	52	25	Clinton +4/10ths
COLORADO	23	49	25 (Born Again)	Clinton +4.9
FLORIDA	30	48	24 (Born Again)	Trump +1.2
PENNSYLVANIA	19 (78% white)	48	N/A	Trump +7/10ths
NORTH CAROLINA	30	47	47 (35% Born Again)	Trump +3.7
MINNESOTA	12 (87% white)	47	34 (24% Born Again)	Clinton +1.5
MICHIGAN	19 (77% white)	46	28 (Born Again)	Trump +2/10ths
WISCONSIN	11 (86% white)	42	24 (Born Again)	Trump +7/10ths
IOWA	7 (93% white)	42	42 (38% Born Again)	Trump +9.4
OHIO	18 (79% white)	40	31 (Born Again)	Trump +8

At the same time, Mrs. Clinton’s weakness during the primaries were a solid warning, months before the General Election, of the danger ahead; a danger that the DNC refused to heed. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that with Sanders as the nominee instead of Clinton, that Democrats could have been more competitive in states in the upper Midwest that were the key to the election.

Michigan Comparison:

Trump won seven of the 10 counties that Clinton won in the primary. Clinton only picked up five counties that Sanders’ had won during the primary. In every instance, Hillary Clinton did worse – in some case, substantially worse – than President Obama in the same counties in 2012, pointing clearly to bad nominee, bad strategy, bad turnout operation, or all of the above.

 

County	‘16 Primary Margin	’16 General Margin	’12 General Margin
Menomineer	Clinton 49-47%	Trump 62-33%	Romney 51-48%
Montmorency	Clinton 49-48%	Trump 70-26%	Romney 58-41%
Alcona	Clinton 49-48%	Trump 69-28%	Romney 59-40%
Lake	Clinton 50-47%	Trump 59-36%	Obama 52-47%
Saginaw	Clinton 55-43%	Trump 48-47%	Obama 55-43%
Genesee	Clinton 52-46%	Clinton 52-43%	Obama 63-35%
Oakland	Clinton 51-47%	Clinton 52-44%	Obama 53-45%
Wayne	Clinton 60-38%	Clinton 67-29%	Obama 73-26%
Macomb	Clinton 49-47%	Trump 54-42%	Obama 51-47%
Berrien	Clinton 52-46%	Trump 54-41%	Romney 53-36%
Marquette	Sanders 62-36%	Clinton 49-44%	Obama 56-42%
Muskegon	Sanders 53-45%	Clinton 48-46%	Obama 58-40
Kalamazoo	Sanders 61-38%	Clinton 53-40%	Obama 56-43
Ingham	Sanders 55-43%	Clinton 60-33%	Obama  63-35
Washtenaw	Sanders 55-44%	Clinton 68-27%	Obama  67-31%

 

This is the forensic math of political defeat.

While it must be tremendously comforting for Progressives and other Trump opponents to see the election results through the prism of intrigue, deception and disinformation campaigns, the factual roots of Trump’s win are pedestrian and provable.

 Despite a 2-1 money advantage, the support of Wall Street, Hollywood, Silicon Valley and the Washington Establishment, reverential treatment by the established media, Hillary Clinton ran one of the worst campaigns in memory, never truly defining why she wanted to be president, nor understanding the nature of her opponent or the forces that he represented. The Democrat-establishment’s single-minded obsession, that only Clinton could win, defied the very deep flaws in her resume and past, as well as the operational weaknesses exposed by an unknown senator from Vermont – who actually believed in something – showcased an unheard of level of political hubris and institutional arrogance.

This is what the Democrats must consider and repair.

While it is true that Trump has the occasion to vain, impulsive, shocking, contradictory and petty, none of this is new. More importantly from an rule-of-law standpoint, none of this is disqualifying.The PEOTUS has much to account for with his undeserved praise of Vladimir Putin, and it is vital that the US government do all that it can to understand the nature of Russia’s cyber-attacks and disinformation campaign last year to prevent it from every happening again.

But to claim that the Russian intervention renders Trump’s election illegitimate perpetrates a falsehood and destabilizes the foundation of our democracy, all in the service of hiding a painful truth for the Democrats.

Donald J. Trump beat you fair and square.

Want someone to blame? Look in the mirror.