Donald Trump won the fewest votes of any presidential candidate in 12 years, including Hillary

As the dust settles on the most nightmarish U.S. election in my lifetime (although some have come close), it’s worth cutting through all the media bullshittery—please fuck off VOX and Slate—and looking at some hard numbers.

Donald Trump received 59.6 million votes, which is actually fewer than Mitt Romney in 2012 (60.9 million) and John McCain in 2008 (59.9 million). Even more illuminating: Trump received over 2 million votes fewer than George W. Bush in 2004 (62.1 million).

This was not some massive swing to the right among the US electorate. It was Republicans voting Republican, and twas ever thus.

Most illuminating of all: Hillary Clinton won the popular vote at 59.9 million, but dropped over six million votes that went to Obama in 2012 (65.9 million), who was already down almost four million from 2008 (69.4 million).

The lion’s share of the blame for the outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential election falls squarely upon the Democratic Party, which sandbagged the popular candidate, Bernie Sanders, and managed instead to lose the election to the vilest human being the Republicans have ever mustered. 

Let's apportion some of the blame also to the media, which, like the DNC, fell into lockstep behind an unelectable and cynical machine politician drenched in scandal and beholden to Wall Street and permanent war. Democrats subsequently stayed home in unprecedented droves.

It's not about gender or race—neither of which is insignificant, obviously. It's about the DNC ignoring the voter with the same hollow arrogance that has characterized the party since the Clinton era began over 20 years ago, Obama included.

And now here we are.