I’ve been trying to figure out the right venue to make this point, and since you seem to be more data driven than others out there, I thought I’d make it to you. You posted:

It’s unscientific to think that 90% is good enough when it wasn’t good enough against the worst candidate ever.

Obviously true. But where does that 90% notion come from? Well, it comes from the three million votes that Clinton racked up over Trump; the unanswered question is WHY that occurred.

To the people raising the 3M “point”, reason for those 3 million votes is assumed and never debated; to them, it’s because the policy positions raised by Mrs. Clinton were perceived as superior by the voters to those raised by Mr. Trump. Of course.

But, do we really know this?

I’d argue the opposite; the 3 million votes were a gift given to Mrs. Clinton BECAUSE Trump was the most personally reprehensible candidate in history (just saying he was the “worst” doesn’t do him justice).

And the corollary to that is, if *any* of the the other sixteen GOP candidates had won the nomination instead of Trump, that 3 million vote margin would have dried up like a raisin and disappeared.

Here’s the rationale for that: The 2016 election was a GOP blowout in every way imaginable. To wit:

• It had already been assumed that the GOP were at “peak Republican” as far as statehouses and governorships were concerned; yet, they won even more.
• The GOP were projected to lose 20-odd House seats; they lost six.
• The Senate was supposed to flip Democrat; the GOP held with a two vote margin, and “sure things” with 100% name recognition and voter positives like Russ Feingold and Evan Bayh not only lost, but badly.
• The crappy, reprehensible candidate smashed the “unsmashable” blue wall by taking out three states that haven’t gone GOP since the 80’s, won Ohio and Florida, and damn near flipped New Hampshire and Virginia as well.

One can only wonder at what would have happened if the GOP candidate was, oh, a vicious, college champion debater with a Latino surname; OR, a photogenic neoconservative senator…. with a Latino surname.

The Texas electoral margin for the GOP would have been a helluva lot larger than 9 points, for one thing. And in Florida. And Arizona. And a smaller margin of victory in California. Goodbye, 3M votes.

The “three million vote” meme is being used as an opiate to dim the memory of the 2016 blowout, and to avoid the obvious consequences of having to reflect upon it AND CHANGE. Repeating the “three million votes” meme allows the party to wander down their primrose path, pretending that no change is necessary, Mr. Sanders and his voters were treated fairly and kindly, and that policy demands that are not present in the “approved platform” can be ignored.

I agree with you completely that it’s not a great situation. The GOP embraced its extremist wing, and although (obviously) philosophies of governance differ greatly between traditional and conservative Republican, nobody on the GOP side is threatening to walk out and form a third party.

The Dems need to figure out what to do.