The Democrats, and related parties in Europe, need to recognise that while Donald Trump deserved to lose the US presidential election, Hillary Clinton did not deserve to win. That she could not achieve a smashing victory over an opponent as personally compromised and politically empty as him is a condemnation not only of the condition of the country and its working classes, but on the candidate herself, her programme and the party leadership that she represented, says Professor Anatol Lieven

Clinton has attributed her loss to the FBI statement on her emails in late October. But its main cause was likely the millions of working-class Americans who voted Democrat in 2012 but who this time voted for Trump or stayed at home. And there are wider issues. Twice now in the past 16 years the candidate who won the popular vote has lost the election. The distribution of Senate seats favours a tiny proportion of the population and for a generation, the results of the elections for the House of Representatives have had less and less to do with the national popular vote. In other words, parts of a constitution drawn up by late 18th century patricians and slave-owning landowners may not be appropriate to a 21st century democracy and may indeed not be democratic at all. This is an issue of critical concern for the future of the US political system, to which I willl return below.

Trump's victory was an extraordinary event. Ron Aledo supported Trump from the very beginning and in his view, detailed in this article, there are very deep and complex reasons that explain why Trump won, and the long term implications. The immediate reason is related to economics. Trump is going to overthrow Obamacare and renegotiate trade deals to bring back home jobs. That is, according to the press, the key reason why white blue collar workers voted for Trump. But for those who can see beyond the obvious, that reason is only the tip of the iceberg.

There is something else far more important - that very few can see - to explain Trump´s miraculous victory. And make no mistake, the fact that Trump won the Reagan Democrats, and won the Presidency after defeating the two major political parties (the Democratic Party and establishment ¨Bushites¨ Neocons of the Republican one) and the sustained opposition of the main stream media, is nothing short of a miracle.