I’ve been thinking quite a bit about this column, and which tack to take.

Last time out, I got spanked pretty badly a few days later in the Letters to the Editor by a lady in Greentown. That’s OK. If you’re a progressive writing in a county that voted 64 percent for President-Elect Trump, had two times as many straight-ticket Republican ballots cast than Democrat, and elected every Republican on the local ballot by wide margins, you have to expect some blow back – some deserved and some perhaps not so much. As they say, if you can’t stand the heat …

It serves no purpose to rehash the past, unless what can be learned from the past can be used to constructively affect the future. For progressives, there are more than a few lessons that should be taken to heart.

First of all, a groundswell can trump a ground game. The Clinton campaign was run as professionally as any in history. It had internal polls, tracking polls, polls of polls, and probably the odd barber pole thrown in as well. It knew where its voters were, and precisely how many votes it needed to put Hillary in the White House. They had a well-funded field operation, and state-of-the-art political advertising.

What the corporate campaign lacked was not tangibles, but something intaengendered in his supporters. ngible. It was so buttoned down it lacked soul. It lacked the emotional response Trump As that enthusiasm swelled, the Clinton campaign, having failed to take the phenomenon seriously at first, had no effective response. The groundswell beat the ground game.

Secondly, you can’t win a campaign talking primarily about why a voter should not vote for the other guy. You need to give them some reason to vote for you.

The Clinton campaign had its policy proposals and issue statements, but they couldn’t package them in a way that was easily digestible by the electorate. Sure, you could go the website and read a position paper, but “build that wall” or “drain the swamp” speaks to issues-by-shorthand in a much more effective way in this age of Twitter where pithy becomes a substitute for substance. President-elect Trump won the battle of social media in a landslide.

For an entire campaign, voters heard about Mr. Trump’s inadequacies and lack of qualifications for the job. Thing is, Trump’s base didn’t care, and Hillary’s campaign failed to convince them that they should. Throw in the last-minute

deciders, who broke for the campaign that appeared to have the enthusiasm and momentum behind it, and for all its sophistication, it’s surprising the Clinton campaign came as close as it did in the Electoral College where a switch of 107,000 votes could have moved the center of the political universe from Manhattan to Brooklyn.

The Clinton campaign became overly fixated on demographic changes that were going to work in the Democrats favor. The African-American vote. The Hispanic vote. The LBGT&Q vote. All were going to make it possible to overcome those nasty non-degreed white men who were supporting Mr. Trump, and all had their priorities reflected whenever, if ever, the discussion turned to issues.

Well, guess what? Those non-degreed white men used to be called Democrats. But 36 years ago, they elected Ronald Reagan, and this time it was Donald Trump. Instead of writing them off, perhaps in the future more thought (and action) should be given to being more responsive to their legitimate needs and aspirations. Those needs and aspirations are every bit as relevant as those of any other sub-group of the electorate.

Democrats should not confine themselves to the East and West coasts and urban centers in between. The strategy has worked to elect Democrats to the White House in the past, and may do so in the future, but the party is withering away at the state and local level. At its zenith, the Democratic Party was a coalition of working men and women, farmers, small business owners, professionals, and intellectuals. At this, its apparent nadir, how many of these groups see the party as having their interests at heart? The answer appears to be “not so much anymore.” This has to change – now.

I know it’s hard to believe (and my friend in Greentown probably won’t) but a progressive can wish President-elect Trump well with sincerity (while reserving the right to offer comment and advice from across the aisle). Not only is it possible, it is necessary. To proceed in a democratic fashion means to remain engaged with the system even when you lose. If President Trump is successful, the country is successful. How can anyone wish for any other outcome?

One final thing. Let’s cool the rhetoric. If my friend from Greentown would refrain to referring to me and my “left-wing comrades,” as if progressives were communist sympathizers, I would eschew use of the term “deplorable.”

Neither is an accurate description of either of us.