This is why we need to be able to openly discuss facts, regardless of who the nominee is.

[meadowlander]

I understand that a lot of people are genuinely heart-broken and shocked about this.

But I also think there's a number of people on (and no longer on) this site who have been trying to explain why they thought this was a likely outcome for several weeks now and they've been subjected to some pretty shocking abuse by their fellow DUers as well as targeted campaigns to get their accounts banned.

Meanwhile, the worst kind of conspiracy theories and weak arguments have been flourishing in the vacuum. I've watched as first many people stopped believing in polls, then the media, then our elected representatives and for some people even the democratic system of government. Some people are obviously still there.

And it's a shame, because if we'd been able to have this conversation and everyone had been able to make their cases, then today might well not have come as the inexplicable shock that it seems to be to some. And we would have a much shorter hill to be pushing the next candidate up without fighting against headwinds of cynicism fuelled by making this about a donor or media conspiracy/coup or drive to cancel votes when it was always simply about the majority of ordinary Democratic voters losing faith in the ability of a candidate that they love and respect to sustain the energetic messaging necessary to beat Donald Trump.