Worst Error in Political History?

     A year ago today, ten months before November 8th, weeks before the primaries, Hillary lost the White House to Donald J. Trump.

     How does a Democratic candidate lose white women, her own--and her biggest--demographic?  53% of white women went for Trump.

     How does a Democratic nominee begin and end the final four months of a campaign only ~4 points above the Donald, by any measure the worst candidate in history?  Why was this election close?

     We know from a cursory glance at the tracking polls that Hillary's numbers plateaued in early October, meaning that neither James Comey's indiscreet utterances nor HRC's ongoing silence on Standing Rock caused her support to drop.  Whatever caused HRC's Waterloo happened much earlier.  If we follow the timeline back, we see some separations and closures but nothing prolonged.  Our evidence shows that Hillary lost the Democratic vote, and with it the White House, before the first primary!  To wit, she incurred the mortal wound a year ago, during the January 7th/8th, 2016 news cycle.

      On that occasion, Mrs. Clinton did the unthinkable.  She had Planned Parenthood, under her friend, Cecile Richards, endorse her over Sanders, without a membership-wide vote or a precedent and despite the fact that both candidates had a 100% rating from PP.  This organization had always been a rallying point for all liberals.  It was sacred ground.  Dividing it for internecine political purposes was like staging a gunfight at the Sistine Chapel.  Hillary could not have alienated progressives more if she had... 

       ...paved paradise and put up a parking lot.

       Feminists, male and female, blew a gasket.  Petitions like this one abounded:  "In Jan 2016 Cecile took it upon herself to make an unprecedented move and support a Democratic candidate (her friend Hillary Clinton) before the primaries; hurting the cause and reputation of PP, and creating a divide among Democratic voters that is detrimental to the party and the election. Although Cecile did not exactly make the decision herself, she was responsible for putting it to an uncalled for [executive] vote. This shines a very unethical light on PP. WE DEMAND HER IMMEDIATE RESIGNATION..."

      Forums filled with liberals who swore they've never vote for Mrs. Clinton.  The gap between Hillary and Bernie went from (52.8 to 33.3) 19.5 points on January 8th to (48.3 to 39.7) 8.6 points 4 days later.  While the numbers rebounded briefly, the trendline was set.  Within a week, Hillary's falling favorables among left-leaners passed the rising ones of the relatively unknown Vermont Senator. 

       The rest is history:  Just as Obama erased Hillary's 30 point lead in 2008, Sanders went on to eradicate HRC's 60-pointer in 2016 and ended up tripling her lead (12 to 4 points) in the shadow-boxing polls over Trump.  Clintonians chose the candidate least likely to beat Trump.  To the surprise of no one outside the Centrist bubble, the general election was a toss-up, with Hillary still eking out a win in the popular vote but Trump victorious where it counted:  the Electoral College.

       Punting the union vote (e.g. supporting free trade, opposing Universal Health Care, the Michigan debate, etc.) and disappointing American youth (e.g. hawkishness, not supporting free public college tuition, marijuana legalization, Standing Rock, etc.) cost Hillary in her second and third largest demographics, but gratuitously antagonizing progressive women was, by far, Hillary's greatest of many blunders. 

       Even without the benefit of hindsight, it is difficult to see how one could expect anything other than the disaster that ensured.  Indeed, using Planned Parenthood to divide liberals might have been the worst, most egregious and catastrophic mistake in the history of American politics.  What was she thinking?