The Week has the article The catastrophic fall of the Democratic Party.

So, who’s the culprit? Obama and Pelosi, certainly, but also Harry Reid, Hillary Clinton, and everyone else who ignored the frustration of voters for the last six years. Until they replace that leadership with people who can at least acknowledge the reality of those failures, it will be a long time before voters give Democrats another chance to govern at any level.

The Hilbots who refused to listen to those of us who warned that Clinton was unelectable, and who now want to place the blame for the loss on us, certainly deserve a lot of “credit” for the demise of the party. They succeeded in driving me and many others out of the party.

What the Hilbots do not understand is that weakness in a candidate includes being vulnerable to obvious attacks from the opposition. Weakness also includes not knowing what to do when the obvious attacks start to occur. That can be an insurmountable barrier when you have a public political record that people know about independently of what your attackers say. Donald Trump knew what to do when attacked. When Obama ran, he knew what to do when attacked. Even Bernie Sanders knew what to do when attacked. Poor Bernie did not know what to do in the face of vote rigging and voter suppression.

Having closed primaries is a sure way to get candidates that enough members of your party like, but does not consider that the great majority of voters in the general election are not members of your party. If you don’t care enough about the opinion of potential supporters who are not members of your party, do you expect for them to say “Thank you very much for refusing to pay attention to us”?

Naked Capitalism has the article Tillerson Dodges Discussing Who Knew What When about ExxonMobil’s Efforts to Deceive the Public on Climate Change. The features an interview on The Real News Network Tillerson Refuses to Acknowledge ExxonMobil’s Efforts to Deceive the Public on Climate Change.

Kathy Mulvey of the Union of Concerned Scientists says the oil giant is continuing to avoid accountability for its disinformation campaign.

Senator Tim Kaine really blew his opportunity to question Tillerson. The most important question that he failed to ask Tillerson was what his position would be as Secretary of State on the validity of the science on global climate change. Also, what role would he or could he play in the Trump administration in the face of climate change deniers who could possibly be heading the Environmental Protection Agency in the administration and on the President himself.

I had hoped that perhaps with ExxonMobil’s knowledge of the subject that Tillerson could play a positive role in the administration. Tillerson may have dashed that hope in his confirmation hearings. Most assuredly, the Demcocratic Senators at the hearing missed their golden opportunity to pin the administration down on this topic. Why would the Democrats do that? All these Senators are trained lawyers. Surely they know how to question a witness. Just as assuredly, if the Democratic Senators really cared about the climate change issue, they would want to know the answers to the questions I suggested. I wonder what they think is the purpose of these confirmation hearings.

This display of dereliction of duty is one of the reasons why I have given up on and have quit the Democratic Party.