I think it has gotten more than one thing wrong to reach this point, and yes, I think this is a crisis at least insofar as the left now has a very diminished hold on governmental powers. Going from having the presidency to losing it and being a minority in Congress is by no means a small loss at all, and it may have effects that can last for years from now, in my opinion.
Some of the mistakes I think the left has made:
• Becoming disconnected from reality in more than one way and instead clinging to an idealistic, black-and-white view of certain cultural and political affairs to the point where the demagoguery of Trump and people like him managed to win more votes than the left's unrealistic approach to some issues.
For instance, dismissing all concerns about immigrants from certain countries as "bigotry" or "xenophobia" without considering that said concerns might have some merit strikes me as reactionary and hasty at best. Yes, there
is generally a lot of bigotry and xenophobia in conservative politicians' rhetoric, but that doesn't mean there is no truth whatsoever to anything conservatives have to say about immigration.
One example is saying that certain cultures have strong incompatibilities with values of freedom, equality, and free expression. I've seen some conservatives say this, and I absolutely agree with them: some cultures are at odds with many Western societies regarding these issues, and dismissal of such concerns as "xenophobia" or "cultural supremacism" is not just short-sighted but also the kind of unrealistic thinking that could alienate many voters who may not necessarily be supportive of conservatism but vote for conservatives anyway after having their concerns casually dismissed like that.
• Adopting a reactionary approach in some cases, to the point where a warmonger like Hillary Clinton was praised by many leftists as an example of a "strong woman" in a way that suggests she's admirable despite her track record—and why? Mainly because she was running against Trump. Something I read a while back has come to mind more than once over the last election: "The enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend. He or she may just be my ally."
And this kind of reactionism extends to other issues. For example, because many White people are racists, we have seen things like these:
I'm not even sure what that is supposed to mean. The dismissal makes it sound like Islam is not a religion that can be studied by anyone regardless of race or anything else. It's not like Islamic texts are written in invisible ink that everyone can read except White people. This kind of baseless, reactionary argument takes the racism of many White people and turns it into a springboard for dismissal of opinions without having to actually present a detailed argument against them. Replace "white" with "black" or "Arab" in the above picture and it should be obvious how blatantly racist and casually dismissive it is.
As an Arab, I see absolutely nothing wrong with a White person's—or anyone else's—criticism of Arab culture as long as it is accompanied by a reasoned, detailed argument, regardless of whether or not said criticism also involves Islam. But what do we see from some liberals like Mr. Nathan Lean? Reactionary dismissal and reverse bigotry even if some of us, some of the critics, are Arabs and have extensive experience with Islamic traditions and with Muslims.
And this brings me to another huge issue with the left:
• Refusal or failure to see the problems present within certain religious ideologies, mainly mainstream strains of Islam, and instead insisting that strong criticism of the religion is "bigotry" and "Islamophobia," a term that has been used by so many liberals and religious fanatics alike to shut down criticism of Islam and conflate it with bigotry against Muslims as people as if ideas and people were entitled to the same level of respect.
These are quotes from Hillary Clinton, then Secretary of State in Obama's administration, talking about the Innocence of Muslims video after the murder of the American ambassador in Libya.
An ambassador gets murdered over a video, and one of her primary reactions was the above. I'm not sure if a government is supposed to take anything but a neutral stance on content whose expression is clearly protected by the law, yet the Secretary of State issued such an excessively politically correct, apologetic statement instead of taking a strong stand against the underlying problem, which is the same kind of Islamic extremism that has led to other attacks on satirists. This refusal to clearly condemn Islamic extremism for what it is has been, in my opinion, one of the factors that has led to the rise of Trump, especially since he engages in demagoguery and exaggerates legitimate concerns to further his own agendas.
What Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration refused to address in no uncertain terms, Trump has taken to a hyperbolic level and used as leverage for his campaign—and it seems to have worked in his favor so far.
I think that since all of the above problems have definitely allowed Trump to hold more and more sway on voters to the point where he's now about to be inaugurated as president, the left doesn't just need to be more realistic; it needs to eliminate the reactionary, irrationally idealistic and dismissive aspects of its current outlook on social and political affairs, be they inside or outside the U.S. So less unnecessary political correctness, a more rational and critical approach to criticism of certain religions and cultures in general, and a willingness to see the positives in other spots on the political spectrum.
Those are the primary factors that the left needs to work on in order to be more politically viable, in my opinion, but I wouldn't say they were the only ones. To list all of the necessary factors would require a small book rather than a forum post, not to mention that I can't really say whether I would be missing other potential factors as well.
Yes, absolutely: support for LGBT rights, women's rights, minorities' rights in general, affordable health care, minimum wages, and better sex education. These are the main ones I can think of at the moment, but they are so significant that I think the left definitely has the potential to come back strong and hold power in the future.
I'm not familiar enough with the details of either side's political stances on climate change, so I can't comment here.