My top ten reasons why Clinton lost
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  My top ten reasons why Clinton lost
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Author Topic: My top ten reasons why Clinton lost  (Read 1174 times)
World politics is up Schmitt creek
Nathan
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« on: November 13, 2016, 05:38:22 AM »
« edited: November 13, 2016, 05:45:18 AM by 1945>1488 »

A. Things that were the fault of Clinton, her campaign, and the Democratic establishment

1. Economically populist positions adopted during the primaries sounded fake coming from a retro-nineties-DLC candidate (not that Clinton being honest about being a neoliberal would have helped matters)
2. Choice of an excessively 'safe', not-particularly-leftist running mate (I like Kaine quite a bit but he was not the right choice here)
3. Clinton and her surrogates regularly implied and on a couple of occasions outright stated that anybody who didn't fully understand or agree with her social policy platform was a horrible person whose vote she didn't need or want anyway, rather than making a good-faith effort to convince on things on trans issues, BLM, or repealing the Hyde Amendment
4. General complacency and glibness (see: not giving Feingold any help towards the end of the race because she assumed he didn't need it even though he said he did)

B. Things that were the fault of the media and other ostensibly-neutral élite

5. Media's obsessive, masturbatory fixation on developing and maintaining a 'horserace' narrative at all costs
6. There were points at which it looked like elements of the news media actually wanted Trump to win so they'd get four more years of automatic ratings and performative outrage/virtue signaling
7. James Comey/MUH EMAILS in general

C. Things that were the fault of American culture or the American people as a whole

8. Incredibly low standards for male behavior applied to Trump, including by many women; to the extent that sexism can be blamed directly for the loss, it's here rather than in responses to Clinton herself
9. Receptivity to conspiratorial and racist accounts of America's problems, including among 'well-educated' young white men, who are in many cases more racist than the WWC Trump Country 'hicks' (in that the latter assume but can depending on the situation be talked out of racist attitudes while the former have actually considered and chosen racism as such)
10. Obsession with flashiness, spectacle, speed, novelty, celebrity, outrage, 'winning', point-scoring, score-settling, et cetera.
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #1 on: November 13, 2016, 08:40:50 AM »

Some good and thoughtful stuff here.
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LLR
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« Reply #2 on: November 13, 2016, 08:47:41 AM »

You forgot one thing - unnecessarily negative ads being aired by her campaign and a negative attitude in general. It really didn't help with undecideds and late breakers
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America Needs R'hllor
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« Reply #3 on: November 13, 2016, 08:54:43 AM »

These are some good reasons. I would, however, add the double-standard for women- she was seen as power hungry and manipulative, though people like McCain (who also ran against the future President in 2000 as the runner-up, and then 8 years later) and Romney were not seen in such a light. If a man would've had some a little bit shady stuff like her e-mails and the wikileaks reveals, people would say that he's just playing the game.
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DC Al Fine
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« Reply #4 on: November 13, 2016, 02:11:49 PM »
« Edited: November 13, 2016, 02:33:26 PM by DC Al Fine »

Very good. Every time I went to add something I thought you missed, I found it somewhere else in your list. Must be a question of phrasing as a lefty or a righty.

One quibble though. Comey's behaviour would be questionable no matter what he did. Suppose Trump barely lost and Comey dropped his bombshell the morning of November 9th. I doubt it would have gone any better,
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Pericles
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« Reply #5 on: November 15, 2016, 08:42:01 PM »

Very good. Every time I went to add something I thought you missed, I found it somewhere else in your list. Must be a question of phrasing as a lefty or a righty.

One quibble though. Comey's behaviour would be questionable no matter what he did. Suppose Trump barely lost and Comey dropped his bombshell the morning of November 9th. I doubt it would have gone any better,

The investigation was done by then and now new relevant evidence was found. Comey's fear was that it would leak before the election but his letter was the wrong course of action and it only hurt Clinton.
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Bacon King
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« Reply #6 on: November 18, 2016, 09:35:11 PM »

This is a great analysis - one big factor I would add to C would be the collective gullibility this nation seems to have towards fake news when it's posted on social media. Millions of people fell for blatantly false propaganda directed against Hillary Clinton that they probably would not have believed (or been exposed to) otherwise. The role social media played in the election was both fascinating and alarming -- particularly, the alt-right's skill in making pro-Trump/anti-Hillary messages go viral with such consistency.
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SingingAnalyst
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« Reply #7 on: November 19, 2016, 06:25:19 PM »

Three words: Basket of deplorables. Her comment that gun control is for the little people didn't help either; it reminded me of the 1980s when Leona Helmsley said only the little people pay taxes. This year, the "little people" voted Trump.
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zorkpolitics
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« Reply #8 on: November 20, 2016, 01:07:15 PM »

You forgot the obvious: Clinton was dishonest and ran the foundation as a massive pay to play scheme.
Clinton lost because of her actions in the past and no amount of tv ads could change that
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elcorazon
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« Reply #9 on: November 21, 2016, 10:55:35 AM »

This is a great analysis - one big factor I would add to C would be the collective gullibility this nation seems to have towards fake news when it's posted on social media. Millions of people fell for blatantly false propaganda directed against Hillary Clinton that they probably would not have believed (or been exposed to) otherwise. The role social media played in the election was both fascinating and alarming -- particularly, the alt-right's skill in making pro-Trump/anti-Hillary messages go viral with such consistency.
this is a key point. Fake news and false narratives, along with the double standard for women really put Clinton in a bind. Agree campaign made some bad choices but they were stuck with a lot of bad choices and maybe had they run a different campaign the result would have been the same.
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White Trash
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« Reply #10 on: November 21, 2016, 08:54:15 PM »

The parade of celebrities screaming at voters surely didn't help either. Ban Sarah Silverman from the convention, medicate Cher, etc.
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