Don't call Clinton a weak candidate: it took decades of scheming to beat her

[ehrnst]

Defeating Clinton in the electoral college took the 2013 gutting of the Voting Rights Act by Republican appointees to the supreme court. It took vast Republican voter suppression laws and tactics set in place over many years. It took voter intimidation at many polling places. It took the long Republican campaign to blow up the boring bureaucratic irregularity of Clinton’s use of a private email server into a scandal that the media obediently picked up and reheated.

Fifty countries around the world have seen a female head of government – but Donald Trump’s stunning win denied Hillary Clinton her spot in history

It took James Comey, the director of the FBI, using that faux-scandal and his power to stage a misleading smear attack on Clinton 11 days before the election in flagrant violation of the custom of avoiding such intervention for 60 days before an election. It took a compliant mainstream media running after his sabotage like a golden retriever chasing a tennis ball. It took decades of conservative attacks on the Clintons. Comey, incidentally, served as deputy GOP counsel to the Senate Whitewater committee, that fishing expedition that began with an investigation in a messy real estate deal in Arkansas before Bill Clinton’s presidency and ended with a campaign to impeach him on charges related to completely unrelated sexual activities during his second term.

It took a nearly decade-long reality TV show, The Apprentice, that deified Trump’s cruelty, sexism, racism and narcissism as essential to success and power. As the feminist media critic Jennifer Pozner points out: “Everything Trump said and did was framed in a way to flatter him, and more importantly, flatter his worldview.” The colossal infomercial fictionalized the blundering, cheating businessman as an unqualified success and gave him a kind of brand recognition no other candidate had.

It took the full support of Fox News, whose CEO, Roger Ailes, was so committed to him that after leaving the company following allegations of decades of sexual harassment of employees, he joined the Trump campaign. It took the withdrawal of too many Americans from even that calibre of journalism into the partisan unreliability of faux-news sites and confirmation-bias bubbles of social media.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/14/hillary-clinton-defeat-republicans-trump-comey

[bpositive]

1. Very frustrating

I couldn't last a week with all the crap that was thrown at her for years.

[Baitball Blogger]

2. Comey will end up getting the gift of a million dollar house on a coastal beach.

That was just too calculated, along with a GOP commercial that asked the question, "Would you vote for someone who is being investigated by the FBI." It seemed classic dirty tricks.

[kentuck]

3. Don't under-estimate the role of the media.

First of all, they had to bring her "negatives" down to the same level as Trump's and then they were successful in branding her as a "criminal", Trump himself using "Crooked Hillary" to describe his opponent. With the media reporting every day that Hillary was "untrustworthy and dishonest", and reporting as fact, not in a questioning manner, they were able to persuade enough people to switch Parties or not to vote at all, that they were able to achieve their coup.

[lunatica]

4. Trump could never have come even close to beating her on his own

The one thing that keeps me optimistic about Hillary herself is that nothing will ever knock her down for long. Nothing.

[geek tragedy]

5. there are lots of reasons why we lost--it takes lots of things to lose to a foul beast like Trump

A lot of it was unfair but, quite frankly, beyond our ability to fix.

There are things we did wrong, that we need to correct, that is in our power to correct, to win in the future.

[LisaM]

6. It is frustrating. I was thinking back to the primary debates...

do you remember when they actually ran an entire Bernie Sanders ad in the middle of the debates, and put Hillary on the spot? "What do you think of this ad?"

They ran her opponent's entire ad in the middle of a debate and asked her opinion of it. In retrospect, I should have realized that she was doomed.

[William769]

7. Not only decades but also the F.B.I. and a Foreign Government.

[Bigredhunk]

8. Russia, Wikidouche, FBI, Faux, talk radio, rw publishing

Shocking that it all had a toll. The FBI releasing a nothingburger that looks like a somethingburger 11 f*cking days before the election? But the Russia stuff they had, they feared that would interfere with he election. Jesus.

I caucused for Bernie in Iowa. But the Bernie people (and many others) gloating after the fact make me vomit. It's easy to call something after it happens. Conservatives always do this with tv shows or movies. If they tv show or movie (that the conservative claims has a liberal bias) does well, they don't say shit. If the tv show or movie bombs, they take credit for calling it. I knew that would happen with the Starbucks X-Mas cups last year when all the b.s. was in the news. I knew SBUX would have a different cup this year (as they do every year) and the troglodytes would take credit for pressuring SBUX into changing the cups.

[wryter2000]

9. They went after the Clintons starting before he took office

And it hasn't stopped yet. It always seemed to me they hated her more than him, even though at the time she was first lady and not in any position of power.

I imagine the demonization will continue for some time still.

[marylandblue]

10. Unfortunately, she was weakened in the eyes of the voters

She is not a weak person, and would not have been a weak president, but as a candidate, all those attacks took their toll before she even started.

[imaginary girl]

11. And Interstate Crosscheck

I have been looking into that since somebody mentioned it in their response to Skinner's question during our temporary return to "old school" tactics. I remember it being posted on DU before, but I do think it played a role in this election, as well as other things mentioned in the OP. 27 states use this list to disenfranchise voters, and a glance at the map of those states looks a lot like a map from election night ...

Here's an 2014 discussion of it I found interesting: http://www.democracynow.org/2014/11/3/jim_crow_returns_interstate_crosscheck_program

[duffyduff]

12. This had nothing to do with Hillary...this is ALL on the media

Anybody who seriously states otherwise did NOT follow this election closely, especially the primaries on the GOP side.

The media execs like Jeff Zucker pimped for this guy months on end without any kind of analysis or criticism, and it was done for ratings and ad revenue. This is not opinion but fact, and it is unprecedented in the history of the United States, indeed the world.

The conflict of interest between Zucker and Trump was NEVER disclosed in the primaries. Zucker was the head of NBC Entertainment when Trump had his hit series The Apprentice. Zucker pimped Trump solely for the bottom line and never mind the fact elections are serious business.

Watch Network or A Face in the Crowd to get an inkling of what happened here. It is absolutely horrifying.

It was totally unethical, for NEWS organizations are not supposed to be in the business of promoting candidates at all, let alone one particular candidate. Everybody else was shut out of getting his or her message across.

The GOP party bigwigs are sharpening their knives as I write this. They hate Trump's guts because they KNOW what went down in those primaries.

[jimlup]

13. I assume the "election rules"

are now suspended.

I don't agree with this = sorry. Yes, it did take decades but there were other problems with her candidacy. She had too many ties to the Wall Street insiders. Don't get me wrong I'm desperately revolted by our situation but I also firmly believe that one of the reasons we are here right now is because we are in denial about some things and her insider ties and establishment comfort are some of those things... just say'n

[TexasBushwhacker]

18. I agree

She knew she had "baggage". She knew there were probably over 40% of voters who would never, ever vote for her. Is it fair? No. But it was there and she knew it.

Given what we now know about her Wall Street speeches, coutesy of Wikileaks, there just wasn't much there. She should have released them as soon as they were requested, early in the campaign. She could have dealt with any blowback months ago and it would be forgotten by now. It also would have helped her "trustworthiness" factor.

[Scruffy1]

14. It's history.

It's done. Now we must go forward.

[MelissaB]

15. It's not done if we don't learn anything from it.

[ehrnst]

21. But if we don't learn from it, we repeat it. (nt)

[ErikJ]

16. Gingrich/ GOP declared war on her ever since her HillaryCare proposal

30 yrs ago. Her passing healthcare for millions of kids made them even madder. That and the fact she had the gaul to say she wwasnt going to stay silent and bake cookies while 1st lady.

[Feeling the Bern]

17. In a way, I feared this would happen. The name Clinton would bring out all the idiotic

shitheads, schmucks and shitkickers that, since 1992, have been poisoned against the name Clinton simply because of the name Clinton. So, they would come out in drove to vote against the "bitch" who, for one reason or another, embodies everything they hate. We can thank RW hate radio, Fucks Noise and years of lies from RW propaganda mills.

I thought there were more normal thinking people in the country, but most stayed home apparently.

[Lithos]

19. You are talking two things here

First, "weak" implies a moral or character deficiency - she did not have that

Second, "weak" also implies a strategic deficiency - and she had that this year. I will however agree with you it took tens of years to create this weakness. Yet, earned or not, it was there in the mind of the American voter.

Clinton won in the 1990's precisely from not having this baggage. Same with Obama in 2008. The Republicans take the long game and will poison anyone they think will get in their way. Mondale, Kerry, etc. Hillary was such a victim. One of the biggest reasons I supported Bernie was he was enough of a wild card to bypass this obstruction. I do worry the Pukes will start their poison campaign against him for the next 4 years.

[barbtries]

20. that's right.

too bad that right doesn't always prevail.