I don’t think it was a particularly easy election. A majority of the people I know (which isn’t much admittedly) protest voted. Most thought her win was inevitable. I bet my friend in February that If it was Drumpf/Clinton, Drumpf would win. If so many people didn’t feel burned by her being picked over Sanders, she would have won electoral and popular.
Nah, I blame the media. If any mainstream media actually bothered to report seriously on Bernie and especially the turnouts he was pulling at his rallies, we probably would have had more than enough people energized to vote in the primary and the general. Instead, the MSM acted like Bernie wasn’t a real candidate. I stopped supporting NPR after how dirty they did him.
Worst of all, they acted like trump was a real candidate, and handed him the unlimited exposure he needed to build a cult.
That’s not true. You don’t need any media exposure at all to build a cult. Cults are small. No, they gave him the media exposure he needed to build a religion. A big one. Much more dangerous.
Except about Julian Assange
She did win the popular vote, by millions. But the good ol’ I Wanna Keep Mah Slaves Electoral College handed it to an overgrown 10 year old.
And the millions sat silent mumbling under their nose that they didn’t vote hard enough.
At this point anyone relitigating 2016 is fart sniffing. Nobody cares that you hate Clinton and nobody cares if you love her. Nothing good can possibly come from picking that scab over and over again, so either just move on, or preferably, put that energy into something productive, like community outreach, organizing or local politics.
It’s literally too late for that … Nothing short of a massive general strike against SCOTUS or less civilized nation wide riots will save the USA
She wasn’t right about a lot of things, specially relating to the Middle East. Misguided at best, malicious at worst when it comes to the Middle East.
Fuck all of you that think that Trump committed voter fraud only in 2020.
The reason she lost was that Trump cheated in the 2016 election, too.
That was why the world was stunned. Because the results were phony.
mmhmm I’m sure it had absolutely nothing to do with her terrible voter turnout
Which I’m sure had absolutely nothing to do with her sketchy performance under Obama.
And I’m sure not a single Democrat cared that the DNC went around saying “screw the primary we already chose our candidate” during the scam of a primary.
She still won the popular vote by millions. The thing is though, the electoral college is a relic that needs an overhaul at best, and that’s problematic for a lot of reasons. I largely agree with you though.
How much do the Democrats need to mess up before they can be considered to be working with the Republicans instead of against them?
Clinton was one whoopsie in a chain of mistakes that has led us here.
How many time does it take to not be her fault and finally fall on the electorate?
It takes a village when? How long after the baby is born?
You mean the electorate that was voting for Bernie en masse but Wasserman-Schulz and the big donors didn’t want that so they threw the rest of the primaries to go Hillarys way? The electorate that was disenfranchised by their own party?
Oh holy Jesus yes keep saying it as all stolen from you. The primaries are rigged, the election was stolen!
You are a pawn! Being used for adrenochrome!
Bernie was fucked by the establishment stranglehold over mainstream media, inherent flaws in the primary system, and some truly underhanded tactics. There has been no good evidence of any kind of tampering with the votes.
Bernie has always been a pragmatist. The progressive movement has nothing to gain by him obsessing over sour grapes. Contrast that with Hillary who will live the rest of her life locked into the day she lost.
Compare your comment to sour grapes….
“Bernie” is a role you like to play. Bernie isn’t a person he’s your grievance.
I was explaining why Bernie moved on. I’d love to move on but it seems like every few months Hillary pops up in the media with another sneer.
Anyways, given where all the establishment fuckery of the past 50 years has led us at this particular moment, I feel like a little anger is justified, no?
Does Bernie hold that same anger? Has he moved on or have you not?
Casual victim blaming Hilary, ignoring the massive propaganda campaign against her, sponsored by a foreign government.
How very American of you.
Trump and the Russians are to blame, not Hillary.
Trump and the Russians are to blame, not Hillary.
Did trump and the Republicans prevent her from campaigning in swing states and heavily campaigning in democratic strongholds?
Hillary absolutely deserves blame for how her candidacy fucked the dog so hard she lost to Donald trump. She doesn’t deserve all the blame for her loss by any stretch, but she does not need to be sanctified as a martyr of some kind.
I didn’t blame Hillary. Hillary did her best. I blame the Democratic organization who decided to run Hillary. They could have run Bernie. They could have run somebody who had more charisma.
The average voter is retarded. They need to see strength and charisma.
Spoiler: Both are Right Wing parties, so they represent the establishment, not the people or progressive ideals.
We need Ranked Choice Voting so we can vote our conscience and ideals and stop being forced into a lose-lose situation every election.
If you’re still talking about Clinton, you’re why we got Trump instead of Sanders and I hate you for it.
I dislike the establishment left, but 2016 was one of the most propagandized, misinformation filled, and corrupt elections - in no way can it be considered an “easy election”.
Hindsight is 20/20… The electorate sees no where near that well, and didn’t at the time.
The truth is fascism and pseudo or proto fascism is never an easy thing to defeat, because it breaks the rules and can appeal to forces and parts of human nature that most politicians won’t or can’t run with. This is why most fascists are praised as gifted speakers - even Trump - because they’re appealing to powerful parts of human nature which are usually not spoken about in politics, let alone addressed directly.
There’s nothing left about the DNC establishment. You need to update your terminology to be taken seriously.
I completely agree. Hillary was subject to non-stop manufactured scandals insinuating she was a complete criminal (Benghazi, the emails, etc.). Plus Trump successfully tapped into the “punish the libs” and “it’s okay to be racist” contingents. It wasn’t a great campaign, but to suggest that it should have been a cake walk for her is ridiculous.
It’s easy to make her sound like a victim when you ignore the fact that she did everything in her power to rig the DNC primaries in her favor AND propped up Trump’s early campaign as much as she could. The situation we find ourselves in is certainly not exclusively her fault but she definitely deserves more of the blame than any of us do. She set the board exactly how she wanted and still couldn’t win the game.
A. What candidate wouldn’t use whatever was available to them to win the election? She obviously didn’t do anything illegal or Trump’s DOJ would have nailed her (and they sure tried).
B. Gonna need a source for the Hillary propped up Trump’s campaign part.
Illegal and anti-democratic aren’t always the same thing. You can certainly be one without the other. Though to be clear there have been allegations of outright illegal activity by the Clinton campaign and the DNC as a whole during the 2016 election, but the specifics are fuzzy in my memory and that’s not what you’re asking about so I won’t attempt to address it further here.
Here’s the first article I read through after a quick search to find a source for you. If you don’t like the source I’m sure you can use the timeline and references it contains to find something from a source you prefer.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/11/hillary-clinton-2016-donald-trump-214428/
Here’s a couple relevant snippets:
So to take [Jeb] Bush down, Clinton’s team drew up a plan to pump Trump up. Shortly after her kickoff, top aides organized a strategy call, whose agenda included a memo to the Democratic National Committee: “This memo is intended to outline the strategy and goals a potential Hillary Clinton presidential campaign would have regarding the 2016 Republican presidential field,” it read. “The variety of candidates is a positive here, and many of the lesser known can serve as a cudgel to move the more established candidates further to the right. In this scenario, we don’t want to marginalize the more extreme candidates, but make them more ‘Pied Piper’ candidates who actually represent the mainstream of the Republican Party,” read the memo.
Eleven days after those comments about McCain, Clinton aides sought to push the plan even further: An agenda item for top aides’ message planning meeting read, “How do we prevent Bush from bettering himself/how do we maximize Trump and others?"
I agree with you that it wasn’t a cakewalk, but the problem was she treated it like a cakewalk. She assumed she had it locked up, and ignored all polling that didn’t support her landslide victory. She punished downticket candidates who didn’t bend the knee by skipping their districts in places like Wisconsin and Michigan, because she assumed people would show up for her.
She ran a terrible campaign, kowtowing to the worst attacks, thinking it was politics as usual, acting like she was above the fray while she was face down in the mud getting stomped on.
She should have gone on the offensive. She should have presented a vision for a better America. She failed us all, and for that she deserves as much scorn as we can conjure.
Had she set foot in Michigan or Wisconsin at all during her campaign she probably would have won.
I don’t know, it seems like when she even mildly went on the offensive, people on both sides (and especially the media) ripped her for it. Remember the “deplorables” things?
For ages, I don’t think even Trump’s campaign thought he had much of a chance (many sources have said he didn’t even want to win). And remember, she did win the popular vote.
I don’t think she did nearly as well as she could have, but there’s a lot of hyperbole about her that I think is misplaced.
People were going to rip her for whatever she said. That’s politics. Welcome to professional politics.
I agree that Trump’s campaign seemed surprised to be doing as well as it was, but part of that was the DNC and Hillary pushing all the attention on him because they thought he was a clown making Republicans look bad. If that’s not the miscalculation of the century, I don’t know what beats it.
Let’s also remember that most people didn’t REALLY think Trump had a chance in 2016, even most Republicans voting for him. If everyone that would have voted against Trump had shown up (less than 60% of eligible voters turned out in 2016), it would have been no contest. He didn’t even get the popular vote in the end. But nobody took his campaign seriously and counted on everybody else to turn out to make the obvious but boring choice.
In 2020, though, we had the highest turnout of eligible voters since 1920 (still an embarrassing 66.6%). The only reason that the turnout for 2020 was so high is because so many people were so eager to either maintain or end Trump’s reign that people were charged up and went to the polls. The only realistic way that Trump doesn’t win this time though is if everyone who was so charged in 2020 remains as charged this time, or a new bunch of voters, like newly eligible young voters, show up in droves… and I’m very concerned that that doesn’t happen.
One guy thought Trump had a chance. Ome guy kept saying that Trump was going to beat Hillary, and we needed a better strategy than hers.
I can’t imagine young voters being disenchanted more than they are when the Biden admin ignores their pleas to stop a genocide and walks all over them like spoiled children. He needs them now more than ever. I can’t see him realizing it, however.
Chapo Traphouse said it quite well with today’s episode: he isn’t willing to sacrifice his pride for the good of democracy. And Dems aren’t willing to shame and embarrass him to protect it either. We’re fucked.
Biden doesn’t actually believe in democracy. Biden supports democracy in the same way corporations support gay people during June. If Trump dismantles democracy, he doesn’t care. Biden’s big talk is all kayfabe. Biden is the face and Trump is the heel.
Threatening the DNC with a Trump presidency is like threatening your kids with McDonald’s
If everyone that would have voted against Trump had shown up (less than 60% of eligible voters turned out in 2016), it would have been no contest.
Everyone needs to read and comprehend this. The number of people who didn’t want Hillary or Trump was greater than the number of people who voted for them. But the system doesn’t reward abstaining. Trying to make a statement by not voting only serves to reward the people who you are abstaining from. Fucking vote, people! Write a candidate in if you have to. Vote for your dog. But get off your asses and use the right that hundreds of thousands of people died to protect.
I dislike the establishment left,
LOL, the what?
The DNC stole the nomination from Bernie Sanders. Thus losing the democrats the election. And us getting Trump. I was Pro Bernie myself, THeeeen Pro Trump. Because I figured Trump would fuck shit up enough it would get Americans to get off their lard asses and give a fuck. Didn’t realize he would try an actual, though pathetic, coup on january 6th.
Genuine question, what is fascism?
You might want to look up Umberto Eco’s definition and I think it might be called something like “needs served by ur fascism”…
…but basically it’s authoritarian indoctrination into the idea that all individuals are subordinate to the state, and in order for them to be seen as having value they must give themselves entirely to the state’s goals and ideals to the point of happily, willingly, unquestioningly, and mindlessly giving their lives for/to the state.
It’s a kind of religious faith and fervor. It’s designed to replace and subordinate all other values and more often than not, places absolute power and faith in a single individual… And there’s often an irrational “cult of personality” around that individual. That person can “do no wrong” and is sometimes praised as a god or thought of as divine or having elements usually reserved for religion. They’re sometimes cast in the role of a father figure or God Emporer, and are always a “strong man leader”. Protection and veneration of them is the highest Aim in fascism (because everyone’s brainwashed by propaganda to believe he can do no wrong, and followers are sometimes scared to question or admit otherwise).
Fascism is named after the Roman “fascia” which was a bundle of sticks (sometimes with a long axe handle in the middle), that was used to beat unruly crowds and protestors (this goes along with the “strong man dictator imagery”). The internal fascist perspective is that this represents the strength through binding of strict rules into a community that is stronger than the sum of its parts, so the individuals no longer matter, they must move as the collective community of fascist believers demand.
So it’s a sort of radical authoritarian collectivism. It’s very much like a cult, but a cult that grips the whole of political society and the masses, it usually involves propaganda, and religious overtones, meaning the people giving up their rights, freedoms, bodies, and lives believe it’s in their best interests and may even get a substantial power trip from being the purveyors of popular violence in the name of their political religion. It usually involves political purges, and a complete conversion of society.
Fascism always requires enemies, and victims, people to target, blame, and be violent to. This often starts out as being the political opposition, then might also include demographic or ethnic or religious types, and almost always gay and queer people. Anyone different or who doesn’t abide by the group’s convictions around uniformity.
In Nazi Germany it was Gays, Jews, Subversives, and Criminals. In PolPot’s killing fields it was anyone who didn’t look Cambodian enough, or had any health defects, or disagreed or spoke out against the Khmer Rouge. In Hindu systems of Fascism it’s often Muslims.
Each culture and nations fascism has different aspects, but they all have key characteristics, which is what Umberto Eco was trying to define.
So that’s Fascism, named after some Roman shit, and usually has an angry “leather daddy” whose actually a loser at the top. It’s kinda pathetic and usually recruits people who don’t have a good sense of themselves and their own free will. People with low self-esteem who are angry and have grievances, who are upset at society or how it’s treated them, and who don’t question themselves or have a lot of empathy or self awareness of how others might be view things or be effected. Recruits are people who want to feel strong, but can’t for whatever reason. The group fascism makes them feel they’re being strong, and good, have a place in the world and brotherhood.
The best way to avoid fascism is to have a society based on shared community, transparency, justice, and empathy where everyone gets a say, but certain individualist limits are respected (eg. Self-autonomy, intellectual and political freedoms ect…) - and by making fascist movements and elements illegal or difficult to get away with. Also see Karl Popper’s “The Paradox of Tolerance”, or Herbert Marcuse’s essay on “Repressive Tolerance” for more on this.
Right wingers: YoU cAnT EvEn DeScRiBe FaScIsM. FaScIsM iS jUsT wHaTeVeR yOu DoNt LiKe!
Very very well said.
the establishment left
Real interesting way to refer to the center-right.
I wouldn’t even call them center right, anyone. They’re what the right used to be.
This is why most fascists are praised as gifted speakers - even Trump
The fuck? I’ve never heard anyone say that. The guy can’t string two sentences together. Gifted? More like special needs.
I don’t know why people listen to Trump, but they do, and that means he’s good at speaking.
It would have been easy if Clinton’s team hadn’t deliberately helped Trump, thinking that putting a fascist on the world stage would make their jobs easier.
“Obama has been doing a great job for 8 years and I plan to continue his legacy as best I can. We’re going to give more money to workers and students and also legalise weed.”
Boom. That’s all winning an election took in 2015. It’s Clinton’s fault she needed to go and defeat fascism and failed.
This nonsense. Sanders would have won that if the DNC wasn’t corrupt as shit.
While she’s not free of blame for losing, the primary opposition party candidate colluding with a foreign power to manipulate the election definitely had more of an effect on the result than anything she did. DNC emails poisoning the progressives support for her while Comey’s investigation into being made public (because of Republicans leaking it) eroded away the support of independents and undecided voters.
In an alternate world whete the RNC emails got leaked and Comey’s investigation of Trump got leaked to the public and there is no way Trump wins and likely is in handcuffs before Jan 20 2017
That’s how all campaigns die, a death by a thousand cuts. Such things should be anticipated. Nothing hurt Hillary more in that election than Hillary being Hillary.
As for the emails, they could never have been leaked if they didn’t exist in the first place. The complaint is essentially that they got caught. How Trumpian.
Comey really fucked it. I have not forgotten
Can’t say I’m happy with how he handled things, though it does need to be said he didn’t bring the investigation to the public, he took it to congress, who immediately leaked it.
Sure. People who think the GOP isn’t a terrorist organisation are going to be the death of this country though. It’s too late to act like that’s not the case imo
It didn’t help that two weeks before the election the director of the FBI was like “I think we should investigate her lol”
And then took it back two days after the election. I wonder what James Comey makes of himself in hindsight.
He’s an institutionalist robot who thinks it was the right thing to do because that’s what the rules told him to do.
No, they didn’t take it back, they did investigate her and they did find the exact thing people said they would find.
The country probably would have been better off with her at the helm.
But the “claims” were accurate.
Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.
“She did it. Maybe without meaning to, but she did do it.”
I’ve seen interviews a year or two after where he’s said he doesn’t regret it because it was important to address it due to her basically expecting to win.
Not sure if he still holds that to this day though seeing the fustercluck we’ve got.
You can lay that directly at the feet of Assange
You could, if you ignore history. Assange didn’t make anyone investigate anything. He was a journalist with no special powers.
Back in 2016, WikiLeaks was in direct communication with Trump Jr. and telling the campaign to claim the election was rigged and stolen if he lost. He was pulling a lot of stuff behind the scenes outside of the scope of journalism. It’s clear Assange was likely a mouthpiece for Russia to sow division in the US during this period.
You say he was not a journalist, but we’ve never seen good evidence of this. At worst, he was a bad journalist.
Anyway, maybe Democratic presidents and candidates could have considered the impact of their actions on his life. Did they think he would be sympathetic to them, after all they did or failed to do? This is common sense.
Nah. Hillary Clinton ermh how do I put this. Destabilized Libya @_@ which was pretty much a “first world country” before she touched it. For some reason. IE, the Petrodollar. rolls eyes something gold to oil something Gadaffi. Something something “we came, we looked, he died” or something. IDGAF anymore
Justice for vilerat.
Why the eff is everyone here letting James Comey off the hook? The guy who ignored DoJ instructions on not doing anything that night interfere in an election in the 90 days beforehand, and deliberately held a press conference just days before the election to say that Hilary was still under investigation, then ‘cleared’ her shortly after it?
The MAGAts who were pissed about a black President were never going to vote for a woman, but that Comey presser gave enough doubts to swing the election. And he conveniently ‘forgot’ to mention that Trump and several of his people were also under investigation. Fuck Comey.
Comey didn’t inform the public. He informed congress who then leaked it to public and Comey only came forward to adress the media after they spread the leak.
Admittedly he should have also informed congress that Trump was also under investigation for colluding with a foreign state with credible evidence against him, but the FBI won’t reveal ongoing investigations unless Congress orders them to.
