(This post contains snark, humor, meta, pie and every other kind of of bothersome things. Proceed accordingly and carefully.)
At this point, the amount of excuses to explain away Hillary Clinton's loss is so lengthy, it would be a great premise for an entire encyclopedic revival. Good-luck Wikipedia. Many of these excuses are nothing but outright bullshit and attempts at deflection, but some did indeed have an impact in differing degrees on the outcome of the election. Since the election was so close, Clinton supporters often claim that all these "reasons" had an effect, but let's be honest... some were campaign crippling while others were simply annoyances that barely moved the dial. Then there are the triangulated talking-points from some useless neoliberal think-tanks... most belong in this pathetic category.
Without further ado, here is the list, sometimes sub-divided in order to classify and clarify the entire mess, remember this is primarily the talking points and excuses emanating from Clinton world. For the real reasons Hillary lost the election, look for my next posting The Real and Factual Reasons Hillary Clinton Lost the 2016 Election. Take a deep breath, and here we go:
Voters
Non-voters- Useless, lazy and uninformed, the Democrats use this group as a favorite all-time punching bag since it is easy to blame something that isn't quantifiable and can't defend itself. The cowards ambrosia.
Independents- Not Democrats, not in the Party, should have zero say in the Party's primary. The stale tactic of tacking rightward in order to attract this group, was tested, tried and failed. Again. To sum up: primary- boooo, go away. general- I've always loved you, why don't you love me back?
Democrats- 8-10% of Democrats that voted for Obama, switched and voted for Trump. Strong contender for "most ignored reason".
Republicans- Courted by using Trump's character as a disqualifier, and her neoliberalism as a plus. As expected by anyone with a minor in political science, the Republicans in the end came home and voted for their Party and the "real" conservative. Nice try corporatists.
Progressives- Democrats' favorite punching-bag, this election was no different. From disgruntled Bernie supporters, to Jill Stein voters, to people who stayed home, to even those who did support Hillary Clinton... it is always your fault. Always. Besides, where else are you going to go? (developing....)
Alt-Right voters- Though a factor, this group has been voting for Republicans for a long time now, and to finally realize that 5 to 10% of the US electorate is openly racist or bigoted...welcome to facts.
Jill Stein voters- See Progressives. How dare anyone campaign to Hillary's left? Possible Russian provocateurs.
Gary Johnson voters- Libertarian, conservatives and disgruntled center-right voters found solace in this candidate. Hillary believes erroneously that these voters would have switched to her if he wasn't around... which is complete and utter nonsense.
Men- Sexist and misogynistic, men never warmed to Hillary and obviously it is entirely their fault.
Women- That special place in hell is furnished and ready to go since around 35% of women rejected Hillary Clinton. This firewall was supposed to make-up for the lack of men, and could be the main reason Hillary lost the election. It turns out, women have wallets too... or purses.
African-Americans- Where did you go? Strongly courted in the primary, and thoroughly ignored during the general, another Clinton firewall that came crashing down. Turns out losing 5-10% of the African-American vote is a Democrat killer... but let's be honest, she was up against impossible Barack Obama numbers.
Hispanics and Latinos- Ay caramba... as many as 30% of Latinos found their conservative bonafides and voted for Trump, yet another group Hillary smugly thought she would sweep and didn't. Too bad primary Hillary didn't show up, she was caliente on immigration.
White Working-Class (WWC)- Racists, sexists, misogynists and rural idiots for voting Trump, all the while ignoring that the majority of this group voted for Obama, twice. Huh? Eerily close to the BernieBros definition...
Millennials- New name, same flavor of get these lazy kids off my lawn. A classic.
Seniors- Long lost to the mental anguish that is FOX News, this group keeps dying, and keeps voting Republican. There will soon be no more seniors (see: dying), and demographics will win the day.
Illegals- From foreigners to dead people, fake news polls show this group heavily went for Hillary Clinton and according to Donald Trump gave her the popular vote victory. This sentence is factual... and that should terrify all of us.
Bernie
The Primary- Usually a boring, mundane political process, this primary, which started with 5 of the strongest candidates in Democratic history, quickly weened to three, then two, was nothing but a Hillary dismantling from the Left that crippled her horribly for the general which she never fully recovered from... or she squeaked-by a victory against nobodies, with every odd in her favor. Tomato tomaaaaaato.
BernieBros- Sexist, misogynistic progressives who also harbor deep racist tendencies. Or a Bernie voter. One or the other, you figure out.
Messaging- Every day Bernie was out there filling stadiums and gyms, bashing the oligarchy, the establishment and everything wrong with America, all the while, delivering a real message of hope and change. Hillary and her supporters didn't like that, and still don't, even though they adopted most of Bernie's ideas into their platform, but shhh, don't tell anyone, or people might find out they made promises. Bernie had a strong message, and that hurt Hillary.
Violence- Right when Don the Con was starting to incite his folks to violence, Hillary and her folks thought that was a really nifty idea. So they started a narrative, with the help of some media and DNC friends that Bernie and his supporters were also turning violent. The whole episode was a big pile of shit, and permanently turned many on the left away from such odious tactics and the people peddling them. People don't vote for lying idiots.
Tactics- See above. Yes, Bernie pounded away at the fact that Hillary was probably corrupt, because she is, and that she was exactly the problem with American politics. Boy was he wrong! In the other corner we had Hillary with her cadre of slime operatives, hell, it was a hall-of-fame bipartisan lineup, and they delivered indeed. Though winning the primary with almost every dirty trick in the book, the divisions within the Democratic Party were sewn, and she never recovered from losing a good portion of the base, possibly something the Party might have done permanently. Big tent, my ass.
Progressivism- Bernie, though not perfect, is the closest we have seen in a very long time to what I would term a proper progressive. His ideas and plans to change America are actually not new but very old, tried and true, before the word socialism brought out the Commie boogeyman. To then have Hillary proclaim herself as "the progressive who gets things done", while having lived a fat, comfortable neoliberal life, is an insult to the word progressive. It also reminded anyone in the know that Hillary was going to run a bullshit campaign of optics and poll-driven data, all this in the beginning of a contested primary against a real progressive... Frankly, people who call both Clinton and Obama "progressives" have no idea what they are talking about, and are doing a great disservice to the Left. Just stop it. Stop it. Enough. Post-truth bullshit.
Sexism and Racism
Donald Trump- He belongs at the top of this list, tiny-hands down.
Sexism- There is absolutely no debate that Hillary being a woman faced sexism and misogyny, especially running against a proud serial-groper. However her blatant overuse of the woman card became in itself... sexist. There were points in this campaign which "being a woman" was the only plank in her platform, annoying most with its counter-productiveness. Obama had a similar, and perhaps steeper hill to climb, but to his credit, was much more tempered in his history-making messaging. Not Hillary, the message became so pervasive that it trickled down to her supporters who began using it as a cudgel of censorship and disagreement. Being called a sexist, particularly if you are a man, was en vogue. Not a vote grabber.
Racism- Way back in time, when the Democratic Primary headed towards the South, Hillary began securing many African-American endorsements and was building a real firewall against Bernie Sanders. However always in panic mode, she sent her civil-rights surrogates out to smear Bernie Sanders' involvement in the Civil Rights movement. Gross. One, those "leaders" should know better, and two, what the fuck Hillary. So let me get this straight, while Bernie was being arrested in Chicago for fighting for desegregated housing, and you were campaigning as a teen for that insane Republican Barry Goldwater, you come out as the civil rights hero? When people insult my intelligence, they usually lose my vote. Food for thought. Anyways, from Flint to hot-sauce, it all disappeared in the general, and so did between 5 to 10% of the African-American vote. Go figure.
Deplorables- Tapping her inner 47% Romney, Hillary decided it was really time to lash out at the Trump supporters, declaring half of them to be a "basket of deplorables". Hear that? It is the echoing sound of such a massive blunder it will endure to the end of times... Even though half of Trump's supporters were indeed deplorable, insulting a whole swath of the electorate is a suicidal proposition, no matter its veracity. We are violating some serious pee-wee level basics of politics 101 here, perhaps even kindergarten. All this coming from the most experienced, battle-hardened professional politician ever. Even her surrogates spun-away while shaking their heads in disbelief... Lost in all the madness is that Romney at least had the decency to say his comment in private, whereas Hillary's was staged, at a public rally, and said with such relish and gusto, meaning it was all planned which is a complete condemnation of the both the candidate and the entire Clinton team. All one can say is wow...
Emails and James Comey
Emails- At first I felt bad for Abuela Clinton, I too have family members that struggle with the intricacies of technology... then I remembered she has soooo many people working for her, from her personal own IT tech guy to an entire department that invented the internet. Weird that. Nevertheless the idea that a career politician should know the rules regarding the classification of materials, and how to handle them, should be a high priority. Oops I guess. Apology accepted mammie.
James Comey- Democrats have been nominating Republicans to positions that make their pants go poopey for a good 30 years now, and FBI Director is no job for cowards. Enter James Comey, hold-over from Bush Jr's posse of savants, and all seemed fine until the prospect of 8 more years of a Democrat woke him up. Interfering in an election would be a kind description for something I have never seen on this lovely little planet in my lifetime. Even with his terrible timing, the sequel letter to Congress, Rogue One, only confirmed to me his ill-intention. It all adds up to a big stinking pile of nothing in the end, and if I was Hillary, I'd be pissed too. Just saying. Thanks Obama.
the FBI- An extension of James Comey, they are probably all those people in the background doing all the actual work digging in Hillary's emails, at best. At worst, they are James the Hitman Comey's henchmen.
Russia
Vladimir Putin- The mastermind behind Hillary's fall, not to mention the man who is always supporting the wrong side in the Middle East, you can't make a better James Bond villain. Dreams of world domination? Check. Using any means necessary? Check. Shark tank? Check. Look, did Russia try to interfere in the US election? Of course, what kind of aspiring superpower do we take them for? It just finally worked for someone else, and that's what's really pissing us off...
Hackers- They should invent security against these people, because everyone knows the best wifi hot-spots are in Russia.
The Hacks- Watching the inner workings of the Clinton campaign through their emails was nothing but a constant reminder of why they didn't deserve our votes. Democrats tried to deflect from the actual content of the emails, so let me summarize: lies, more lies, money, mo' money, DNC collusion on all levels, arrogance, hubris, entitlement, and a general disdain for the voting public. No matter your political stripe it was hard not to walk away disgusted with Clinton, the DNC and the Democratic Party after reading the leaks. Way to go neoliberalism, it turns out nobody likes you.
Paid Trolls- Samantha Bee's show did a great segment on paid Russian trolls and how they baited Americans into online pie fights in order to influence their votes. How unseemly. Then we heard that the Clinton campaign did the exact same thing through their PACs. The winner, by knock-out, Russia.
Wikileaks- Of course Democrats, particularly under Obama, would be at war with Whistleblowers-R-Us. We like our post-truth.
Julian Assange- Vladimir Putin stooge. Rapist.
Hillary Clinton critics- Of all places, this belongs here. The people who got everything wrong last election like to accuse Hillary critics of being Russian agents, or, facilitating Russia's takeover of America. I kid you not, this is common-thought in the defeated wing of the Democratic Party... tin-foil hats included.
Media
Social media- Just like her emails, technological advances evade Hillary Clinton. Unfortunately for all of us, not Donald Trump. One Twitter account destroyed all the professionals that were in Clinton's entourage. Ouch.
Newspapers- Clinton had every single endorsement, and still lost. An indictment of two past-their-prime institutions watching their power wane away.
TV Media- Where to begin... this section could be its own book, so I will just say this. Like newspapers, every outlet had a clear biased-slant for Hillary, though fixated on Trump's antics. Months of watching pundits look at each other incredulously as history marched right pass them, was a complete waste of time. Trump surrogates challenging the premise of human intelligence on a nightly basis, was an insult to us all. Failure on all counts, of all media, they got everything WRONG.
Fake News- We have had "fake news" since "news" was invented, it just used to be more nuanced. With the advent of FOX, and the invention of the word truthiness, the rest is downhill history. Now facts are optional and everyone everywhere can have a platform. What could go wrong?
Facebook and Twitter- Facebook, for being a platform of spreading false news and hilarious memes, and Twitter, for allowing Donald Trump to use it. I thought Silicon Valley was pro-Democrat?
Online Media- The only group to not come out of this election completely discredited. Sometimes wrong, sometimes right, but one thing is for sure, way better than anything you can find on the tee-vee. Their existence is a fault to all establishment types including the left. A bright spot in a dim landscape.
Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy- 30 years of right-wing attacks have taken their toll on Hillary Clinton, regardless if they are true or not. BernieBros are newly-casted into this category, accused of right-wing shillery by suggesting that 1 billion dollars raised through the rich might be corruptible... out with you treasonous stain! Gotta love bipartisanship.
The System
The Electoral College- Whether you are a supporter or detractor of the Electoral College, the rules of the game were known before heading into the contest... a low-point of "sore-loserdom" is when you start complaining about the rules not being fair when you lose. Grow-up sport. Nevertheless Clinton pulled-in nearly 3 million votes more than the Donald something that will wax his hide for eternity, and the only thing Democrats can hang their hats on this election season. Joy.
Gerrymandering- A legitimate complaint when talking about the House, which has been in development for the better part of two decades, however where were those vaunted coattails that Hillary promised down-ballot candidates? It turns out nowhere to be found, and the cherry on-top are reports that little of the over-promised money never "trickled-down" to other candidates from the Clinton machine. Shocking.
Fundraising- Hillary had to spend too much time with donors raising money, taking her time away from crucial campaigning in swing-states, not to mention the horrible optics it provided. Even Clinton supporters admit this was a mistake, however lost in the tsunami of angst is the analysis of why such a thing happened. Simple. Clinton ran a campaign heavily-reliant on spending hundreds of millions of dollars on teevee advertisement to make-up for the many faults in both her candidacy and messaging. Hence the hundreds of fundraisers, PACS, dark money, double-talk, and good old pay-to-play and legalized bribery, all in the open for voters to watch a career politician do it right. Trump used a free Twitter account and promised to drain the swamp. #AsthekidssayFAIL #DraintheDemSwamp
Barack Obama
3rd Term- First heard during the primary, Hillary's use of "Obama's 3rd Term" became commonplace into the general election. Big mistake. Though people seem to like Obama, you would be hard pressed to find people content with his legislative achievements. Obamacare, once promised as the salve to cure all medical ills, has turned into the Heritage Foundation conservative stop-gap it always has been. The Iran deal? Cuban rapprochement? All could be a legacy move, but Republicans will have none of that, and I fully expect all three to be shredded beyond recognition. Apart from that people are hard-pressed to find anything else, positive that is. Guantanamo, Middle-East wars, Drone Wars, whistle-blower prosecution, surveillance state expansion, continued loss of rights, revolving-door of lobbyists, etc, etc, etc, etc... it seems his real legacy will be the continuation of the neoconservative-neoliberal war for resources, a policy that Hillary help implement under a Democrat, and was certainly going to continue and expand if she had won. A leading candidate for "least discussed reason" because, look at Obama's approval ratings! In the end, the voters wanted nothing to do with Hillary or a 3rd term of Obama, and for good reason. What a great guy though.
Conclusion
Not Guilty- So many data-driven little boxes, thrown in with a healthy spoon of willful ignorance and crazy, what you get encapsulates every single human being in America, no matter who you are, who you supported, or what you think. How convenient. This country failed Hillary Clinton, and that is the only conclusion that matters.
Crossposted at caucus99percent.com
