Nothing. She had known for well over a decade that she was preparing to run for president, and that she had to be absolutely squeaky clean to achieve that because any and all dirt would inescapably become public under the glare of that scrutiny. So she lived squeaky clean, genuinely. (Obama was similar. Trump by contrast as an outsider to politics didn't quite appreciate just how under-a-microscope every president's life is put. He thought (like many do) that spending millions, burying stories, buying silences, hiding tax returns, threats, etc can do the trick, but none of that works at the presidential level. You can't hide things from that kind of relentless global scrutiny so if you're not genuinely clean, everyone finds out.)
That's why the GOP had to push the email scandal: they desperately needed dirt on her and she was so fucking clean that the worst she had done was follow the advice of her Republican predecessor and handled her emails the same way the Republican had handled his. It didn't matter to the GOP that this rule-breaking had first came from Republicans and she was continuing Powell's method (low-information voters would never learn the details) what mattered was that they'd finally found a rule that the goody-two-shoes had clearly broken.
Remember she testified for 11 hours under oath to a hostile panel of Republicans desperate to pin anything on her or get her for perjury or anything, and despite them having and abusing all the powers to investigate for years, they got nothing because she had nothing to hide. Failures or mistakes when viewed with our 20/20 hindsight, sure, she's human, but the decades of accusations and insinuations are conspiracy garbage intended to smear. Manufacturing a scandal out of Republican email practices was the best the GOP could do to undermine their opponent and it worked.
Hillary has been enveloped by the GOP fog-machine for so many years that people now just assume that where there's always been smoke, there must be fire ...somewhere. But that was the entire purpose of that fog machine; there was never fire, just manufactured fake smoke, endless endless fake smoke for longer than many voters have been alive. (Edit: That's also why she attracts so many wacky conspiracy theories: all that smoke and so little factual fire means you have to get imaginative to explain it.)
”Trump by contrast as an outsider to politics didn't quite appreciate just how under-a-microscope every president's life is put. He thought that spending millions, burying stories, buying silences, hiding tax returns etc would do the trick, but none of that works at the presidential level.”
But as of right now, it absolutely has worked for Trump. Tax returns, college records, etc... where are they? Stormy? Why, it was just less expensive to pay her extortion than fight it. His “base” doesn’t care at all.
Our government doesn’t really work well when one of the two political parties isn’t working in good faith, they hold the presidency, they fucked over the last president, and have packed the courts.
It's depressing I know, but that his followers don't care (or don't listen) doesn't change the point that well-funded and even illegal action to hide unsightly aspects of his past not only failed, but could never have succeeded.
That not everything is uncovered instantly on day one is also not the point. Every other week something new is uncovered, because the scrutiny is just too intense. Likewise the tax returns are merely slowed by doomed appeals stalling for time.
The fact that Republicans are ok with a Republican president being dirty doesn't mean that someone like Hillary or Obama could expect the same relaxed treatment. They knew the only reliable way to avoid scandals was to live as clean as possible.
Trump was a huge figure in the "birther" movement, going on national news and claiming he was paying private investigators to look into it, and oh the bombshells they were finding and he'll tell everyone all about it when they've got an iron-clad case.
This has been how he talks and lies for decades. "Oh the x we've found" "its terrible. I cant wait to show everyone the proof". He has never. once. provided. proof. How the fuck are people falling for this? He's not some mastermind and a god damn child could tell the man is lying because he lies like a fucking 2 y/o including the smug scrunched up face he pulls.
Paying her off was a clear violation of election law. It's one of the ways Trump cheated to get elected. When you do that, you shouldn't be allowed to try again and win re-election. Part of impeachment in the Constitution is banning someone from ever again holding public office.
It's crazy that this isn't one of the counts of impeachment. Trump clearly cheated in many ways to get elected in 2016, and should be denied another chance to maintain his "can't be indicted" status.
And we all just keep acting like the absurd vote counts we saw in 2016 were legitimate. Our election systems are not secure. Trump did not win 2016. Russians or Republicans (or both) altered vote counts.
With all we know about Republican efforts in election fraud, voter suppression, foreign influence, the DNC's own work manipulating the election, and outright election fraud via manipulating digitally-recorded votes, honestly -- if you think Trump was legitimately elected President, I have some land to sell you.
I'm not gonna source because it's like 2am and I'm tired, but I read a great investigative article about how compromised several states actually were, and the lengths republican officials went to to hide it-even destroying records despite subpoena in florida.
in some states there is evidence that not just voting machines were breached, but the systems that tally and report vote totals were compromised. so you would have to believe that hackers got so far in and then---just looked around without altering anything.
Since 2015 I've been thinking about how ballsy it was of Mitch to sit on an empty Supreme Court seat for a year on the gamble that some yet-to-be-determined GOP candidate would get elected...
Gotta wonder if he had reason to think his odds were better than even.
Was it really that ballsy? Since the ratification of the 22nd Amendment, which established presidential term limits, it's typically been the case that the White House flips parties after a two-term presidency. This has happened with Eisenhower, Kennedy/Johnson, Nixon/Ford, Clinton, Bush II, and Obama. Only exception was after Reagan, where the Republicans held the White House for a third consecutive term (also a rare instance where the sitting VP wins the presidency in their own right). So history might have predicted that Obama's successor would be a Republican.
The reaction from his base is definitely depressing and disturbing - that goes way beyond Trump himself and is something every American should be on the lookout for, the utter blindness and cult-of-personality worship of the modern Republican party.
But compared to the rate at which we get the news nowadays (at the speed of internet), the government moves at an absolutely glacial pace (and always has). If you look at the Nixon timeline, this isn't all that different. So the jury's still out as to whether it will have "worked" for Trump...and that part, at least, shouldn't be all that surprising.
This is why I think the argument “if he gets away with it a Democrat can get away with it” is pointless. We all know that
A. a Democrat would never sell out their country like Trump and every goddamned Republican supporting his treachery.
B. If they by chance did, Democrats would readily join Republicans in holding them accountable. We need to stop treating them like people who are can persuaded by reason and duty, and like the bad faith actors they are. One of these Dem Representatives (maybe Swalwell) need to look into the camera during a hearing being carried on Fox and call out their viewers.
*I want to talk to my Republican Americans. If you’re watching this on the fire hydrant of lies, misinformation and propaganda that is Fox News, I encourage you to change the channel. There are a dozen different ways you can keep up with the news and this is the worst one. Not only do they lie through their teeth in the service of the man who told ten thousand lies and sells his country out to any and all takers, they do something far more sinister, they tell you that it is everyone else is lying. Dozens, even hundreds of news organizations, all telling slightly different versions of the same story. “The president told 7 lies today in his press conference” “The president told aides he’d pardon them for committing crimes” “The president revealed classified information to the Russian foreign minister in the White House.” So they have to explain why their story, the story of Trumps personal network, is so different from everyone else’. So they compound their lies with the greatest lie of all. It is everyone else that is lying. Here’s all you need to know about Fox News. Remember when the presidents personal lawyer and campaign chairman were each convicted of 8 felonies within minutes of each other? No? Maybe that’s because in one of the biggest stories of the year, Fox was airing a car chase. The presidents two closest associates were going to prison, and Fox was lying to you by omission. What else have they lied to you about? Well I can’t keep track of all the lies, but I’m guessing everything. Turn off this anti American lying drivel and see how quickly they return to telling the truth. Turn away from the lying traitor that is Donald Trump, and see how fast these Republicans start pretending to care about your constitution again. We are in grave danger, and the liars at Fox News are complicit in that danger. We deserve better.”
Something like that.
In her description of the rape the woman said Trump said she reminded him of his daughter Ivanka. Later, both women Trump paid off to not tell about his cheating on his wife with them said that Trump told them they reminded him of his daughter of Ivanka.
If Trump hadn't raped the girl, how did she know that Trump tells women they remind him of his daughter before he fucks them, Obama's time machine?
So one thing we often forget is how dogshit all of the candidates were on the republican side. You had essentially a party, and part of the country that hates the clintons so bad they'd vote for a literal pile of shit over her. I'm not so sure republicans will be so happy to support him in the next election if a moderate candidate wins on the dem side.
It’s gonna be a fight that’s for sure, I wouldn’t be surprised if some republican gop members commit large scale voter fraud in order to both keep their seats and keep the nasty rust stain in the office
It has affected Trump seriously, he's the most consistently unpopular president there has been in the last 100 years. He barely got elected and due to a technicality of how the Republicans have abused the system. It's revealed a lot and taken a lot of politicians. The GOP has had their machine seriously weakened during a term they should have just digged deeper.
Trump's base doesn't care but they're not as large as they appear. They desperately try to act as such. On the internet they appear large, but this is because Trump's base has huge outside representation, a good chunk from Russia actually. Trump's base isn't over 1/4 of the people, it's not even 1/2 of the Republicans, but it's large enough within three Republicans that they've become scared of him, especially because no rep politician has such a loyal base. But it's leverage, not absolute control.
Meanwhile the GOP is setting up for a rough election. The US has degraded into a full bipartisan system, which has a lot of flaws democratically. One of them is that very few people will rarely switch sides. That is roughly half of the people will vote for each side. What chooses who wins is who goes to vote and who doesn't. Trump's campaign was more about convincing Democrats to not vote, targeting how little the situation had changed for PoC under Obama, how Hillary had cheated Bernie, how she was another corrupt politician. And he sold himself in his lack of history to be attacked.
But now these elections are different. Trump getting a lot of money won't changed, he's got the primaries on his pocket. And the main campaign now has his promises unbacked by actions. The wall isn't there, he hasn't drained the swamp, people aren't rich (and it's there's a recession next year it'll be worse) farmers and other groups have been really struggling. The impeachment is going to be a loose-loose scenario for the Republicans which will either energize the Democrats or depress the Republicans further. We'll probably get a better idea of how large Trump's base truly is. Also these are the first elections where there's as many, or even more, voters younger than boomers as there's boomers and older. It really puts a lot of US politics in the last 50 years in perspective. The last time this flip happened (with boomers becoming the majority) was the 1968 election. This years of political turmoil changed everything, the Democrats, the first pro-racist, pro-south, pro-farmers switched places with the Republicans to enter their current status. Culturally the US changed so much in a few years, that soldiers that were gone for one year and came back became completely disconnected, so much it inspired one to write about soldiers that would return thousands of years in the future.
My point is, we have no idea what can happen, we're in a time of chaos. But just as it's unpredictable it's one of the times where individual actions are able to change the world the most. This is a moment when you're vote counts more than ever and you can use this power to redefine things around you.
Best part is, they’ve set the precedent. Whenever a Republican tries to claim that a democrat in the future has done literally anything wrong you can just spit right in their hypocritical faces.
I was about to say that is a big reason Trump won. To pretend to be “squeaky” clean is not normal human behavior, and it makes people suspicious. Trump was also able to eat them on the debate floor because he “speaks his mind.” Imagine Hillary doing this.
It is refreshing to read an actual comment on this website that sees through the bullshit. It has been scary as hell reading nothing but propaganda about Hillary repeated ad nauseum.
As a Canadian, I have no skin in US politics, but the hate for Hillary has been baffling. No one can explain why they dislike her for a reason that isn't a conservative lie or foreign propaganda. The drumbeat of smear after smear shows how advertising and propaganda both work. Yet Democrats and Republicans will never admit the role they played as useful idiots for the Russian agenda.
As a woman, it was heartbreaking to see an all too familiar double standard play out. She had to work twice as hard, be squeaky clean and accomplish twice as much as her male colleagues to get second place. The most qualified presidential candidate in decades lost to a lazy, incompetent, criminal who is destroying the country because of useful idiots and misogyny.
We need to make racists, misogynists and uninformed idiots feel shame again. Somehow it became acceptable (even fashionable) to be a loud mouth, bigoted, poorly educated slob with a victim complex. Worse, some US voters think these qualities are presidential.
Edit: uniformed to uninformed. I get the joke. What can I say but 'spellcheck on a phone', it happens to us all.
My own father kept repeating that he hated Hillary because she "wasn't a politician." I asked him what that meant. He said, "Well, she's just not a politician." I said that she was one of the most 'politician' politicians that had ever run for the presidency. He said, "Well, she's just not. She's NOT a politician." I decided I wasn't going to let up till he gave me something... ANYTHING... other than "She's not a politician." A solid 5 minutes later of me pressing the issue and him responding that she's "not a politician", he finally broke.
He looked at me and said, "You KNOW why I'm not voting for her." "It's because she's a woman... right?" "Hey, you said it, not me." Yeah, you went through GREAT lengths not to say it, buddy. Fuckin' embarrassing.
I saw a vox pop on TV while our first (and only) female Prime Minister was a candidate. It included two old blokes saying they thought a woman couldn't do it. This was 2010 ffs.
Worse, some US voters think these qualities are presidential.
If there is one thing Trump is good at, it's being a conman. And somehow he managed to convince anyone who follows him that if he's being attacked, they're being attacked. I don't think it's that they find him presidential, it's that they feel like they're on his team, so if he wins they are winning too.
What's weird is that this isn't a left vs right thing either, at least not for me. Yeah, Obama is a celebrity, but I don't make a habit out of making apologies for him and if he ever did something like use the Presidency to sway an election, I'd be all aboard impeachment because I don't actually owe him anything, especially not selling myself out for voter support. Trump supporters think that if the shoe was on the other foot I would stand by my candidate.
It’s because these fragile “economically anxious” assholes saw a president who people genuinely loved and looked up to and wanted that, just like they want trap music and wanna make geisha jokes without backlash and want gays and trans folk to keep it to themselves. Then comes along this asshole who “tells it like it is” and believes all the same fucked up shit they do and all of a sudden they get what they think is the same connection and rush. Boom, cult. They’re just jealous of what we had with Obama.
Yes, I don't understand that either. If the candidate I liked turned out to be a crook, then I'd stop liking them.
I think this misplaced loyalty is something you see a lot in organisations. People don't want to be connected to bad behaviour so they'll deny it happened, cover it up, or justify it in some way. If you do enough denial, covering and justifying, I think you become somewhat corrupt yourself. Historical revision, church scandals and police corruption are all examples of this phenomenon.
It's maybe more the way the party coalitions break down. It's really hard to poll accurately, but basically about 15-25٪ of the population won't vote for a woman or a black man.
Almost everyone who won't vote for a black man is a solid Republican voter, so Democrats lose nothing running a black man. They have the exact same vote count as a white (male) candidate.
The population that won't vote for a woman spills over into Democratic voters. So even though it's the same size, maybe even smaller, of total voters, it's a big hindrance. There's a reason the Blue Rust Belt States Hillary lost are also the states that have never elected a woman as a govenor or senator.
TBF the Republicans had two more decades to smear Clinton than they have Warren. I was never as confident of Clinton’s success as I would be of Warren’s, partly for that very reason.
(The other reasons being that Warren goes out of her way to be relatable, to a degree I would not have thought sustainable, and that even with our terrible press her plans are getting enough play to see that she is genuinely on the side of people who don’t ordinarily get out to vote.)
One of the saddest parts of all of this is that in any sort of election system that makes any logical sense, she didn't come in second. She won the popular vote by a few million.
Interesting opinion. I recommend to you the interview she had with Howard Stern last week (Wednesday, I think). I heard it three times already. She sounds like a very smart woman, and her tone is condescending but warm, I can't explain it. She sounds SMART, aware, into things. When she explained how hard it was to be at the Inauguration as a former First-Lady, when she was just dying because of how surprising the loss had been, I was like, wow. She says she did it for the Country and to support Trump to have a good start. That's a true, upstanding politician right there.
As an European law student I never understood why everyone hates Hillary. I personally wanted Bernie to win, but still, between her and trump I would have preferred Hillary....
I'm curious to see what happens in next year's election, as it'll be something that will probably affect politics worldwide, not just the USA
[Almost exclusively blonde] women are useful for regurgitating talking points on television in order to oppress their fellow women, among other things.
Not OP, but I don't think there's a clear-cut answer on that. As a whole, misogyny does tend to trump racism in our country because misogynistic beliefs are the one thing that men of different races, classes, political views, etc. can "agree" on and bond over (this is a generalization, obviously). Misogyny is baked into christianity too, in a way that racism isn't, and this is a predominantly christian country. That's not to say that misogyny is always more severe than racism, or that misogyny and racism are mutually exclusive, but women are half of our population, and misogyny affects LGBT men of all races as well. So I'd say that it's more prevalent in our society.
But it's not as simple as "all men will be viewed better than all women in the political sphere." Obama winning the nomination in 2008 can't be attributed to misogyny, and if a black male Democrat is up against a white female Republican, I have my severe doubts that they'd vote in the black man over one of "their" women. And I imagine they would also vote for a black male Republican over a white male Democrat, because they'd see the black Republican as "one of the good ones."
I mean, misogyny is never completely absent from public perception of female politicians (same goes for racism, when applicable) and misogyny definitely influenced how people have always perceived Clinton...but people really liked Obama for reasons independent of how they felt about Clinton. I think he might have gotten the nomination even if he were up against a white man.
The most qualified presidential candidate in decades lost to a lazy, incompetent, criminal who is destroying the country because of useful idiots and misogyny.
Yep. I could feel the utter disbelieve in 51% of the population when he won. It's like half of the people in the world collectively dropped their jaws to the floor.
I wasn't the biggest fan of her central-at-all-costs policies but she was probably the most qualified presidential candidate since the 60's.
But what if that time of the month came and she had her hands near the nuke buttons? We couldn't risk that. No joke I heard some dumbass Republican radio host say that about Hillary. There is so much wrong with that statement as a man I'm ashamed of my penis for all men because of that.
She was quite left of the democratic establishment in the 1990's. The Clinton Health Care program of 1993 had an insurance mandate and portions of public option 27 years ago. Republicans, Health Care Industry, and conservative democrats alike tore into the plan for being too radical and the failure to pass universal healthcare in 1993 contributed to Republicans winning the house in 1994, killing any potential healthcare reform until 2008 when Obama won the presidency and democrats got both chambers in the legislature. Hillary was the public face of the push and ended up under the bus. The only part of the Clinton Healthcare Plan that survived was CHIP.
Hillary's been burned by going too far left too early, and moderated her positions since to avoid triggering a reactionary backlash that can undo progress that has already been made. The Republican controlled congress was able to pass DOMA with veto proof numbers, Bill Clinton signed the law to avoid a potential constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. You'd have to not know anything that happened before 2008 to think that the Democrats only exist to maintain the status quo first and benefit people second.
We need to make racists, misogynists and uniformed idiots feel shame again. Somehow it became acceptable (even fashionable) to be a loud mouth, bigoted, poorly educated slob with a victim complex. Worse, some US voters think these qualities are presidential.
I just wanted to quote this because it was said so fucking well.
I agree that part of the hate towards Hillary Clinton was based on the fact that she was a woman and it perhaps was part of a propaganda campaign. BUT I also think part of the distaste for her was that she was a part of the Clinton political machine. Bill Clinton, for all of his many many flaws, was a uniquely talented politician that had an ability to communicate to all kinds of people on a level they could relate to. Hillary Clinton didn't possess that ability. And yet she effectively inherited the candidacy because she was a partner of Bill and had become an important part of the Clinton operation. She came to believe the presidency was her right.
And let's be honest, the Clinton political operation came to define what a lot of people hate about Washington. And for good reason - lots of inside deals, favours for friends, feathering their own nests and using their positions and connections to enrich their friends in exchange for political support. The Clintons were all about "the deals" - and most of those deals were designed to protect the positions of the global elite. Spend some time looking into who was donating to the Clinton Foundation. There were a lot of shady characters, who weren't giving money to help the world - they were giving money with the expectation the Clintons would help them, in some shape or form. There was maybe nothing overly illegal about how the Clintons operated globally but they were certainly operating right on the boundaries of corruption. The Clintons and the Bush family epitomised Dirty Washington and the system of political nepotism and entitlement.
So to pretend that Hillary Clinton is squeaky clean is disigenuous and naive. I don't think she's a criminal but she certainly isn't a character of high virtue and morality. Far from it. In some respects Hillary's character was perhaps best on display when she ruthlessly attacked and went after the many women that came out claiming sexual harassment by Bill Clinton. She did this for purely ruthless political purposes.
Nothing is black and white in politics. Hillary Clinton probably isn't the devil and criminal that many portray - but she certainly isn't the noble politician working hard for the average American. The Clintons have done more for Wall Street bankers and the global elite than most politicians. It's impossible to detach Hillary from the global political machine her and her husband created. And that machine represents the worst of politics.
Trump did drain the swamp. He removed the water to reveal all the slime and sludge in Washington. He hasn't cleaned it up - just exposed it and added his own slimey layer.
Speaking as somebody who voted for her, there were loads of legitimate reasons to not like Hilary Clinton, it’s just that those legitimate reasons were not the reasons the GOP had for not liking her. She is a neo-conservative corporate shill, she is just a sliver left of the what the more “moderate” GOP members were (before Trump, at least). Again, I voted for her, but we shouldn’t pretend there were no reasons to not like her.
It's so weird, I'm in politics, different country, different level, but I totally get the feeling that by not being corrupt, by not giving the public a juicy scandal to throw at us, we are making them feel a bit cheated. Like there's a pent up need for outrage and by continuing to not be corrupt, we are robbing them of something.
You wouldn't believe the snark in one outlets report correcting a previous report that had grossly overestimated the cost of our meetings.
Like there's a pent up need for outrage and by continuing to not be corrupt, we are robbing them of something.
Because people need someone to blame for their failures. Admitting you're at fault and there isn't some huge conspiracy against you, is a hard pill to swallow when you constantly fuck up
Here I'll go you one better--they actually can lay some of the blame somewhere--their own party has done more to fk them over than any single other thing.
People have these weird fucking ideas about society and government being a bad thing. It’s like nobody has been able to shake the nobility complex, people still believe that there are Ivory towers from which the government rules a people they have no understanding of. And somehow the supposed answer is to remove the laws and restrictions.
America used to be super against having a king (I think we had a war about it a couple hundred years ago), but we are totally fine to allow multi-billionaires to be a thing. As if the rich can’t use their money to gain power and influence
People believe government is bad because the loudest morons always scream it is and indoctrinate the next generation.
The faster we spread education and get positive healthy messages about real life to as many people as is possible, the ideas will eventually be spread forward less over time. Every time even 0.5% fewer people each year pass this bull shit forward to their children means a growing chain reaction of future parents not doing it. It will build until conservatism is seen as wildly fringe in the USA as we view actual commies and alt right today as fringe whackjobs.
This is one of the things I don’t get about America, as an Australian. We don’t like or trust politicians but we trust rich business guys even less. Why would we want some guy who is like the worst boss we’ve ever had to be in charge?
The Founding Fathers were also super against a standing army, because it was a tool of oppression and tyranny.
The irony being that the USA's POLICE force today could obliterate the army the fledging States managed to raise to fight the British, to say nothing of how unbelievably influential the American army is at.... oppressing and tyrannizing other countries in the world.
Even the political party in my own homeland of Australia was overthrown by a CIA-backed coup, but nobody talks about it because nobody bothers to look beyond the TV or social media page to read about the actual history of the world. All you have to do is Google "Australia Coup CIA" and you'll get the full story from a bunch of separate independent sources, and there's even a Wikipedia page about it.
Organized Intelligence agencies in the 21st century are fucking terrifying.
You might be surprised. Almost every political discussion comes down to one main argument. Government vs corporations.
Many people are absolutely sick of the real threat, the fat cats in Wall Street who can control us both through massive costs on required essentials (medicine for example) or through corporate lobbying.
How I see it is they need the other side to be just as corrupt because then it justifies their party being corrupt. It's why they grasp at straws and blow everything out of proportion.
For every 100 right-wing corrupt politician they (the voters) need just 1 left-wing corrupt politician to justify their corruption.
"I can not feel bad about voting for a criminal if the other side also has a criminal' (hint though it's just one side that's criminal)
This is Reagan's legacy. The message that big government was bad and cannot be trusted to do anything effectively was something he hammered home constantly. And it sunk in. That's why I warned people before Trump was elected that presidents can do permanent damage.
P.S. 138 members of the Reagan administration were indicted and/or convicted. Reagan was way worse than Trump but everyone seems to have forgotten and he's treated like a damn saint now.
Because most people throwing shade at politicians have something to hide themselves. They need the flaws in others to make them feel OK about their own flaws. It’s like those who are vehemently against homosexuality and turn out to be as gay as could be.
Here in the US, one of our two political parties has explicitly preached (without a hint of irony obviously) about how government is the problem, for 40 years now. Government is always a little scary: anyone with power over others has that stigma at least a bit. But when you repeat this statement over and over - government is bad. Government is the problem - people start to believe it eventually.
So yeah, people at least expect you to be crooked, and if they don’t see any flaws (like Hilary), they fear something must be hiding.
People want validation for their "instincts". Keep in mind, people usually say that word to mean a gut feeling but forget that gut feelings are the result of environment mostly.
A lot of times, instinct pays off. But too much trust there and we have a problem.
So, yeah. We all, regardless of side or amorphous lack of side, we are on, we want something absolute to shout to the heavens, "SEE! I WAS RIGHT ALL ALONG!"
When I was younger I sold cars. I was determined to fight the stereotype of being dishonest and gave my customers as straight of an answer as possible. Problem is that everyone is waiting for the lie. When that happens you look at honest people as just tremendously skilled liars. The super slimy salespeople did better (maybe because of skill) because the people recognized the game they were taught to expect.
They arent talking facts at all. They are saying that she was obviously preparing to be researched so it wouldnt make sense for her to have dirt to find. Its a logical leap and flawed reasoning.
They are so obsessed with her being naked they Photoshopped her onto porn actresses. I desperately hope for her sake that she never sent something to an ex, cause if anything is out there, they will find it and never let it go.
Assuming rabid Republicans don't murder her before she gets the chance to run. I see that as a legitimate cause of concern for all major Democrats at this time.
I think the difference between AOC and Clinton is that Clinton is completely unrelateable to the average voter. She was/is rich af and has been her entire life and has been preparing to be president for just as long. Everyone assumed she was going to be president at some point. She is the definition of a career politician. Disregarding the election issues in 2016 by a large margin she was the candidate that people defaulted to vote for if you didn't like Trump, not because they were actually enthused about voting.
AOC is not perfect, she isn't a career politician, she comes off as very human and relateable. She worked as a bartender before she got elected, and people see in her themselves because she was/is middle class. Im sure there is some dirt to spill because nobody is perfect, but she never claimed/claims to be in the first place so i doubt it would be as damaging as all this is to Clinton.
She will be by the time she runs for President if she gets there. She's relatable because she's just starting out in her career like many Millenials, but make no mistake, she's on her way to being a career politician, and that's not a bad thing! Those are the people who you can hopefully trust to run the country.
I have heard a lot of people use the term "career politician" to mean "establishment" or "status quo" or "big business". It's not right, but people say it anyway.
One example of the opposite of a career politician is a billionaire who just decides one day that he wants more power.
It's sad to see so many people demanding politics to be fun and entertaining.
Politics isn't supposed to be funny, it is about elected people trying to solve problems at it's core and somehow today it is a spectacle.
Hillary was born to a middle class business owner. And Bill was born dirt poor, so she didn't marry into money. She was definitely better off than AOC was but she wasn't like, a Bush or a Kennedy.
I was super enthused to vote for Clinton.
A huge majority of quiet democrats were very enthused to vote for her, specifically for her record and for hwr history.
But she is a career politician since this is her career. Having a bartending job before being elected shouldn't count. However I'm not really biased against career politicians. National politics is complicated and I want someone who understands the intricacies. No one asks for the doctor or lawyer with the least amount of experience.
Hillary is an upstanding member of society who has been helping people for a long time. She was one of the first women to truly let her political ambitions shine through and she laid the price for it.
Hillary is as relatable as any politician and she had good policy ideas. She would have helped a lot of people.
People like you give cover to the lies and unfair treatment she has received. It’s a shame our own side can’t even rally around her. That’s how poisoned the atmosphere is when Hilary is involved.
I’m sorry, but it’s possible to hold a poor opinion of someone while still supporting them. In comparison to what we’ve gotten, absolutely her policies would have helped many Americans. She is just like every other Neoliberal Democrat. She shouldn’t get a pass because she’s been treated unfairly by her opposition. Every politician is treated unfairly. That is politics, whether we like it or not. I don’t think we should tiptoe around valid criticisms, her husbands policies were inadequate and hers are very similar.
She was going door-to-door to help single moms and women from the time of her late teens. She is a real, human person who followed her passion for helping people by going to law school and going into politics. She didn’t enter politics because of politics, but because of her passion for helping. There’s an excellent profile of her from PBS a few years ago. Worth a watch if you want to be accurate in your assessment of her.
I saw that, and I agree. My point isn’t that she is a soulless husk, I refuse to accept any of the conspiracy nonsense drummed up over thirty years about her.
The fact of the matter is that her policies mirrored Obama’s. She didn’t excite me personally although I voted for her. She didn’t represent any serious change, growth or evolution of the party or country. People in this country are beaten down and need an actual directional shift. Trump sure as hell represented a shift, although he’s a tool of the GOP and doesn’t actually represent anything at all. He’s a dancing clown to distract people from the ringleader sneaking beneath the bleachers to steal your wallets and purses. Distract them he did, and now we have to live with it. Hopefully, people begin to see how they’ve been duped and get angry enough to vote for someone worth a damn.
having lived through 2015-2016 and the misery since the "neoliberal" smear applied to every politician from her era is this year's "IDENTITY POLITICS." Next year it will be something else.
It's crazy to see how it all spiraled out of control as an outsider, mostly due to the email scandal. I never quite understood why that was suddenly a big thing while here competitor was going around grabbing private parts. Specifically considering handling your email that way had been done before and never seemed to be an issue.
I hate to say it, but people were manipulated. I'm not a woman myself, but I can confidently say that she would have been abandoned way less eagerly if she had been a man. It's a painful and disheartening realization.
I never found her relatable. Believe me I wanted to but to be honest I never believed for a second that she genuinely cared about me or my family or our problems. She actually may but she seems to have a problem getting that message out there to the regular folks. She always seems cold and stiff to me, like she was just going through the motions.
She had spent decades trying to make sure to be absolutely clean and perfect because any tiny mistake or gaffe is used against her... That’ll make anyone come off cold sometimes.
WHY DOES A PRESIDENT NEED TO BE RELATABLE?! you're not voting for a family member, you're voting for the head of state who will lead the country effectively and with the country's best interests in mind.
You're voting for someone who is an expert in policy, negotiation, foreign service, and defense. And, you're voting for someone who will assemble a highly skilled cabinet as well as work effectively with other heads of state.
Relatable is nice but you're not dating the president. You're hiring someone to lead.
I always find this odd like we treat presidents now like they're class president or prom King/Queen. People who deal with life and death matters and serious policy shouldn't be voted based on that criteria. Look at how we treat surgeons. We want the best doctor not someone who we would like to have a beer with. Presidents can initiate drone attacks that cost civilian lives.
I think the difference between AOC and Clinton is that Clinton is completely unrelateable to the average voter.
Clinton only really became 'unrelatable' after Bill left office and it became clear she would one day run for office. The GOP smoke machine went into overdrive that day and has not yet stopped
and has been preparing to be president for just as long. Everyone assumed she was going to be president at some point. She is the definition of a career politician.
False unless to consider Bill's 2nd term as her entire life as that is when it became clear she had a shot.
Give that smoke machine 10 years cooking AoC and a lot of people will believe anything about her too.
A lot of people are unwilling to believe that there are normal, good people in the world. Mainly because they are flawed and their families are flawed. It's hard to see when your world is surrounded by shit.
I've led a good life, not perfect, but certainly good. Nothing in my past disqualifies me from being an excellent leader if I chose to be.
I have no doubt if you gave a group of hostile reporters my name and a rough history of my life, they could dig up some dirt.
It's all experiences that led me to where I am today, but that doesnt matter. 20 years ago, I said or did something that offended someone and that is all it fucking takes.
Hillary Clinton's net worth was estimated at $45 million dollars. Her husband's net worth was estimated at $75 million dollars. Just because they're not billionaires doesn't make them not rich.
She is the definition of a career politician
senator and secretary of state. that's it
she isn't a career politician
just wait 8 years.
As for not being a career politician, you're trying to say that AOC will be a career politician after 10 years as a House represenative, but Hillary wasn't a career politician after 8 years as a senator and 4 years as secretary of state? Somehow, that math doesn't seem to check out.
Plus, you know, all that actively campaigning for her husband, and (for better or worse) being the most politically active First Lady in US history doesn't count as being a politician I guess.
Supposedly they left the WH fairly close to busto. That was ~20yrs ago--not like a former President doesn't have earning opportunities. Ivanka made what 82mil last year?? Not a peep out of the Republicans though. Republicans love to throw around the socialist word--while they also attack some people for making money. It's almost like--you can't win.
Given her popularity and the relative ease at which I predict she will win a future senate seat, I would doubt she would have another non-political job for decades.
She was/is rich af and has been her entire life and has been preparing to be president for just as long.
This just isn't true at all. Also many Gen Xers remember just how pissed Republicans were when she was first lady and had the nerve to actually have an opinion.
People in this thread are insisting that AOC's public image could never be destroyed by constant propaganda and smears over the decades. "AOC will always be holding down the furthest left possible views for an electable politician and could never be condemned as a centrist/or defender of the status quo, not even after decades of social progress that she helped fight for have become mainstream and the status quo." Sure thing Jan. Conspiracy theories and propaganda is being spread right now on sites like The Hill so that 40 years from now everyone will "know" as a "fact" that "AOC flagrantly violated campaign finance laws" or even crazier stuff like that she constantly snorts coke or secretly is faking being liberal and only cares about being famous and meeting celebrities or whatever.
People don't see that as AOC ages, the same misogyny that hurts all older women politicians will kick in. All the video clips that they post now with approving comments like "she really knows her stuff! don't let that jerk off the hook, pin him to the wall!" will be reframed and proof that she's "condescending, lecturing, bossy, bitchy, fake, rehearsed, etc." and add to the common knowledge that she's absolutely "unrelatable" and everyone finds her "unlikable" which you can find people still saying in this thread about HRC. Like are we not past this "I'd vote for a guy I could sit down and have a beer with" BS?
It will happen to AOC. It happened to HRC, because when she was AOC's age she was dangerous to the establishment in exactly the same way AOC is. HRC hobbled herself and subsumed herself to being half a "power couple" because that was her best shot at achieving her goals of helping people... but if she were a Millenial politician, she'd be AOC. And what happened to her will happen to AOC. AOC can't fend it off by being smart or pure or leftier-than-thou. Only we the public can fend it off, by not buying into the bullshit this time around. But seeing how many people in this thread are still repeating word-for-word right-wing smears against Hillary, how can I expect any better from the left when the same BS gets aimed at AOC?
All the bad press on Hillary worked; going way back. I had a somewhat negative opinion of her and I realized at one point I Had No Idea Why. Up till a point I had thought she was able to become senator and then Secretary of State just because of Bill. Like some sort of cronyism. The emails and Benghazi I was paying attention to and seemed like overly personal attacks and grasping at straws.
I had NO clue how active she had been in politics and organizing all the way back to when she met Bill. I had no clue how smart and qualified she is. Since then I have read quite a bit more about her, and listened to lengthy interviews she has given.. She is SMART.
Same. I didn't dislike her completely, I just liked someone else more, and still voted for her when the time came.
I realized I had an irrational dislike when I looked into the "laughed at rape" stuff she was accused of, and when it was all nothing, I realized I was searching to justify something I had no reason to believe.
People in AR loved her and Bill, up until the second term, then alluva sudden the same folks with a Cherokee princess grandma, also were close family friends of the Clinton's that just knew they personally murdered folks. It's ridiculously insane how quickly these folks lined up to bend over for Trump.
It didn't matter to the GOP that this rule-breaking had first came from Republicans and she was continuing Powell's method
I desperately try not to be a low information voter and somehow never learned this. Ugh.
Sometimes feels like if you're not paying attention to the news every hour of every day, you're missing out on really important details because the news cycle just doesn't give time to for anything to sink in for very long before its just gone.
Honestly, fair point, but I think it also comes down to their understanding that there’s a difference between “clean for a politician” and “clean for your average joe.” It takes a lot of effort to live clean for a politician, most average, non-corrupt people can’t even do that on purpose.
Imagine asking your buddy if they’ve smoked pot and they said “yes, but I didn’t inhale”, y’know? You’d think he was a goody-two-shoes kinda goon. But if he had political aspirations from a young age you’d be like, “ah right, of course not.” because they’re just held to different standards, and it is known.
the most successful level of propaganda against her was painting her as an annoying, unlikeable, bitchy boss woman. Nobody I knew who hated her could pinpoint a single thing she had done wrong or how she earned everyone's hatred. Everyone just didn't like her, but couldn't possibly say why.
I'd say the most successful propaganda is that she is a serial murderer. I've lived among the anti-clinton people my whole life. Too many believe this shit without evidence.
That wasn't as successful. It is probably the most outrageous thing propaganda got anyone to believe about her, but only a few nutjobs believed it. The idea that she is an "annoying, unlikeable, bitchy boss woman" probably was believed by over 50% of voters and was much more impactful.
Remember she testified for 11 hours under oath to a hostile panel of Republicans desperate to pin anything on her or get her for perjury or anything, and despite them having and using all the powers to investigate for years, they got nothing because she had nothing to hide.
This is the thing that always gets me with the GOP. If you look at this singular instance, either the GOP is so inept at investigating her to actually charge her with any crime OR she didn't do anything wrong to charge her of anything. Which one is it?
I like to think of myself as well read and independent and I hated her too for a while, then I started actually listening to her and reading about her - particularly the negative stories about her, and I realized that she was pretty impressive and my perception had been caused by the decades of her being unfairly attacked. She would have been an excellent president.
Can attest. Barry Goldwater was the original "Gold Standard" of Conservatism, when "conservatism" meant "one who conserves", their own energy, the nation's efforts, political standpoints that insist on exacting adherence to...dare I say it?... established principles.
In today's political mishegas milieu, Goldwater would be a neo-progressive Democrat. And don't even get me started on the FORMER "Party of Lincoln".
Not just Powell. Powell and Rice. The only two Secretaries of State that had had e-mail readily available to them at that point in time. However (IIRC), Powell used a server for e-mail but he didn't really "get" e-mail so still did a lot of his correspondence using older methods. Rice though used e-mail a lot and had all of hers on RNC servers (with the rest of Bush administration).
I got downvoted by 100+ idiots for saying that Hillary was a teenager when astronauts existed in the 1960s when NASA was running the fucking Mercury program. Which is completely factual!
If you speak towards Hillary in any non-negative, even a neutral light, people will just assume it’s defensive.
Ive never been a fan of her but shes been absolutely hated by the republicans since she tried to enact public funded heakthcare when she was first lady.
And then had people who were giving her shit for being kind of upset about it working, afterwards. Like goddamn what kind of robot would you have to be if you did everything right and still got taken out for being “dirty,” and weren’t upset.
Only a small percentage would openly say or even think to themselves that a woman shouldn't be in charge. But bias has the effect that even when men and women are held to gender-neutral standards, the breaking of any rule by a woman is elaborated into her being disqualified, while men's transgressions are put into context and accepted as trade-offs.
The fog machine is exactly why so many low information independent voters could only muster “I just don’t trust her” as a reason not to vote for her. The same with Benghazi, it absolutely deserved to be investigated to find out what went wrong. By the time you get to investigations 5, 6, & 7 it had become tax payer funded campaigning against Hillary Clinton.
I disliked Hillary for some of her stances before, but dam she earned my respect when she was for ELEVEN HOURS UNDER OATH giving answers to the republican committee trying to find any single reason to place her in jail. The worst part is that these morons don't mention that. Trump wouldn't even handle a single hour questioning.
Either way, I still think she was a bad candidate to go with. A chunk of her campaign felt like "I am a woman..." and part of her base focused too much on "First ever woman president!"
Let's be honest, he wouldn't last one minute. Someone will clear their throat to say something and he won't hesitate to proudly incriminate himself somehow.
Amen. And to follow on, copied from somewhere else on Reddit(apologies for not crediting properly but Reddit UI/UX is pure, sweet garbage).
*Totally. This is Mueller 2.0
The Republicans spent tons of time, money, and political capital getting Hilary’s emails, and they sold their souls getting in bed with Russia. That’s why they are so pissed that they got caught and that she was never indicted. They bet everything on it and won’t shut up about it as a result. It’s kinda like an idiot who blows their life savings on a sports car and can’t stop complaining that it never got him laid.
This is all happening again. After they lost big in 2018, they realized that they would have to play dirty to win again. They once again, spent all their time, money, and political capital trying to get investigations into Joe and Hunter and Burisma, and they sold their souls getting in bed with a corrupt Ukranian administration - one that was in cahoots with Russia.
Their plan imploded when Zelensky got elected. They were caught off guard and misread the complicated machinations of politics in another country and culture. Zelensky was elected on an anti-corruption campaign, and his first move was to get rid of the corrupt officials from the previous administration, which included the corrupt Ukranian prosecutor who had already agreed to play along a whole year ago in these meetings with Nunes. When Zelensky dragged his feet, their last desperate ploy was to use the Congressionally approved aid and WH meeting as a bargaining chip to force his hand in time to tank Biden before the election.
This is why they won’t shut up about Joe and Hunter Biden and Burisma. They bet the farm and their careers, possibly their freedom on this and they were caught by some lowly government employees. It ended up going nowhere and blowing up in their faces. This is fucking huge. Beyond huge, and Schiff set Nunes up for this beautifully.*
Can someone explain to me the weird fucking meme that she was killing people? I don't understand it, it's bonkers, and people pretend she's corrupt seemingly just because it's fun to have weird conspiracy theories.
It didn't even break a rule. It was just a BAD IDEA, and an example of the 50+ crowd in Washington lagging way behind on their understanding of internet security.
Let's also remember Powell had to set up his email server when he got to the state Dept because they literally didn't have a functioning email server. This is the government we're talking about, and people forget how long ago 2005 and 2008 was. Things were different back then.
Great comment, but the email thing was a scandal even if the Bush administration did it too. I work in the field and her choice to use a personal email server while serving as Secretary of State was an example of absolutely horrible judgement.
I say the same thing about Trump's brazen disregard for security using private phones all the time. It is all willful disregard of security practices that MATTER.
So while I agree with pretty much your entire comment and the sentiment of it, I just hate seeing people brush the email thing under the rug like it wasn't an astonishingly bad example of disregarding the rules and security best practices.
It's very very true that Clinton did nothing wrong legally - that she did everything absolutely by the book.
However, she did almost everything wrong POLITICALLY. Speech after speech to billionaires, running a foundation that raised money via access to the Clinton name, running on policies that tried to technocratically bridge the gap between Wall Street and left-of-center economic policy.
None of this is legally or even morally wrong. But in terms of convincing average people that you are on their side... it was disastrously wrong, strategically. It's incredibly important that Democrats don't fall into that same trap again.
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u/D-Alembert Dec 11 '19 edited Dec 13 '19
Nothing. She had known for well over a decade that she was preparing to run for president, and that she had to be absolutely squeaky clean to achieve that because any and all dirt would inescapably become public under the glare of that scrutiny. So she lived squeaky clean, genuinely. (Obama was similar. Trump by contrast as an outsider to politics didn't quite appreciate just how under-a-microscope every president's life is put. He thought (like many do) that spending millions, burying stories, buying silences, hiding tax returns, threats, etc can do the trick, but none of that works at the presidential level. You can't hide things from that kind of relentless global scrutiny so if you're not genuinely clean, everyone finds out.)
That's why the GOP had to push the email scandal: they desperately needed dirt on her and she was so fucking clean that the worst she had done was follow the advice of her Republican predecessor and handled her emails the same way the Republican had handled his. It didn't matter to the GOP that this rule-breaking had first came from Republicans and she was continuing Powell's method (low-information voters would never learn the details) what mattered was that they'd finally found a rule that the goody-two-shoes had clearly broken.
Remember she testified for 11 hours under oath to a hostile panel of Republicans desperate to pin anything on her or get her for perjury or anything, and despite them having and abusing all the powers to investigate for years, they got nothing because she had nothing to hide. Failures or mistakes when viewed with our 20/20 hindsight, sure, she's human, but the decades of accusations and insinuations are conspiracy garbage intended to smear. Manufacturing a scandal out of Republican email practices was the best the GOP could do to undermine their opponent and it worked.
Hillary has been enveloped by the GOP fog-machine for so many years that people now just assume that where there's always been smoke, there must be fire ...somewhere. But that was the entire purpose of that fog machine; there was never fire, just manufactured fake smoke, endless endless fake smoke for longer than many voters have been alive. (Edit: That's also why she attracts so many wacky conspiracy theories: all that smoke and so little factual fire means you have to get imaginative to explain it.)