Hillary Clinton ‘They Never Told Men Who Lost to Go Away’
The woman who lost the 2016 election is apparently not going to go away.
The Hill (“Hillary Clinton fires back at critics: No one told a man who lost an election to shut up“):
Hillary Clinton is striking back at critics telling her to “shut up” following her 2016 loss, saying, “They never said that to any man who was not elected.”
“I was really struck by how people said that to me — you know, mostly people in the press, for whatever reason — mostly, ‘Go away, go away,'” Clinton said Thursday during an event at Rutgers University.
“And I had one of the young people who works for me go back and do a bit of research. They never said that to any man who was not elected. I was kind of struck by that,” Clinton said.
Clinton’s remarks came in response to a question from Eagleton Institute of Politics’ director Ruth Mandel about the former Democratic presidential nominee’s reaction to those who say she should “get off the public stage and shut up.”
“I’m really glad that, you know, Al Gore didn’t stop talking about climate change,” Clinton said to applause.
“And I’m really glad John Kerry went to the Senate and became an excellent secretary of State,” the former first lady continued. “And I’m really glad John McCain kept speaking out and standing up and saying what he had to say. And for heavens sakes, Mitt Romney is running for the Senate,” Clinton said.
The 70-year-old ex-secretary of State has taken heat in recent weeks, even among some Democrats, for comments she made about Americans who voted for President Trump in the 2016 race.
“I won the places that are optimistic, diverse, dynamic, moving forward,” Clinton said earlier this month during a conference in India. “And his whole campaign, ‘Make America Great Again,’ was looking backwards.”
“I think it was a moment in time because what had been expected to happen in the election, which obviously did not,” Clinton said Thursday. “And then a lot of angst and second guessing and finger pointing and everything that went on.”
While quite a few people, myself included, are frustrated with Clinton’s continued commentary on the 2016 election, I don’t know anyone who wants her to simply “go away” much less “shut up.” No one is saying that she shouldn’t go back to the family foundation, campaign for other Democratic candidates, speak out on gun control, or the like. What they are saying is that going around insulting the people who didn’t vote for her is decidedly unhelpful to the goal of turning back the Trump tide. And that whining about the results of an election almost any other conceivable Democratic nominee would have won handily is simply unseemly.
Does she face more or different criticism because she’s a woman? Probably. There’s no way to disentangle the incredible polarization she inspires from her gender. It’s particularly complicated since her first two decades in the public spotlight was in a first lady role whose traditional mold she broke.
As to the larger issue of how candidates who have lost presidential elections are treated, it depends more than anything how the losers responded and from where. Let’s look at all of the losers from the social media era, thus going back to 2004.
Mitt Romney, 2012: He pretty much shut up and went away. Yes, he’s running for the Senate six years later. But we didn’t hear much from him during the second Obama term that he was seeking as his. That’s the traditional model and he followed it to a T.
John McCain, 2008: He remained on the stage as an increasingly cantankerous and bitter rival of the man who defeated him, Barack Obama. And, despite her statements to the contrary, I very much doubt that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton much appreciated having to deal with his opposition. Even some of us that voted for him occasionally expressed frustration that he wouldn’t go away. But there was a difference: He remained a United States Senator from Arizona and chairman of the Armed Services Committee. While it was indeed unseemly for him to be such a vocal critic, he did so from an elected position and, arguably, had a duty to the people of Arizona to do so.
John Kerry, 2004: Like McCain, Kerry remained in the Senate. And, while he certainly continued to oppose President Bush throughout his second term, he was relatively quiet about it for a senior US Senator. So, there was no reason for him to be asked to shut up or go away. His service as Secretary of State during Obama’s second term is really beside the point; he was at that point acting as an elder statesman. (Similarly, no one was criticizing Clinton for taking that post after she lost to Obama.)
The other example she gives was from a different era, really, but let’s consider him, anyway.
Al Gore, 2000: In some ways, he’s the best analog to Clinton: a candidate who lost the Electoral College despite winning the popular vote and having no fallback political office to justify their continued presence in the public sphere. Also, like Clinton, there was a lot of second-guessing of his campaign strategy and inability to connect with ordinary voters on the campaign trail. He more-or-less went away for the first few months of the Bush presidency, going to far as to grow a beard and put on a few pounds. Yes, he famously campaigned on the need to do something about global warming, picking up his pet project going back at least as far as 1992’s wrote Earth in the Balance. But I don’t think Clinton would be criticized for doing the same sort of thing; championing women’s issues or gun control legislation would be a different category than what she’s doing now. (Granted, women’s issues would be tough given the intersection with Trump’s misogyny.) Gore did later emerge as a rather vocal critic of the Iraq War and did receive significant “you lost, get over it” pushback on that front.
Additionally, it’s worth noting that Gore was in his early 50s and many considered him a viable candidate for 2004. Clinton is 70. So, in addition to whatever gendered reaction she’s getting, she’s also facing a real wave of frustration, especially in the Democratic Party, that it’s time for the Baby Boomers to get off the stage and make way for a younger generation.
The one person who seems to spend more time than Clinton talking about the 2016 election is Donald Trump.
As you probably know, I’m a Clinton supporter and when I saw the headline of this post I was all ready to come out swinging. As it turns out, I agree with pretty much everything you have to say, and think you are spot on.
Here it comes, in 3…. 2….. 1…..
@OzarkHillbilly: ?
John Bailey, chairman of the Democratic Party, literally told Adlai Stephenson to shut up.
Clinton isn’t all that popular within her own party either.
Exhibit A: She lost the 2008 nomination to an obscure rookie Senator.
Exhibit B: She had to fight off another obscure Senator in 2016. True, Bernie didn’t come close, but he had a much better showing than you’d expect against a popular candidate.
And let’s not forget she lost to a most unqualified, inept opponent in the general election.
So one kind of easily sees her party doesn’t want her around much.
I don’t remember Michael Dukakis, John Kerry, or even Al Gore continuing to campaign after losing in the electoral college. And none of those men had the highest unfavorables of any Democratic presidential candidate in history. Trying to make her inability to move on someone else’s fault won’t work. If there is one candidate that will ensure Trump gets 2 terms it’s Hillary Clinton. Yet, because the DNC is completely tone deaf and live in a bubble where they trash the progressives & liberals they need to win, does anyone doubt they are dumb enough to run her again?
I am no fan of Hillzdog and was dismayed by her nomination. She does have a right to speak, and all of us have a right to not listen.
I think some of us here have said this before, and I’ll say it again: a large part of the media and the “Beltway” crowd view politics through an apparently invisible to them gendered lens where it does not seem to occur to many that telling an historic candidate like HRC – who, it turns out, may well have been the actual “duly elected” president were it not for Russian interference – to “shut up and go away” is inextricably linked to the election* of a misogynistic ignoramus whose confessed sexual assault was a six hour news story while HRC’s emails were literally a 240 day news story.
As a woman, I take the demeaning of women by the GOP and Trump, and the dismissal of his sexual assault, personally. I take the demeaning of HRC and the double standard to which she was and continues to be held personally. Watching the sexual predator prowl around behind her during that debate literally made me sick to my stomach. Every person – many of us women – who have personally encountered such behaviour knew it for exactly what it was, but our reactions were dismissed much as Trump’s sexual assault – oh, sorry, “locker room talk” – was dismissed.
As some of you know, I used to be fairly conservative fiscally and fairly liberal socially, but the GOP’s fear-mongering reaction to 9/11, starting a war with a country that literally had nothing to do with the attack, capped by the selection of Palin as McCain’s running mate, separated me from my identification with the GOP. I left the GOP following Palin, and after the way HRC was treated, I will never look back, and I will never vote for another candidate or judge with an “R” after their name.
I hope HRC never shuts up and goes away, and I think one of the main reasons many in the media are telling her to do so is because looking her in the face, and knowing she was treated unfairly by almost all concerned (I’m looking at you, NYT, in particular), is a heaping amount of guilt, and those concerned aren’t used to having to deal with their guilt. They’re used to being able to brush it off and sweep it under the carpet; they’re used to being able to intimidate and shame their way into having the last word, because that’s how their power structure has worked in the past and continues to work even now. Every day that HRC doesn’t shut up and go away is a day that I celebrate as a victory for women’s voices being heard.
Reaction to Hillary convinces me that misoyny did, indeed, play a major role in the election.
@AJ Arcady: First of all, the DNC doesn’t “run” candidates for president. HRC chose to run, and if she chose to run again it would have nothing to do with what the DNC wanted or didn’t. And more to the point, she’s not running in 2020, is not running for anything now, and will probably never run for office again. I don’t know if you’re an actual Bernie Bro or a rightie pretending to be, but either way every word of your post screams that you have no idea how elections actually work.
@AJ Arcady:
The DNC has this kind of control?
That’s almost as bad as the ‘Deep State’ bullsh** that the Right puts out there to explain everything about the government that they don’t like.
Look, I wasn’t overly excited about HRC in 2016 either, that said, I’m not indulging any pure-progressive fantasy that Bernie would have won the election.
I remember Dick Cheney speaking on policy after Obama was elected. Some people complained about it. But there was no one else to serve as party leader because the House, Senate, and White House were Democratic. He could speak from a platform and raise his side’s issues.
Clinton is kind of in the same position. She’s not stealing the limelight from anyone. But she’s not raising her side’s issues, she’s complaining about the election results.
@Doug Mataconis:
Now there’s someone I would like to shut up and go away.
I remember coming across Walter Mondale a week after he lost to Reagan. He was grocery shopping in the Giant on Wisconsin Avenue in Northwest DC. I thought, in many other countries in the world, he would be in jail at this point. That’s what makes America great, losing candidates can do whatever they want.
@Slugger: I am no fan of Hillzdog
Speaking of misogyny ….
@Blue Galangal: A very passionate and articulate comment. I have only one quibble: Dr. Joyner is correct that we are not saying she should “shut up and go away” but that there are many topics and issues she could raise where she would be far more persuasive than her campaign’s failure in 2016. The question I keep coming back to is “How is her revisiting that election helpful to getting Democratic Party control of the houses of Congress?”
@Doug Mataconis: They’re both bitter at how it turned out.
@Blue Galangal: Every day that HRC doesn’t shut up and go away is a day that I celebrate as a victory for women’s voices being heard.
And if Hillary Clinton’s continued presence on the national stage results in another Trump win in 2020?
Did misogyny play a role in Hillary’s defeat? Perhaps. But why was Hillary Clinton the Democratic candidate for President in 2016?
Because she had an outstanding record of achievement in the U.S Senate? No.
Because she had an outstanding record of achievement as Secretary of State? No.
Because she had and outstanding record of achievement as an independent political actor outside being somebody’s wife? No.
Because she was a brilliant political speaker, motivator, or organizer? No.
Because she ever showed any particular wisdom or insight? No.
Because she was immensely popular with the American people? No.
Voting against a good candidate just because she’s a woman is terrible. Supporting an awful candidate just because she’s a woman is even worse because even when you win, you still lose.
Mike
@Joe:
Yeah, but that’s true of any functioning democracy, most of which do not currently have a leader who literally did threaten to jail their opponent.
I know this is going to be utterly shocking, but some of us have been wanting Hillary to “go away” ever since she tried to steal Obama’s nomination with “super delegates” back in 08 and she unleashed the PUMAs to spend the next 10 years making excuses and pointing fingers on every screw-up.
If Hillary was a man, everyone would understand that she lost the election due to a combination of factors: An accumulation of enemies from a lengthy career in the spotlight, mis-steps and miscalculations that can’t be blamed on others, and a poor electoral strategy that saw her insulting prospective voters and neglecting entire states.
Hillary Clinton rose to the top of Democratic politics despite being a woman in a misogynistic world, and yet she is still not allowed to exist on her own merits. It’s just those misogynists and their newspapers and FBI investigations keeping a good woman down.
One thing that I think James and others keep missing… she isn’t making these comments out of the ether. They are coming in response to questions:
The actual topics of that speech at Rutgers’ Eagleton Institute of Politics?
So, let’s recap.
1. Clinton gives a speech about exactly the topics James says she should.
2. She gets a question about people saying she should shut up. She answers the question and notes that wasn’t said about the male candidates who lost.
3. Media runs articles about the answer and not the speech itself.
4. James writes piece stating that she is whining about the results and talks about the constantly (ignoring what her actual prepared remarks were about).
Same pattern as the Mumbai speech btw. Wide ranging speech. Most media coverage is only of the parts that paint her poorly….
@MBunge: You support Trump, who as a candidate was even less qualified, and less popular, than Hillary Clinton, but won anyway because a hostile foreign power helped his campaign “game” America’s antiquated and anti-democratic electoral system.
@James Pearce:
As delusional as the Trumpian’s claims about the Deep State…
@Lynn:
What is misogynstic about Slugger’s comment?
This GOP’er asks: How bad a candidate do you have to be to be beaten by Trump?
There is “go away,” as in, don’t run again, and there is”go away,” as in, don’t come back into public life.
The former is my primary feeling when I say she should “go away,” but the latter is wrong. Well, maybe it could be a break that she should consider taking, the same way Romney did. She should feel free to continue to work with Democratic groups and charitable groups, to promote issues. But it’s increasingly tasteless to continue harping on the 2016 election.
I don’t think it’s just misogamy, it’s also age.
Sarah Palin was whisked off the national stage somewhere during the second Obama administration, and only made cameo appearances in the last election cycle. It wasn’t because she stopped making sense, or her family was suddenly discovered to be a bunch of hillbillies, or she revealed herself to be a horrible human being driven only by hatred and spite — that stuff had been going on from the moment she was introduced. No, her cardinal sin was showing her age.
And Clinton started off the 2016 cycle as old. So now, without a fancy title like President, she’s clearly past her shelf life.
@James Pearce:
I understand the snarking, I do.
However, let’s not minimize the ‘permanent investigations’ that Republicans have been running on the Clintons for over 25 years. Nor should we minimize theconsecutive and concurrent mulitple sham investigations re: Benghazi! and e-mail-server! that Republicans ran and maintained right into election season.
Hillary was flawed from the outset. She was not the ideal candidate, to say the least. My opinion is that Democrats were not prepared for the kind of bare knuckles street-fighting presidential campaigns that contesting a guy like Trump required.
@John430:
Interesting question. Of course, there are 17 Republican primary candidates who are wondering the same thing…
@Blue Galangal:
Still not sure how that counteracts the long list of previous losers who were told to go away. Clinton definitely faced misogyny, but being told to go away after losing isn’t an example of it; its the American norm, in politics, in sports, in film, in business. In fact, athletes who only get Olympic silver are called disappointments or even losers in America and basically told to shut-up; this is something that always comes as a shock to foreigners, who celebrate silver and bronze medal winners, but its part of the American psyche – you don’t win silver, you lose gold. And no one has time for a ‘loser’.
Part of the reason for giving prizes to every child in events is because not winning is considered to be identical to losing; no other country needs this, because no other country has the same insane standard of ‘win or get lost’.
Its quite possible to be rehabilitated – Nixon was shunned after losing to Kennedy, but made his way back. The question with Clinton is whether that’s possible given her age.
@MBunge:
You voted for and support the worst human being ever to be elected president: sexual predator, adulterer, pathological liar, fraud, thief, racist, misogynist and traitor.
You have nothing to say on any topic until you pull your head out of Trump’s ass and apologize.
@SKI:
Disagree, but don’t try to gaslight me. It won’t work.
I’m not the only one who tried to warn Dems away from Hillary. There was a whole movement devoted to it during the primaries. You didn’t want to listen to us then, and you don’t want to listen to us now. And, hey, I get it. No one wants to hear “told ya so.”
But we did tell you…
@al-Ameda:
No, but let’s re-examine the wisdom of trying to elevate someone under “permanent investigation” to higher offices. The red flags were there.
I endorse every word of this, though:
And would add that there are some people who are still unwilling to acknowledge Clinton’s flaws, dismissing any criticism as misogyny or “unfairness.”
Ol’ John’s comments reminded me of something. Who bears the real blame for Trump’s victory? The people that voted for him. We all knew everything we needed to know about both candidates to make the right decision, yet nearly as many people chose him as her.
I’ll paraphrase something I’ve said previously about Congress and apply it to people in general: 10-15% are basically nasty pieces of work. 10-30% have actual moral values, and understand and believe in the importance of institutional integrity. The remainder aren’t really bad people but have no moral compass when it comes to society. At most they pick a team and cheer for their own side, but even without a team they pick someone they like for the moment and evaluate everything that happens by whether it pleases their guy or not.
America is great when the nasties are below 15% and the people with institutional morality get above 20%. Unfortunately, for years people that should have been on the side of the angels have been petty and lazy and more interested in telling off the people on their own side then actually getting out there and doing the day to day work to make sure our institutions are sound.
I generally agree with James, except for this:
In theory it would be good to give the Trumpaloons a Sun Tzu escape route. But in reality that’s not happening. It’s not possible. They didn’t cast a wrong vote they took a giant sh!t on the living room floor and smeared themselves with the excrement while screaming, “N—ers!” There is no possibility of them rationalizing their behavior. They are in fact, deplorable. They are in fact people who choose deliberately to believe lies. They are in fact racists, misogynists, reckless ignoramuses in the terminal stages of Dunning-Kruger disease.
We are no longer in the world of debate or rational appeal with these people. We are now in the blunt force trauma stage. There’s no moving forward until the GOP is destroyed. Not just beaten, destroyed.
@Doug Mataconis:
As much as I feel that I get what James is saying with this post if folks really want Clinton to go away it would help if the President of the United States stopped talking about her all the darn time.
Not Clinton, but for pete’s sake, looks at Sheriff Joe Arpaio wanting to re-litigate (so to speak) the veracity of Obama having actually been qualified to be the President. What purpose does this serve, is he trying to get it retroactively struck from the records that Obama was the 44th President so the records could be changed to reflect Joe Biden as the actual President…seriously, what is he trying to accomplish by railing against Obama?
If conservatives want folks like Clinton and Obama to be forgotten and remain buried in the past then stop talking about them so much!
Sheriff Joe, Obama is hanging out with folks like Richard Branson (who in turn has been photographed with hot naked ladies hanging off his back as he water skis) and can care less what you think. Anyway, I should have put most of this post under the actual Sheriff Joe thread but I hope I will be forgiven for leaving it here.
@michael reynolds:
So you really think that everyone who voted for Trump is that kind of hardcore Trumpaloon? The fact that we recently a Congressional District that went for Trump by 20 percent narrowly go for a Democrat would seem to stand in refutation of that hypothesis. Obviously, at least some group of the people who voted for Trump in 2016 decided to vote for a Democratic in 2018. That’s quite a gap to close in just over a year. We saw similar things happen in several of the Special Elections we saw in 2017 and, of course, in the Alabama Senate race between Doug Jones and Roy Moore.
The point is that nearly 63,000,000 people voted for Trump in 2016. The idea that Democrats should write every single one of them off as unpersuadable and thus not worth paying attention to is, I submit, a recipe for political suicide.
@SKI:
I wasn’t reacting to the speech itself, in which I have little interest, but to her complaint that men in similar situations did not face similar criticism. I note that few men have in fact been in similar situations—McCain and Kerry are different because they remained in the Senate–and those in similar situations—Romney and Gore—didn’t do the things for which she’s being criticised.
That her other comments in the speech are drawing no criticism reinforces rather than undermines my point. She’s being criticized, not because she won’t shut up about issues that concern her, but because she wrote a book and went on tour trying to blame others for her loss in 2016 and, especially, because she’s saying things that make it harder for Democrats to win back the Trump voters who had previously been Obama voters.
@Doug Mataconis: Well said Doug. BTW, what happened to the guy also named Doug Mataconis that used to post here four or five years ago? 😉
@al-Ameda: I agree. The Democrats were not prepared for a guy like Trump.
They expected a GOP candidate to roll over meekly and apologize for every accusation of Racism and Sexism thrown at him.
Thank goodness Trump is not like every other GOP candidate. #MAGA
@James Pearce:
Speaking of misogyny …. What is misogynstic about Slugger’s comment?”
Calling a woman a dog ( Hillzdog) doesn’t strike you as just a bit … you know … sexist? And ageist, as Gustopher notes.
@Blue Galangal: you should go look up that study where they recreated the debate where a man played the part of Hillary, and a woman played the part of Trump–mannerisms, speaking styles and all.
The female Trump still won the debate.
So, sorry to burst your Misogyny Bubble there.
And as a woman, how did you justify supporting a person who attacked all the women that her husband sexually assaulted?
@James Pearce:
“Speaking of misogyny …. ”
What is misogynstic about Slugger’s comment?”
Calling a woman a dog (Hillzdog) doesn’t strike as just a bit … you know … sexist?
@michael reynolds: no more debate is right.
Listen to yourself. You’ve gone off the deep end. Bigly.
What are you going to do? Round up 63,000,000 people and deport them to Russia?
@michael reynolds:
Andrew Jackson was far worse; Trump’s bad, but nothing he’s done has been anything close to the Trail of Tears, or Jackson’s pride in being an “Indian Killer.”
Of course, Trump wasn’t running against Jackson, or the slave holders who I’d say were also worse than him.
@Lynn:
I don’t think Slugger was calling Hillary a dog, so…..no, not at all.
@Lynn:
Um, people are compared to dogs all the time, both men and women. Often its a compliment (ie pitbull). In fact its very common for sports teams (including women’s teams) to name themselves after dogs (Pitbull and Husky seem to be the favorites for some reason).
Though I may be biased because I’m a dog person; cat people might well consider being called a dog an insult.
James- You are wrong about people wanting her to shut up. Go to any right of center blog, publication, TV show, talk radio program. They explicitly say they want her to shut up. (Of course, they also want to keep bringing her up so they have someone to be angry about.) Otherwise, you got a lot of it correct. However, I think you missed a lot of other examples. An awful lot of Republicans who fail in the primaries have ended up on Fox News in the past. I think it is kind of expected that former presidents remain fairly quiet, but there has not been a real pattern for losers. For myself, never was a Clinton fan and I think she should move on so newer blood can take over.
Steve
@Blue Galangal: Brava, Blue. I am right there with you.
@MBunge:
For the record, I voted for HRC – not because she was a woman – rather, because I wanted the type of appointments she would make to the judiciary, in particular her nomination to the Supreme Court. Also, I prefer Democratic Party policies concerning the environment, banking regulation, federal lands conservation, multi-lateral trade rather than the Republican Party policies concerning the same.
I suspect that most Democrats voted for her for the same general reason.
@MBunge:
Hillary Clinton’s favorability ratings in 2012-2013 were OVER 65%. When she started campaigning? That’s when they dropped. People gave her very high marks when she was in her jobs–from First Lady to US Senate to the above-noted high water mark when she was SoS. It’s actually a pretty solid indicator that yes, misogyny is at play.
http://news.gallup.com/poll/154742/hillary-clinton-maintains-near-record-high-favorability.aspx
@TM01:
Who expected Republican candidates to roll over meekly? No one I know.
I did not expect the people who voted for Trump to apologize for anything. Very likely half of those people supported the (yes it certainly was) racist Birther Movement and did not believe that Barack Obama was a ‘legitimate’ president. None of them would ever admit to being racist for supporting the Birther Movement.
Expecting apologies from people who never apologize for anything is not something
I waste time on.
Speaking of misogyny, does everyone remember when it was all the rage to wear “Sarah Palin is a C**t” t-shirts?
Pepperidge Farms remembers.
@george:
Well, a ‘female dog’ is not a complimentary term. To call a female a ‘dog’ – seems ‘female dog’ adjacent.
@restlessness:
And yet I can think of several women’s sports teams who happily call themselves “Huskies” … the women I know who like dogs like being told they are like their pet.
I suppose like most things, it depends upon who is saying it and why.
@Jen: “Hillary Clinton’s favorability ratings in 2012-2013 were OVER 65%. When she started campaigning? That’s when they dropped. People gave her very high marks when she was in her jobs–from First Lady to US Senate to the above-noted high water mark when she was SoS. It’s actually a pretty solid indicator that yes, misogyny is at play.”
Right, because she wasn’t a woman back when she was SoS.
@steve:
I’m not really talking about Republicans here; their disdain for Hillary goes back more than 25 years. I’m really talking about (and presume she was talking about) calls from the Progressive wing of her party, other Democratic pols, and especially the liberal commentariat.
@restlessness:
But Slugger didn’t call her a dog. He said “Hillzdog,” which –just spitballing here– sounds like one of those cute nicknames people give to political figures all the time, and not a particularly sexist or offensive one.
@Doug Mataconis: You are making a number of unwarranted assumptions. Your evidence that Trumpaloons are reachable assumes that the Trump voters switched in the Pennsylvania and Alabama special elections and voted Democrat. Isn’t just as likely that the Democrat voters were highly motivated to vote in these special elections while the Trumpaloons were not? More importantly, how do you propose to “reach” these Trump voters? On the basis of reason and logic and evidence-based arguments? Trump had a lengthy history of those attributes Michael Reynolds described BEFORE the election. He was and is neither a Republican or Conservative but a demagogue that was and is unfit for the office of President. The Trumpaloons fall into one or more of several categories for which there is no hope: Racists, misogynists, the 1% who want it all and those phony Christians who seek to establish a Christian theocracy and don’t care about how they get there. Solution: stop Republican voter suppression and GOTV.
@James Pearce:
Honestly, I have yet to come across anyone dismisses any criticism of HRC as misogyny.
I live in an area where Green Party politics draws a lot of interest – a few of my twenty of so neighbors voted for Jill Stein. Most of their criticism of HRC ideologically based – that is they though HRC to be a center-Democrat (like Bill) and therefore unreliable as a supporter of progressive causes.
@TM01:
No. Tell us how many millions of those T-shirts were sold.
“Killary,” Vince Foster, Seth Rich, and those child sex slaves Hillary has locked up at that DC-area Comet Pizzeria probably know.
@Leonard: Misogyny is in play when the thought process goes, “well, a woman is fine in THAT job, but not this next one.”
Clearly you aren’t a woman who has worked in a male-dominated profession. I have. (Republican politics and then lobbying.)
@James Pearce:
I suppose. I don’t want to be, um, dogmatic, about it – I can only speak to how ‘Hillzdog’ sounds to me. Granted, I’m old, and there may be a cultural reference I’m missing.
OTOH, the first reference that Google gives me is a Wonkette article, and ‘Hillz-dog’ isn’t exactly a compliment, but rather a snipe from the left…
https://wonkette.com/602273/bill-clinton-debates-brody-for-half-an-hour-in-a-diner-classic-bill-clinton-classic-brody
@Doug Mataconis:
46% voted for Trump, 40% still support him. But this is not about their character but their action, specifically the casting of their vote.
By the time election day came anyone paying attention knew:
– That Trump was a racist, and that he was supported by racists.
– That Trump was a sexual predator and a misogynist.
– That Trump was hostile to science.
– That Trump was a pathological liar.
– That Trump ridiculed handicapped people.
I could go on. And on.
This was not a hard choice, it was an easy and obvious choice. One candidate was qualified, one was not. So, no, I am not going to excuse these people. They did a stupid, reckless and contemptible thing. Far stupider than when the 19 year-old me voted for Nixon in 1972, a vote I now freely acknowledge was stupid and careless. And a few weeks later I was in front of the White House holding a ‘Honk For Impeachment” sign.
When you do something wrong you step up like an adult and admit your mistake: I was very wrong and made a big mistake voting for Nixon. See? That’s not really so hard. You don’t whine until someone pats you on the head and tells you, ‘It’ll all be fine.” Trumpaloons can fcking grow up, they get no passes from me.
@michael reynolds: Your ranting suggests that you are off your meds again.
https://twitter.com/LemieuxLGM/status/979846030475722752
“John Kerry literally appeared on Meet the Press in January 2005 to discuss the external factors that hurt his election prospects, oddly without generating an endless litany of HE’S CONSUMING OXYGEN hot takes”
This links to: http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2017/06/pundits-cant-get-clinton-derangement-off-jock-like-static-cling
And, of course, nobody should forget McCain vanishing from the news shows after 2008, becoming a modest ‘just one of 100’ Senator McCain.
Clinton reportedly received $25,000 for a Thursday speech at historic Rutgers University that promised the skinny on “politics, American democracy and her role in shaping women’s political history,” but Snooki, of “Jersey Shore” fame picked up a $32,000 pay check for her analysis of American academia, suggesting that potential graduates “study hard, but party harder.”
ROFLMAO! Misogyny indeed!
@John430:
Please work on some new materiel. We’ve had two years of ‘cuck,’ ‘butthurt,’ and, ‘off your meds.’ Put some effort into it, man.
This is why I’m moving to the UK – they know how to craft a decent insult.
@John430:
In fact, here, let me help:
There you go, that’s how you do it. An insult to be effective has to hit a specific vulnerability. It would make sense to come after me as a writer, because you could reasonably imagine that I might be vain. You’d be wrong, but at least you wouldn’t be generic. And even if you didn’t quite hit the target people would marvel at your wit, rather than just being reminded of your witlessness.
I await your riposte.
@Jen: Soooo…. she was favorable BEFORE she started pitching her vision of the future….but not AFTER.
I would think that a misogyny factor would dictate that she’d NEVER had favorable polling.
She’d might be a good politician but she’s certainly never been a good campaigner or particularly likeable. There are scores of single people that would be great spouse…but don’t do dating well as it requires personal charisma. Clinton following a generational talent like Obama made he look even more drab.
@michael reynolds: “You know, Reynolds, if you spent as much time on your career as you do here you could write books for grown-ups.”
Fact check: Four Pinocchios
Now that’s how to write an insult.
Really?
Hmm…looks like you deserve a few Pinocchios yourself…
Are you a mind reader? When has she ever said that?
@An Interested Party:
Didn’t you know that Hillary sought out One American to personally tell him/her her opinion on this matter? Well, now you know.
@michael reynolds:
But that’s not why you’re moving to the UK.
@dmichael:
This is true and I think you have a point about the specifics of how she could use her platform to build support for the Democratic platform.
But I also think it elides how the media actually shapes the narrative around her. As was pointed out above, she does give a speech and she does discuss matters that are important to the Democratic Party and its constituents, but the media narrative around her speech is “Shut up and go away,” not the content of the speech itself.
This is similar to how she was treated during the campaign. Memorably, the media focused on an empty podium – literally – while waiting for Trump to appear and speculating on what he would talk about; HRC’s speeches were cut away and overridden by chatter about her “tone” and how “shrill” she sounded, or how “tired” she looked. There were banners about how long it had been since she held a press conference. Trump – as President* – has long surpassed her banner, but there’s not a word about it in the media.
So this is why – as a woman – I think she is aiding the Democratic Party by simply not shutting up and going away, and pointing out the plain truth, that a lot of other candidates have also not shut up and gone away, and, more importantly, weren’t told to do so; because she’s breaking another barrier here, the one that says women have to be compliant and genteel and we’re not allowed to own feelings of anger or point out double standards lest we are accused of being “shrill” or worse. If Trump is breaking the norms in the bottomless pit direction, I’m hoping HRC is breaking norms in the way women are expected to behave in the political dimension that may make it easier for the next round of female candidates who won’t have to be the first to say what she’s saying.
I also think it’s timely when I see the spiraling panic among the right wing at the Parkland survivors. They have ZFTG and they are not afraid of what people think about them when they call out Laura Ingraham on a non-apology. I think HRC may be in a similar ZFTG mindset. I hope she is. And, as I said earlier, I hope she keeps talking, because, as a woman, she is speaking for me when she refuses to sit down and be quiet when a lot of men are telling her to. That may or may not have anything to do with specific Democratic policies being advanced; but it might also broaden the appeal by showing women that the Democratic Party supports smart, intelligent, outspoken women as well as men. (Adam Schiff is my second favourite Democrat right now, I gotta say.)
@Jen: 😀
@Leonard:
Hah! Exactly, and well done. (However I have actually just sold my first adult mystery novel. A two book deal, actually.)
@James Pearce:
No, it’s why I prefer British humor and watch British shows like Would I Lie To You? British humor, to paraphrase Stephen Fry, punches up. It’s the humor of impertinence. Taking the piss. But that seemed overly long to explain.
I’m moving to the UK (eventually) because I love London, love genuine Cadbury’s, and I can deplore their politics without being personally responsible for it.
@michael reynolds: Well, I will concede that you are a better wordsmith than I but your remarks are usually stupid, racist, misogynistic, snobbish and ill-conceived. However, I can quote the best thinkers in a riposte. Paraphrasing Kierkegaard: As my opponent, you are a glob of snot.
I am not a full-time blogger/complainer because I have a life. You should get one and try it.
I’m very glad you have a life. I’ve got nothing. Nothing at all. You know, if you don’t count the great four decade marriage, the kids, the 150 plus books, the reasonably fat Keogh and IRA and the fact that at the moment my biggest concern is figuring out how to squeeze a trip to the UK to see my wife’s movie being shot, and a trip to Amsterdam to research my second adult mystery novel into a schedule that already includes writing three books and acting as story consultant to the movie possibly being adapted from a series my wife and I wrote. All in the next 12 months.
Why do you play this game, dude? Did you just not realize how easily I can top you? Let me explain something to you: hecklers never beat comics. Hecklers are amateurs, comics are professionals. You’re never, ever, ever going to beat me in a battle of words. And if you weren’t so impenetrably stupid you’d stop flinging your face against my fist. Stop tempting me. I’m trying to suppress my more sadistic impulses, and you’re not helping.
…comics are professionals.”
I bow to your comic professionalism. I laugh my arse off reading your comedic gripes.
@John430:
That’s better. See? When you try harder you get a biscuit.
@al-Ameda: A lot of us held our noses and voted for her.
I’m with those who want Hillary Clinton to shut up on the topic and find something else to do, preferably totally removed from politics. Yes, there was misogyny. Yes, she was unfairly persecuted in witch hunts about Benghazi. And you know what? None of that makes a damn difference. When you’re the first of your “tribe” to try to crack a glass ceiling, you have to be perfect with the self-control of a saint. You can’t allow yourself to be angry at how unfairly you were treated or play any bit of the “it was THEIR fault!” game. You’ve got to control yourself, inevitably graceful under pressure, accept failure with a soft word, and keep plugging. Best of all, you have to know when your attempt has failed, and get out of the way for other contenders.
My take is Hillary has simply added to the stereotype of a woman whining when she doesn’t get what she thinks she deserves, regardless of whether it’s an intelligent fight or not. (That book was a bad mistake, strategically.) The first woman to crack the POTUS glass ceiling is going to be the female equivalent of Barack Obama–squeaky-clean, able to charm the socks off the opposition, able to play poker with a “naive innocent” look with the Big Boys and clean out their pockets before they know what is happening, and overall with the talent of getting her opponents to self-destroy themselves, (which everyone else will claim is due to luck rather than fine-tuned strategy.)
As Napoleon famously asked of prospective generals: “How lucky is he?”
(I do hope the DNC is intelligent enough to realise the last thing they need is Hillary to try to run again, even if they are her pet council. Hillary should find something goody-goody and morally uplifting to be involved in (solving the whole oxycontin doping thing, for instance. Or getting rid of unexploded land-mines in Cambodia) and keep her mouth shut on other topics.
@michael reynolds:
Oh, I’m sure London’s great. Never been there myself, and probably won’t ever make it out that way either. I come from stock whose idea of luxury is throwing an afghan over the couch, if you know what I mean.
@James Pearce:
All the more reason for you to go.
@grumpy realist:
I now think that the first female president is going to be a Republican – someone like Nicky Haley
@al-Ameda: That’s also quite possible. A sort of “Nixon goes to China” moment.
(P.S. Can’t we get back the Rockefeller Republicans? I miss them. Sigh.)
@One American: Hmm…