Can’t say I agree with that ad hominem, because he does talk, very insightfully, about plenty of other things (as in that full episode of D Now, which I listened to yesterday), and because I don’t disagree with anything I’ve heard him say about Clinton.
Anyway, his target is more the moneyed, corrupt Dem establishment that thrust Clinton upon us than Clinton herself, and again, I agree - - the signs that the Dem establishment has learned any valuable lessons from its self-inflicted losses are very rare and fleeting.
Her loss was absolutely her own fault. She didn’t campaign much if at all in the Rust Belt, was dismissive of the entire left wing, picked Tim Kaine as her running mate, and ran as a competent, boring centrist. Ignoring the fact that a “centrist” in the US is actually far right in the rest of the civilized world, competent boring centrists always lose.
Yes, though maybe not “absolutely.” Let’s not elide things like the power of misogyny and racism, as well as voter suppression targeted at and primarily affecting Dem-leaning communities.
Like I said, he is a very smart guy with plenty of good points, but he has had a unique fixation with Clinton and has indulged in some entirely un-sourced opinions about her the past few years (such as around the Clinton Foundation and her ties to Israel) that are identical to alt-right talking points. He’s a big fan of equating Clinton with the DNC establishment to the point that he uses them interchangeably, which while she is a big part of it she was a very distinct influence from Obama even if they worked together some. She is more hawkish with intervention, disagreed on some aspects of drone use, but also was much more aggressive with diplomacy and managed to get in front of everyone.
Like in the Bo Bergdahl case, she basically lined up his release years before he was without a prisoner exchange but the Department of Defense refused to act on it (for what appears to be political reasons). She was out of office and the guy she had working on it literally died suddenly, and the effort ended there.
[quote=“LearnedCoward, post:42, topic:100676, full:true”]
Her loss was absolutely her own fault. She didn’t campaign much if at all in the Rust Belt, was dismissive of the entire left wing, picked Tim Kaine as her running mate, and ran as a competent, boring centrist. Ignoring the fact that a “centrist” in the US is actually far right in the rest of the civilized world, competent boring centrists always lose.
[/quote]I agree. Saying “Glenn Greenwald bias extends past reason with Hillary Clinton” doesn’t mean I don’t think she lost the election on her own merit. I explicitly said losing the election was her fault and Trump ran a better campaign in the post immediately before @Wanderfound’s post. And to @milliefink’s point, there are a lot of factors and I acknowledge that the loss was so narrow that the bad luck of her campaign alone could have swayed the result.
Even if Clinton was president, her campaign was poorly handled. It’s also a common theme in her political career.
EDIT
Fox News was probably too harsh, but there isn’t a lot of media to compare to that is conservative and coherent.
She had a hand in voter suppression too, and was not averse to being racist if it benefited her. But yes, bigotry and institutionalized bigotry backfired against her in a major way, not to mention the sexism that’s always been directed at her.
Thanks for explaining. I too think Clinton, while good in some ways, is horrible in more ways than I can count, so I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree on this one. Cheers!
We have disagreed on this one before. I feel like here I give the impression I am a bigger Clinton fan than I actually am because compared to the general political attitude here I am a European centrist or whatever you would prefer. I also tend to over-defend Clinton because I remember being in 3rd grade and the kids in my typical midwest white-America class would openly mock Hillary Clinton and praise Bill Clinton and as I got older absolutely nothing changed at any point in my life.
Yes. I think the sexist nature of our society meant that she could not be forgiven for her mistakes the way a man would be for the same- And that is absolutely wrong, but does not in and of itself absolve her of those mistakes.
Yes, I think that’s a good way to put it. Maybe the bluntest example being people who blamed her for not being able to control her man from sprilling his sees on an intern’s dress (though of course how any of that is Hillary’s mistake is a mess I have no interest in trying to disentangle).
Yep. The fact that people made that argument boggles my mind. What is the chain of reasoning that leads to that, and aren’t there other, more politically relevant, objections that pop up on the way to that ridiculous argument?
There was so much illegitimate criticism of Hillary Clinton that it watered down all the legitimate criticism
She ran a private email server, that is absolutely a risk to national security- But SO DID Bush and Cheney, and Trump is still using an unsecured cellphone. ALL OF THEM should be held accountable for that. Not just her.
But that one sailor did the same thing and is in jail! He took pictures of a submarine’s controls by sneaking a cell phone down with him, and then sneaking the cell phone out through the trash, and then uploaded the images onto his gmail account. Yet when she does the exact same thing she skates away free.
