I hate to be writing about politics today (or really any day lately), and I should probably just write this one and delete it; but as I strolled through the living room and heard the news of Hillary Clinton's latest lament, I simply had to put this on the table. It's not about sexism, Hillary; it's about you. When people are asking that she simply "Go away," they (and I mean the general) are not saying it because she is a woman. It's not about telling a woman to know her place and keep her mouth shut. It's because they are simply done with Hillary and the whole Clinton ... thing.
Many people are still hurting over the 2016 election fiasco, they are still struggling to accept that a basically worthless tool of a human being is President of the United States, they are trying to accept and rationalize the bizarre turn of events, and they quite simply blame Hillary Clinton for this mess they're in. And, I have to say, they are justified. Many pundits and critics and stats readers will conclude that Donald Trump could only have beaten one person in the general election - and that person was Hillary Clinton. She was, and still is, just too unpopular. She's tainted as a political leader, and she simply had too much baggage. It may not be fair, it may not be just, it may not be right, but it is the reality. As I listened to one speaker argue for how talented and accomplished Hillary is, I couldn't help but roll my eyes at how clearly he misses the point. You can argue that voters should like her and respect her more - but they don't. And she should have known.
I have a hard time believing that Joe Biden or Cory Booker would have lost to Trump (Hell, I don't think Martin O'Malley or John Hickenlooper could have lost) - they aren't disliked, they don't have a complicated and messy political history, they had no email scandal tied to them, they could have smoothly run on the economy and job growth, etc. If, as many critics and pollsters have argued, Comey's "October Letter" literally pushed the election to Trump, then it's all the more reason to blame Hillary (and ask that she simply "go away"). The scandal and the hint of controversy was just so glaringly obvious that any person not weighed down by an incredible degree of hubris would have realized that Hillary should not have been the candidate (I personally think her window passed in 2008 - and should might have won then and been able to pass the White House to Obama in 2016). It's almost a Sophoclean tragedy in that regard. Heck, she ran a terrible campaign, dismissing concerns in "must have" states like Michigan and Pennsylvania to chase dreams of glory in Texas and Georgia. It's just so sad.
So, no, it's not because she's a woman. It was and always will be because she is Hillary.
2 comments:
On this, we are more or less in agreement, and if you haven't read it yet, read "Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign," by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes. These two were embedded in the campaign, and they were sympathetic to her. However, two things come out. One, after 25 years in the public eye, she can't answer a simple question, "Why should you be president?" Two, her campaign was a disaster, worse than Kerry in 2004, Dole in 1996, Mondale in 1984.
Yes, it was without doubt a poorly run campaign, and it was simply hubris that influenced all the bad decisions, including the one to run in the first place. That said, it's doubly sad for the country and the Democrats because she couldn't have lost to a worst candidate. In all areas, she lost to a miserable human being. Her poor decisions have led the nation to a new low in Presidential persona.
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