More whining and excuses from sore loser HRC.

[t-c]

I just watched this video and I hope you all can watch this as well: agreat interview of Hillary Clinton by Ezra Klein, Editor-in-Chief of Vox. He asks really good questions that she actually answers.

What Hillary Clinton Really Thinks

 

[Tekate]

Thanks Arkie.. isn't it rich though that being married to someone like Bill was viewed as bad while being married to Trump was viewed as good? haha you have to laugh at that one. I would go with 'part of the political establishment' so a point, but it has been show over and over that a lot of fake news was posted and believed by low information voters about Clinton, example: no one liked working with Clinton.

http://nypost.com/2015/10/02/secret-service-agents-hillary-is-a-nightmare-to-work-with/

The above 'article' was quoted unmercifully about working for Clinton, but there is no proof, there is an unnamed source then the Post's article was rehashed through all the right winged press like wildfire.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/hillary-bill-clinton-secret-service-224578
http://www.snopes.com/politics/clintons/secretservice.asp

Politico disproving. Snopes unproven.

Read this one, it's unbelievable full of lies and conjecture and rumors spread by unnamed sources.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/441367/hillary-clinton-security-detail-curses-foul-mouth

People actually believed the above. FAKE NEWS at it's finest.

here's a GREAT read: http://www.snopes.com/politics/clintons/hildabeast.asp

I think she was screwed royally. That's politics and most of the stuff written about her is lies twisted, self serving. But then again, I always try to find the source of an article. The right wing news network is a labyrinth of cherry picked news, with lies thrown in the spin is horrendous.

As far as Red and DF go, I've read enough of their postings to have insight to what they think, and again thanks for replying.

Ask DF and Red, I'm sure they would come up with a lot of them. Me I think being married to someone like Bill if going on the things that were said on this forum is anything to go by didn't necessarily help her. And one of the main points theorists listed after she lost, is that she was seen to be part of the political "establishment" so to speak, and that a lot of Americans wanted a change from that, that is how they identified with the man with the golden elevator and toilet more as a common everyday person and more like them than she was. I don't necessarily think that all of the "bad baggage" is true but there was a perception out there because of things she said and did in her political career and during Bills time in office, that she had a lot of it.

 

[arkieb1]

t-c I watched the whole video and I think she hits the nail in the head with a number of issues, we see a candidate with intelligent viewpoints on issues versus one that is a TV reality star and like it or not, even she admits, the latter is infinitely more entertaining. Blame the internet, blame society, blame the media but Trump has this shi#sh@* can't look away type of appeal (for you and I in a bad way) that people can't stop watching, we live in a fast pace society that wants to be entertained....

Even watching that interview I find her intelligent, sincere and well meaning but overall there is still something innately clumsy about her when she gives interviews, I can see how people don't respond warmly to her, put it that way, and that is from a totally neutral POV.

I'm pragmatic when she talks about her voters being concentrated in cities, I think she is too, becoming a US president is a numbers game and even though she won the race ie got more votes overall, she still lost the "game" that is US politics.

 

[t-c]

t-c I watched the whole video and I think she hits the nail in the head with a number of issues, we see a candidate with intelligent viewpoints on issues versus one that is a TV reality star and like it or not, even she admits, the latter is infinitely more entertaining. Blame the internet, blame society, blame the media but Trump has this shi#sh@* can't look away type of appeal (for you and I in a bad way) that people can't stop watching, we live in a fast pace society that wants to be entertained....

Even watching that interview I find her intelligent, sincere and well meaning but overall there is still something innately clumsy about her when she gives interviews, I can see how people don't respond warmly to her, put it that way, and that is from a totally neutral POV.

I'm pragmatic when she talks about her voters being concentrated in cities, I think she is too, becoming a US president is a numbers game and even though she won the race ie got more votes overall, she still lost the "game" that is US politics.

And yet you considered her as only "a lesser of two evils" choice.

 

[Dancing Fire]

As far as Red and DF go, I've read enough of their postings to have insight to what they think, and again thanks for replying.

IMO, The 3 main reasons she lost to Trump...

#1...Her lies
#2...She ran on a 3rd term of Obama's policies.
#3...Deleting her Emails.

 

[Calliecake]

Oh please @Dancing Fire Are you seriously going to say her lies. The president we have now couldn't tell the truth if his life depended on it, has the maturity of an 8 year old, and is a racist, misogynistic jerk. But I don't need to tell you this because you didn't vote for him.

 

[Dancing Fire]

Oh please @Dancing Fire Are you seriously going to say her lies. The president we have now couldn't tell the truth if his life depended on it, has the maturity of an 8 year old, and is a racist, misogynistic jerk. But I don't need to tell you this because you didn't vote for him.

Only part of the reasons why she lost the election. Another reason b/c she didn't spend enough time campaigning in the midwest states thinking that she had those states in her pocket.

 

[arkieb1]

And yet you considered her as only "a lesser of two evils" choice.

She lost. You can blame the electoral college, you can blame the intensive negative campaign against her, we both know there is a large list of reasons many of which she herself admits why she lost. Would I have voted for her? Yes I would have, because I detest Trump that much.

Do I like her as a politician? I don't hate her but as previously stated I think they needed to find a candidate with less political history (I call that baggage both good and bad) and one that was better able to present themselves as likeable in the 5 minute internet soundbite world we now live in. She might well be down to earth, and very likeable in real life but seriously watching that video clip she comes across as an academic and a pretty boring one at that. I can see why the average person cannot relate to her and therefore they see the man with the golden elevator and toilet as somehow more like them, even if he isn't..... Because he tweets like white trash (to use the terms people are using here) he talks like white trash, and he acts like white trash. Is it sad that people find him more relatable than her? Yes, to me it is, but all I am pointing out is that we really need to reflect on why that occurred, so it doesn't happen again.

 

[Arkteia]

She lost. You can blame the electoral college, you can blame the intensive negative campaign against her, we both know there is a large list of reasons many of which she herself admits why she lost. Would I have voted for her? Yes I would have, because I detest Trump that much.

Do I like her as a politician? I don't hate her but as previously stated I think they needed to find a candidate with less political history (I call that baggage both good and bad) and one that was better able to present themselves as likeable in the 5 minute internet soundbite world we now live in. She might well be down to earth, and very likeable in real life but seriously watching that video clip she comes across as an academic and a pretty boring one at that. I can see why the average person cannot relate to her and therefore they see the man with the golden elevator and toilet as somehow more like them, even if he isn't..... Because he tweets like white trash (to use the terms people are using here) he talks like white trash, and he acts like white trash. Is it sad that people find him more relatable than her? Yes, to me it is, but all I am pointing out is that we really need to reflect on why that occurred, so it doesn't happen again.

When Hillary lost, there was a phrase said by a speech pathologist on a forum, something about Hillary's intonation and lack of eye contact. It prompted me to look at all her interviews, starting from the 70es, with her horrible eyeglasses, and looking into the corner, and talking in a schoolmarm's voice...The Hillary that we see today is the result of intense work, and she is way more charismatic than she was born to be. Kudos to her.

...Maybe not enough charismatic for the TV. But Trump is not funny, either. His show primed him to talk to the audience, yes. He is more of a public person now.

But my theory is, if Kim Kardashian were running, she'd beat them both. Because people have watched her show, and because rednecks would gladly vote for her hourglass figure, as they vote for entertainment factor, and also because Kim would probably beat Trump in humor. Because even Hillary did.

Do you remember, Arkie, how Trump presented at that Catholic charity dinner? Where he and Hillary had to exchange a couple of jokes? Hillary is no joker, but Trump presented horribly, he simply missed all the punch lines. And we think this man is entertaining for the crowd? Even when he wants to offend someone, he repeats, like a child, the same thing (for example, calling Liz Warren Pocahontas - I mean, he said it once, he said it twice, he said it sol many times that it lost any sense).

So if our masses find Trump relatable, sadly, it says a lot about our masses...

And sadly, in today's world, brilliant politicians like Madison, and Franklin, and Lincoln and many others would have zero chance...

Question is, do we offer our masses another entertainer, or do we train them to listen?

 

[arkieb1]

I think society is training our young people to switch off, the internet, Iphones, Ipads - the research is telling us our children, and teens have shorter not longer attention spans than ever before.....

We probably also can't underestimate Trump winning was and is a product of todays world and the social climate we live in. Brexit, our own "One Nation" (which is a severely right winged racist political group gaining more and more voters) in Australia and Trump are all a knee jerk reactions of people wanting to hark back to this nationalistic patriotistic and economic lost golden age.

Trump capitalised and exploited people's fears in a way Hillary didn't. And I'm not saying she should have gotten down in the gutter with him and exploited those fears too, but his media team did a great job of covering up the inadequacies you describe and answering those fears, hers IMHO didn't do as good of a job at either.

 

[Bluegemz]

I like to think of it this way....a little like neurobiology. Trump appealed to the 'lizard brain' which is the oldest part which we share with other creatures. It controls knee jerk rewards and is responsible for carnal desires and animalistic fears, drugs, sex and food.

Hillary fit more with the neocortex, the grey matter which is uniquely human. This is the part of the brain that is capable of abstract thought, delayed gratification, strategizing, and imagination of consequences. This part can understand the kind of 'magical thinking' that emminates from the other parts, and knows better than to believe it as truth. That's not to say that magical thinking is worthless because it has its place in cognition.

Trump played into an emotional, but extremely unrefined level and had people's reward centers exploding over all kinds of magical thinking and false promises. He acted emotionally, full of false power and rage, ( as all true narcissists do) which was exciting to people, gave them a target for their own dissatisfactions. A note about narcissistism, isn't it interesting that many cult leaders and such have narcissistic personality disorder. Hillary was more cerebral, but in my opinion more complex and sophisticated. There wasn't the same kind of carnal reaction while watching her.

I personally think that the belief in a false hopes and impossible promises says something about the lack of education and the poverty of the masses, ( the lack of abstract thinking to be able to imagine that the promises are inflated) in addition to exposing the level of fear and powerlessness that his base had. When you're living in fear about the future, you're in survival mode. It is then extremely easy to be deeply influenced to love anyone who can soothe that fear. Survival mode means living in the here and now, making it today. Little thought about tomorrow ....kind of like, just give us our jobs back, do whatever you need to do, just hurry hurry and don't let others take what's ours! It's only when basic needs, both physical and psychological, have been met, that many people can relax out of instinct (lizard brain) start to explore more abstract thought in the neocortex.

 

[arkieb1]

Bluegemz - while this all might ring true for some Americans, the statistics tell us that lots of people with degrees, some of your middle class & people with the skills for higher order thinking voted for Trump too. In Australia we have a sort of undercurrent when election time arrives that if the political party in power doesn't seem to be accomplishing anything (even if they actually are but it has not been promoted widely and well enough in the media) then often a political parties get elected because the people feel it's time for a change.

Perhaps if we want to over simplify things there is that aspect at work here too - the notion that after Obama it was time for a change for both the conservatives to be in office again, (I know here in Australia when things get tough economically we tend to favour voting for conservatives) so there was that, and the fact Trump represented a real or imagined shake up of the political establishment.

 

[Bluegemz]

Bluegemz - while this all might ring true for some Americans, the statistics tell us that lots of people with degrees, some of your middle class & people with the skills for higher order thinking voted for Trump too. In Australia we have a sort of undercurrent when election time arrives that if the political party in power doesn't seem to be accomplishing anything (even if they actually are but it has not been promoted widely and well enough in the media) then often a political parties get elected because the people feel it's time for a change.

Perhaps if we want to over simplify things there is that aspect at work here too - the notion that after Obama it was time for a change for both the conservatives to be in office again, (I know here in Australia when things get tough economically we tend to favour voting for conservatives) so there was that, and the fact Trump represented a real or imagined shake up of the political establishment.

This is a good point and I definitely can imagine it. I know there were some middle and upper class people who voted for trump as well. It could also have been that they imagined more profitable business gains, relating to a take charge attitude that he had, and a need for a change.

 

[monarch64]

Arkie, anyone in the US with enough money can get any type of degree. They honestly aren't that hard to come by if you have the funds with which to pay for them. So when you see stats on certain middle-to-upper class degreed folks voting for Trump, keep in mind that their true intelligence can't necessarily be measured by level of education.

 

[Bluegemz]

I also want to point out that being influenced by the reward center of the brain is a constant issue for everyone, regardless of education or class to some extent. This is why it's hard to stay on a diet when faced with birthday cake, and countless other examples, such as buying beautiful gemstones ( instant reward, lizard brain ), when we could putting the money into investments or saving for retirement, ( delayed gratification in favor of future benefits, neocortex). Can anyone relate to this lol? Its a battle of 2 brains. It's just that when one is poor, desperate or disenfranchised in some way, or in survival mode, it has greater power because we are already in a state of heightened anxiety where we are responsive to magical thought, emotions, etc.
During the election, the ferociously angry and impassioned Trump supporters who became violent etc, I think says something about the mental state of these people. This is a reflection about why people may have voted for someone more 'superficially entertaining', who tapped into people's emotions of fear, anger, righteousness, over someone with more experience etc., universal goals,

 

[Arkteia]

Interestingly, in 2020, generation Z will be voting, and generation Z, because of computer games, is much more visual. For them, either more entertainment, or the speeches have to be tailored in a different way. Trump, with his primitive language, might still be more visual. (Example: when he says that Islamic terrorists "burn people in cages" it might be more visual than when another politician calls them "terrorists"). Maybe we are all wrong, and maybe his incessant repeating of the same pejorative nicknames serves another goal. (Including "the Rocket Man"). For us, it makes no sense. But it might be so that Generation Z will be listening to him just because of the way he speaks.
Anyhow, our voters have short attention span, and laying out the whole political program might not work for them.

 

[Arkteia]

Bluegemz - while this all might ring true for some Americans, the statistics tell us that lots of people with degrees, some of your middle class & people with the skills for higher order thinking voted for Trump too. In Australia we have a sort of undercurrent when election time arrives that if the political party in power doesn't seem to be accomplishing anything (even if they actually are but it has not been promoted widely and well enough in the media) then often a political parties get elected because the people feel it's time for a change.

Perhaps if we want to over simplify things there is that aspect at work here too - the notion that after Obama it was time for a change for both the conservatives to be in office again, (I know here in Australia when things get tough economically we tend to favour voting for conservatives) so there was that, and the fact Trump represented a real or imagined shake up of the political establishment.

Maybe to understand - people voting for the GOP party are usually very disciplined, and do vote for the party nominee. They may have not liked Trump - I know many who do not, were almost ashamed of him - but their party is their favorite club, and they would vote for it no matter what. Plus, most of the Republicans are for lowering taxes, and if you are rich or well-off, lower taxes are a huge incentive.

It is us, the Democrats and the Independents who are undisciplined, who believe in the freedom of choice, and if we look at Sanders/Clinton opposition from this standpoint, not "who is right?" but "how easy it is to split us", it becomes very obvious.

One more thing... I think as the resources in the world are dwindling, we will be seeing more Trumps. In Eastern European languages, there is a word, "Zhlob", which beats any English translation. It has two meanings, 1) A tall, big person, and 2) an arrogant, goon-ish cheapskate. The person who would not lend you ice in Antarctica. I think that Trump is the prime example of a "zhlob", but we shall see more and more of them among politicians. The bottom line will be, there is a huge biomass, 7 billion, and people move over the globe in search of better resources... well, there are no resources. Because all Trump's anti-immigration stance, all his walls, all his anti-terrorist rhetoric, has one underlying meaning. It is not even "Make America Great Again", it is "America for Americans", it is about resources. Brexit was, in essence, something similar. Now we shall see how Germany fares - I think Merkel will be elected, but how many voices extreme rights get will define the future path of the world, or at least it is my feeling. (P.S. France passed the litmus test, and it is very interesting).

 

[arkieb1]

Arkteia - yes, part of it no doubt is a tussle over resources (which I agree is only going to get worse) but a lot of this hatred Trump tapped into is pure racially driven fear. Since 9/11 the fear of terror, the fear of "the other," fear of lots of things in the US - parallel to that there has been a huge anti-muslim backlash across Europe as a direct reaction to terrorists and extremist groups.

I guess if we are combining all of this information as Bluegemz & you point out some of these people live in real fear of the "other" Mexicans, women and so on stealing their jobs and their resources, but a lot of people with jobs (I'm thinking white male extremists here) must have "lizard brains" for no explainable reason other than they want to live life a certain (white patriarchal) way it's not just resources, it's their very way of life they see as being somehow under threat..... I dunno I'd describe it as both pressure from dwindling resources combined with this nationalist fear driven movement wanting to go back to some mythical golden age, and make America less not more ethnically diverse, or to be blunt as you describe it "make America for Americans" (i.e white and male led).

 

[Arkteia]

(I am reading Katy Tour's book about Trumps campaign. I am not in awe of how it is written, but the book is pretty interesting).

Another thing re. the mentality of Americans - they were never drawn into the juggernaut of our two wars (I mean, they were, but distance alone made it a very different process). Mentally, they are stuck somewhere in pre-vietnam war era, you ask any older American in what time he'd like to live, he'd probably say, in the 50es. This abundance of information that the Inet provides and their kids can process (although it makes them anxiety-ridden), the older folks can not digest. And they turn to Fox news. And if all news capitalize on fear, Fox is the champion of knowing how to do it.

I partially understand them. Partially it is the way the propaganda is organized here. And I like Obama, but I can see how and where things were done wrong in his time. One thing this country has PTSD about is 9/11. Now if we did not really hear much about ISIS, and then one day we were shown execution of an American citizen by "jihadi John"... can you imagine how people reacted? And ISIS had been the force for two years already. People respond with fear, fear towards Islam, because most of us, before that video, were totally unconcerned.

Trump just hit the right vein with his idea of a Muslim ban...but it was not difficult to find that vein.

(Now it is another question why people don't want to acknowledge that for us, the risk of being assassinated in some "Charlie Hebdo" situation is way, way less than in one of our famed school or movie theater shootings, by our own kids who hate themselves and the world, it is a very interesting aspect of US mentality).

Likewise, all our Nazi movements, the Stormfronts...in Europe, they went through it. I can say, my grandpa fought with the Nazis for 5 years, my husband's grandpa was killed in 1941...I am angry when I see their banners. But how many people here have grandparents that actively fought in WWII? A few. And I think it will be interesting to see how the bailout of our banks after the crisis that hit ordinary folks so hard but did not punish the bankers and the financiers contributed to the spread of current Alt-right views. (It would be interesting to see how many people were on alt-right forums before 2008, in 2008-2009, and later, but instead, they just banned all these forums, that now are in the Dark Web, and no one can even monitor them. Stupid)

 

[monarch64]

Trump exploited the fears of most Americans, yup. And while doing so threw in a lot of razzle dazzle, the likes of which he uses to gain ratings on his reality tv show. Super formulaic, which is also why Grisham et al have sold a shit ton of formulaic drugstore novels. Sometimes I miss living in my hometown, where I felt "smart." It is more difficult to keep up with academics in a university town...my lazy butt could've easily reverted to Trumpism, and I can definitely understand how he won the election. He was the easiest option.

 

[arkieb1]

Trump exploited the fears of most Americans, yup. And while doing so threw in a lot of razzle dazzle, the likes of which he uses to gain ratings on his reality tv show. Super formulaic, which is also why Grisham et al have sold a shit ton of formulaic drugstore novels. Sometimes I miss living in my hometown, where I felt "smart." It is more difficult to keep up with academics in a university town...my lazy butt could've easily reverted to Trumpism, and I can definitely understand how he won the election. He was the easiest option.

I don't think he was just the easiest option I think he was the option that was most likely to give the American people something new, unknown and different, and THAT had a massive appeal too. Look at the DFs posts he talks extensively about this idea that he couldn't deal with another x amount of years like Obama, so it's twofold - a change in government to see what differences that will make and we know when people are frightened or really worried economically they tend to revert back to wanting a government with really conservative core values. I'd argue the US has been longing for a total change in politics for a while now and how things in the white house get done, therefore people willingly voted for Trump to shake things up, not just because he was an easy option, more of a totally different option.

 

[t-c]

She lost. You can blame the electoral college, you can blame the intensive negative campaign against her, we both know there is a large list of reasons many of which she herself admits why she lost. Would I have voted for her? Yes I would have, because I detest Trump that much.

Do I like her as a politician? I don't hate her but as previously stated I think they needed to find a candidate with less political history (I call that baggage both good and bad) and one that was better able to present themselves as likeable in the 5 minute internet soundbite world we now live in. She might well be down to earth, and very likeable in real life but seriously watching that video clip she comes across as an academic and a pretty boring one at that. I can see why the average person cannot relate to her and therefore they see the man with the golden elevator and toilet as somehow more like them, even if he isn't..... Because he tweets like white trash (to use the terms people are using here) he talks like white trash, and he acts like white trash. Is it sad that people find him more relatable than her? Yes, to me it is, but all I am pointing out is that we really need to reflect on why that occurred, so it doesn't happen again.

Here's the thing: when you, or anyone else, invoke the phrase "the lesser of two evils" you are saying that both options are detrimental and you are choosing the one that will be less harmful.

Saying a candidate is boring, not comfortable in an interview, doesn't make eye contact, or doesn't evoke Mother Earth, does not make it a certainty that the candidate will be terrible for the country. Now, I haven't seen anything from you that elaborates on "lesser of two evil" moniker you've assigned to HRC...unless of course you would have made your decision based on image alone.

 

[arkieb1]

t-c - I think different people have different definitions of why she is the lesser of the two evils, some white men saw her as evil purely for being a woman, some because of those emails we kept hearing about, because she lied repeatedly about those emails, some feminists because she never really spoke out against Bill and those affairs, because they condemned her for staying with Bill, because of Benghazi. Clumsy speeches on the mining industry (which I personally agree with her POV about renewable energy btw but she was beating a drum that people in those little mining towns were never going to agree with). And this real or imagined perception that she was going to enter a massive war with Syria.

Do I think a male politician would have attracted the same sort of hate campaign she did? Probably not. Do I agree with the nutballs that condemned her because she was a woman, nope. Me personally, I see her as the lesser of the two evils because put any spin on it you like she came tainted by a number of those controversies that made her both able to be exploited negatively by the media, by propaganda from the opposition that clearly made people distrust her in some way.

I wanted a woman that could win, one that the opposition could dig to the bottom of the barrel and she still came up squeaky clean, not one that half the country viewed with suspicion. Do I think she herself is actually evil like so many people do? No, I don''t but as I have said a number of times I think she was the wrong candidate to run against Trump, simply by the fact she came with so much exploitable baggage and because she was and is so modern media unsavvy. And, if we are being blunt I wanted a candidate that could verbally obliterate Trump and his policies in those debates and in your media, one that could successfully call him out for the human piece of garbage he is.

 

[monarch64]

LOL SHE WAS TAINTED.

 

[Arkteia]

In this book, https://www.amazon.com/Shattered-In...eST=_SY344_BO1,204,203,200_QL70_&dpSrc=detail

the authors put it very well why she lost. She lost because of "Clinton, Inc.", they said.

But I think that as a man, she'd be another version of Jeb Bush and never win any primary. Smart, dull, slightly nerdish, having good ideas but unable to deliver, with a whiff of nepotism. I think she went so far specifically because she was a woman, and it made us all interested in her. (Not only women, btw, I know many men who were ready to vote for a woman, but somewhat more charming, less scary to them, and more modern).

 

[arkieb1]

Arkteia - that's even harsher than what I would have said, she probably had to do everything twice as well as a man to get to where she did and there have been plenty of male politicians including Trump himself, who have more "tainted" i.e worse backgrounds than she ever had. But yes I agree being in Clinton inc. I don't think helped her. Being seen as a somewhat aloof academic didn't help her, and her party really allowed Trump and his team to exploit the list of these things and I don't think she recovered from that.

I'm not sure if I should applaud her campaign for not getting down and dirty against Trump or actually be highly critical of them because I think they underestimated his whole campaign and for someone who is supposed to be really intelligent she should have been able to verbally shred a douchebag like him. She and her party should have been able to convince more American people, that he was a completely inappropriate candidate not some wild card a lot of them could relate to, or a holy grail for solving a long list of social and economic issues.

 

[t-c]

In this book, https://www.amazon.com/Shattered-In...eST=_SY344_BO1,204,203,200_QL70_&dpSrc=detail

the authors put it very well why she lost. She lost because of "Clinton, Inc.", they said.

But I think that as a man, she'd be another version of Jeb Bush and never win any primary. Smart, dull, slightly nerdish, having good ideas but unable to deliver, with a whiff of nepotism. I think she went so far specifically because she was a woman, and it made us all interested in her. (Not only women, btw, I know many men who were ready to vote for a woman, but somewhat more charming, less scary to them, and more modern).

Why don't you elaborate on the bolded?

 

[t-c]

t-c - I think different people have different definitions of why she is the lesser of the two evils, some white men saw her as evil purely for being a woman, some because of those emails we kept hearing about, because she lied repeatedly about those emails, some feminists because she never really spoke out against Bill and those affairs, because they condemned her for staying with Bill, because of Benghazi. Clumsy speeches on the mining industry (which I personally agree with her POV about renewable energy btw but she was beating a drum that people in those little mining towns were never going to agree with). And this real or imagined perception that she was going to enter a massive war with Syria.

Do I think a male politician would have attracted the same sort of hate campaign she did? Probably not. Do I agree with the nutballs that condemned her because she was a woman, nope. Me personally, I see her as the lesser of the two evils because put any spin on it you like she came tainted by a number of those controversies that made her both able to be exploited negatively by the media, by propaganda from the opposition that clearly made people distrust her in some way.

I wanted a woman that could win, one that the opposition could dig to the bottom of the barrel and she still came up squeaky clean, not one that half the country viewed with suspicion. Do I think she herself is actually evil like so many people do? No, I don''t but as I have said a number of times I think she was the wrong candidate to run against Trump, simply by the fact she came with so much exploitable baggage and because she was and is so modern media unsavvy. And, if we are being blunt I wanted a candidate that could verbally obliterate Trump and his policies in those debates and in your media, one that could successfully call him out for the human piece of garbage he is.

You say you don't agree with most of the terrible things being said about her, yet you completely bought and still buy into the effects of those terrible things. I mean if you don't agree or don't believe a lot of what's been said about her, then how did she become tainted enough that you thought her simply as a lesser of two evils (and I'm merely talking about your opinion here, not the rest of America which you seem to want to invoke). Did you actually look at Clinton as a candidate independent of the innuendos and suspicions?

I wanted a woman that could win, one that the opposition could dig to the bottom of the barrel and she still came up squeaky clean

Hate to break it to you, but there's no such person. The Republicans can investigate and smear Mother Teresa to make her look suspicious in less than a year.

And, if we are being blunt I wanted a candidate that could verbally obliterate Trump and his policies in those debates and in your media, one that could successfully call him out for the human piece of garbage he is.

And yet @Arkteia just said "Not only women, btw, I know many men who were ready to vote for a woman, but somewhat more charming, less scary to them, and more modern". So, to which group should HRC have catered?

 

[Arkteia]

Arkteia - that's even harsher than what I would have said, she probably had to do everything twice as well as a man to get to where she did and there have been plenty of male politicians including Trump himself, who have more "tainted" i.e worse backgrounds than she ever had. But yes I agree being in Clinton inc. I don't think helped her. Being seen as a somewhat aloof academic didn't help her, and her party really allowed Trump and his team to exploit the list of these things and I don't think she recovered from that.

I'm not sure if I should applaud her campaign for not getting down and dirty against Trump or actually be highly critical of them because I think they underestimated his whole campaign and for someone who is supposed to be really intelligent she should have been able to verbally shred a douchebag like him. She and her party should have been able to convince more American people, that he was a completely inappropriate candidate not some wild card a lot of them could relate to, or a holy grail for solving a long list of social and economic issues.

BTW - I liked Jeb Bush. The only Bush I ever liked. I always viewed him as smart, intellectual, and able politician. And I like the nerds. They have really interesting views of the world. But, they do not perform well in large groups, and elections are all about working large groups. Consequently, Jeb left with 2% votes, or so, much less than Carson.

(The irony - Trump came up with his Mexican agenda the day after Jeb spoke in English, and then repeated the full speech in Spanish. For Mexican voters. Now Trump had to crush Jeb's potential Mexican voters, and this is when we heard, "the rapists". And Trump hit vein nr 1).

I know Hillary was intelligent, and she came with a well thought-over program, a plan, I know what she planned to do for my profession. Now all of it is irrevocably lost...

Hillary's problem is that she does not understand people well. She knows it, she spoke about it. She did not ever work on the TV, so she does not "feel" the TV, and people perceive her as "distant". Basically, they feel she is slightly different, I heard from many that they didn't "trust" her. I think that if an independent voter talks about the lack of "trust", it means loss of emotional contact. And then these fake news hit, and people "suddenly" understand, ah, this is why I didn't trust her! Emails! Benghazi!

(And there is a huge group of people who tend to believe in conspiracies, certain type of natural paranoia, I'd say. For them, there was "spirit cooking", and "Pedophile island", Seth Rich and all this jazz. But the group may be large, too, no one really did the studies about the percentage of people believing in conspiracies).

As to going for Trump, you know, if even "grab the p...y" tape could not ruin him, I don't know what would have. He would start his speeches with "I know it is not politically correct", and his group loved him for his political incorrectness! So they loved him for being the pu..y-grabber! Hillary is not an aggressive person in her speeches. To be successful against Trump, one it would take people like Sanders or Liz Warren, brilliant orators who can be somewhat aggressive in their speeches. Both could probably pull out Trump's emptiness for the people to see, but I am not sure it would have done much, because the electorate does not value the intellectuals.

 

[Arkteia]

Why don't you elaborate on the bolded?

Surely. But first - we are not speaking about being the President. It is a different thing. We are discussing winning the elections.

Biology teaches us that estrogen is socially protective, this is why many not-so-social women adapt better, in schools and colleges. So I am more than positive that in a male version, Hillary would be called "another cold pizza" and that would be the end of it.

However, both times, she was running as the female candidate in the country where women were getting better chances, better-paying jobs, where their voices were increasingly heard. (Two of my State Senators are women, one of them was rich before politics, another one was just "a football mom", got elected and made a wonderful career, without wealth or support). And I would assume that in today's climate, most of women were interested in a female candidate, moreover, men who worked with women, who were unafraid of female bosses, who traveled to other countries having female leaders, younger men, felt that the time war ripe for a woman president here, too.

I read somewhere that we tend to vote for the candidate we associate ourselves with. In 2008 I actually supported Clinton in the primaries, probably for this reason. (I am younger, but ironically, Clinton slightly resembles my mom (just visually, not as a person)). So there was a huge connection, and at first I did not like the fact that she lost to Obama. I also did not think she'd run in 8 years, because she'd be tired.

But she did. And I, having read the history of her fall and medical complications (it is open in the I-net, btw), was very, very much respectful of her. And hearing how she said she'd stand for women in their right to choose was very invigorating.

(However, I think that Hillary's natural privacy did not serve her well in elections, even here. It is a separate story, her unwillingness to use personal story to draw voices, I could comment on it if anyone is interested).

As to men, in one of the books about elections, Hillary, watching her videotaped speech, says something like "tedious". And Bill explains, it might take away voices... Men were not interested in Hillary's grandma role. (And plus, she comes across like a teacher, not like a grandma - and maybe some of them remembered their oh-so-strict schoolteacher...) Young men could not fathom how someone could have so limited concept of Internet security - to explain that for Hillary, Internet appeared somewhere in her 40-es, would mean she came straight from Neanderthals' times. (And Trump who probably is not great on computer either was using his Twitter, and making it fun).

But the main thing, I heard from men, "I'd vote if it were Tulsi Gabbard", some even said, "if Ivanka would run, I'd vote for Ivanka". Some said, Elizabeth Warren, she is a great orator (many said she was too liberal, though). But it seems that men were just bored with Hillary. (I also noticed that no one mentioned such women in Congress as Patty Murray, a smart Senator with seniority). So it seems to me, that if a woman wants to win male electorate, she either has to be attractive, or very witty, or a great orator, but she can not be boring.