Back in 2016, WikiLeaks was in direct communication with Trump Jr. and telling the campaign to claim the election was rigged and stolen if he lost. He was pulling a lot of stuff behind the scenes outside of the scope of journalism. It's clear Assange was likely a mouthpiece for Russia to sow division in the US during this period.
Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.
"She did it. Maybe without meaning to, but she did do it."
I dislike the establishment left, but 2016 was one of the most propagandized, misinformation filled, and corrupt elections - in no way can it be considered an "easy election".
Hindsight is 20/20... The electorate sees no where near that well, and didn't at the time.
The truth is fascism and pseudo or proto fascism is never an easy thing to defeat, because it breaks the rules and can appeal to forces and parts of human nature that most politicians won't or can't run with. This is why most fascists are praised as gifted speakers - even Trump - because they're appealing to powerful parts of human nature which are usually not spoken about in politics, let alone addressed directly.
I completely agree. Hillary was subject to non-stop manufactured scandals insinuating she was a complete criminal (Benghazi, the emails, etc.). Plus Trump successfully tapped into the "punish the libs" and "it's okay to be racist" contingents. It wasn't a great campaign, but to suggest that it should have been a cake walk for her is ridiculous.
It's easy to make her sound like a victim when you ignore the fact that she did everything in her power to rig the DNC primaries in her favor AND propped up Trump's early campaign as much as she could. The situation we find ourselves in is certainly not exclusively her fault but she definitely deserves more of the blame than any of us do. She set the board exactly how she wanted and still couldn't win the game.
A. What candidate wouldn't use whatever was available to them to win the election? She obviously didn't do anything illegal or Trump's DOJ would have nailed her (and they sure tried).
B. Gonna need a source for the Hillary propped up Trump's campaign part.
Illegal and anti-democratic aren't always the same thing. You can certainly be one without the other. Though to be clear there have been allegations of outright illegal activity by the Clinton campaign and the DNC as a whole during the 2016 election, but the specifics are fuzzy in my memory and that's not what you're asking about so I won't attempt to address it further here.
Here's the first article I read through after a quick search to find a source for you. If you don't like the source I'm sure you can use the timeline and references it contains to find something from a source you prefer.
So to take [Jeb] Bush down, Clinton’s team drew up a plan to pump Trump up. Shortly after her kickoff, top aides organized a strategy call, whose agenda included a memo to the Democratic National Committee: “This memo is intended to outline the strategy and goals a potential Hillary Clinton presidential campaign would have regarding the 2016 Republican presidential field,” it read. “The variety of candidates is a positive here, and many of the lesser known can serve as a cudgel to move the more established candidates further to the right. In this scenario, we don’t want to marginalize the more extreme candidates, but make them more ‘Pied Piper’ candidates who actually represent the mainstream of the Republican Party,” read the memo.
Eleven days after those comments about McCain, Clinton aides sought to push the plan even further: An agenda item for top aides’ message planning meeting read, “How do we prevent Bush from bettering himself/how do we maximize Trump and others?"
I agree with you that it wasn't a cakewalk, but the problem was she treated it like a cakewalk. She assumed she had it locked up, and ignored all polling that didn't support her landslide victory. She punished downticket candidates who didn't bend the knee by skipping their districts in places like Wisconsin and Michigan, because she assumed people would show up for her.
She ran a terrible campaign, kowtowing to the worst attacks, thinking it was politics as usual, acting like she was above the fray while she was face down in the mud getting stomped on.
She should have gone on the offensive. She should have presented a vision for a better America. She failed us all, and for that she deserves as much scorn as we can conjure.
I don't know, it seems like when she even mildly went on the offensive, people on both sides (and especially the media) ripped her for it. Remember the "deplorables" things?
For ages, I don't think even Trump's campaign thought he had much of a chance (many sources have said he didn't even want to win). And remember, she did win the popular vote.
I don't think she did nearly as well as she could have, but there's a lot of hyperbole about her that I think is misplaced.
Let's also remember that most people didn't REALLY think Trump had a chance in 2016, even most Republicans voting for him. If everyone that would have voted against Trump had shown up (less than 60% of eligible voters turned out in 2016), it would have been no contest. He didn't even get the popular vote in the end. But nobody took his campaign seriously and counted on everybody else to turn out to make the obvious but boring choice.
In 2020, though, we had the highest turnout of eligible voters since 1920 (still an embarrassing 66.6%). The only reason that the turnout for 2020 was so high is because so many people were so eager to either maintain or end Trump's reign that people were charged up and went to the polls. The only realistic way that Trump doesn't win this time though is if everyone who was so charged in 2020 remains as charged this time, or a new bunch of voters, like newly eligible young voters, show up in droves... and I'm very concerned that that doesn't happen.
I can’t imagine young voters being disenchanted more than they are when the Biden admin ignores their pleas to stop a genocide and walks all over them like spoiled children. He needs them now more than ever. I can’t see him realizing it, however.
Chapo Traphouse said it quite well with today’s episode: he isn’t willing to sacrifice his pride for the good of democracy. And Dems aren’t willing to shame and embarrass him to protect it either. We’re fucked.
Biden doesn't actually believe in democracy. Biden supports democracy in the same way corporations support gay people during June. If Trump dismantles democracy, he doesn't care. Biden's big talk is all kayfabe. Biden is the face and Trump is the heel.
Threatening the DNC with a Trump presidency is like threatening your kids with McDonald's
If everyone that would have voted against Trump had shown up (less than 60% of eligible voters turned out in 2016), it would have been no contest.
Everyone needs to read and comprehend this. The number of people who didn't want Hillary or Trump was greater than the number of people who voted for them. But the system doesn't reward abstaining. Trying to make a statement by not voting only serves to reward the people who you are abstaining from. Fucking vote, people! Write a candidate in if you have to. Vote for your dog. But get off your asses and use the right that hundreds of thousands of people died to protect.
The DNC stole the nomination from Bernie Sanders. Thus losing the democrats the election. And us getting Trump. I was Pro Bernie myself, THeeeen Pro Trump. Because I figured Trump would fuck shit up enough it would get Americans to get off their lard asses and give a fuck. Didn't realize he would try an actual, though pathetic, coup on january 6th.
It would have been easy if Clinton's team hadn't deliberately helped Trump, thinking that putting a fascist on the world stage would make their jobs easier.
"Obama has been doing a great job for 8 years and I plan to continue his legacy as best I can. We're going to give more money to workers and students and also legalise weed."
Boom. That's all winning an election took in 2015. It's Clinton's fault she needed to go and defeat fascism and failed.
Claiming that was the easiest election in history discounts the fact that just under half the voting public didn't respect a very-experienced politician with a history of pro-people causes and perseverance; they wanted the man with no experience and scandals buzzing around him like flies.
UK citizen here. Already had 3 women prime ministers.
It wasn't that Hilary was a woman, simply she was more dislikable than Liz Truss and seemed to put nothing out to convince people to vote for her. It wasn't clear at all what she stood for or what her platform was.
It came across as entitled and like she took the electorate for granted. No matter how great or good you think you are, or how bad your rival is, you still have to ask the electorate to lend you their vote.
She stood for literally nothing. Just like Biden. And the DNC was caught cheating during the early primaries to thwart Bernie. Just like how Biden went from 4th to 1st overnight after coordinated drop-outs in 2020. At least they didn't actively commit fraud like in 2016 I guess.
Do you remember the PUMAs in 2008? More Bernie Bros were willing to vote Hillary in the general than PUMAs were willing to vote Obama.
But we're getting distracted, you can't blame Bernie supporters because the politician chosen by the DNC had the blood of millions on her hands, and was just generally unlikable.
You run a politician that offers the people fuckall, of course they're not gonna take a day off work to vote for you, they'd rather have the money.
Not a single reasonable person said this. The tweet is totally about how she was freaking terrible at campaigning.
You sound like a person who either didn’t go vote or voted for the guy who cheated on his wife with a porn star while his wife was at home with the newborn.
But how was this ever enough to justify voting for the guy who has no morality, cheats and bullshits his way through everything, selects his entourage based on loyalty over competence, divides the country through purposefully polarizing statements and filed for bankruptcies 6 times, 5 of which were casinos? And that was what we knew before he was elected.
That's just showing how superficial a lot of the voter base really is.
My two cents:
The average American has a literacy rate of 7th-8th grade and not only does Trump talk to that level he also repeats things constantly so people can remember it.
Couple that with all conservative biased media constantly blasting the same messages people believe Trump was looking out for them.
Compare to Hilary who has been painted as out of touch with voters and courting high value donors since Bill was president and the Bernie thing she needed to capture more independents but she didn't.
