421
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2024
421 points (97.5% liked)
politics
19107 readers
3220 users here now
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
I agree Comey is a ratfucker, but Clinton dropped the ball so many fucking times. She failed the ground game in Michigan and Wisconsin, she failed in Pennsylvania and Arizona, all states that were entirely winnable (and she thought she had them in the bag) but voters didn't show up for her. She pulled money from the "safe" counties, but worse than that she failed to make a case why anyone should vote for her. She had no platform, she was out front on zero wedge issues, and spent more time antagonizing progressive voters than she spent courting them. And they still showed up to vote for her, because progressives didn't want Trump. It was the moderates who shrugged and said "what's the worst that can happen?"
She followed the standard Democrat strategy in PA and successfully did it better than Obama, at least on the base. She only slightly underperformed vote totals in rural counties. The issue is that trump brought people into the vote. Not moderates, but non voting rural voters who believe they had been left behind. And did so in droves.
She lost because she was an establishment candidate, doing typical establishment things (very successfully) at a period of time of strong anti establishment...and here comes this guy, whose genius is in the ability to sell himself, who said all the right things about being anti establishment.
Clinton was your typical politician. She played by the book and did so pretty well. And of course this includes focusing on a swing state like pa. Can we look back and think of things she could have done better? Of course, hind sight is 20/20. But the issue is that they didn't sense, noone really did (Im not even convinced trump did), how much people were desperate to vote for a non establishment candidate.
She wasn't a bad a candidate, just the same old at the wrong time.
But comey legitimately did things that they pretty much never do that fucked her. It was a knowingly harmful action, right before the election, where she lost some places with razor thin margins. He fucked us, very intentionally, even if he didn't think it would swing the election.
Democrats need to let go of the revisionist "she did very well compared to Obama" bullshit.
It was her job to win the election, a job she fought bitterly to have, and she didn't. She failed. She failed the party, and she failed America.
And you need to let go of the "nobody saw this coming" bullshit. Plenty of people saw it coming, but they were dismissed and ignored.
The modern Democratic party had never won an election with an establishment candidate. Carter did not have the support of the party, Bill Clinton invented his own "new Democrats" because all of the establishment Dems thought HW was unbeatable, and Obama had to squeeze out Hillary, Biden, John Edwards, and Chris Dodd as the disruptor. Meanwhile, Mondale, Gore, Kerry, Dukakis, rank and file candidates all, and all of them losers.
There is no such thing as a "typical politician" or a "typical race" at the presidential level. There is no one winning strategy that works in all elections, no national map that tracks across generations, no conventional wisdom that holds up to scrutiny.
Clinton was responsible for developing a strategy to beat her opponent. She wasn't running against Obama. She didn't need to beat Obama's turnout, she needed to beat Trump's turnout.
She was, objectively, a bad candidate. Trump was beatable, and she had a massive advantage in fundraising and experience and campaigning. She was smarter and more capable than her opponent, and had the money and infrastructure to monitor his moves and outmaneuver him at every turn.
Instead, she shat the bed. It wasn't even close. There were five states where she thought she was winning and was exposed to be completely out of touch. That's not someone else's fault. There wasn't some magical intervention or deus ex machina at the last minute. Hillary simply failed to convince enough voters to show up for her.
Having lived through it, watching it happen in real time, that was extremely frustrating. Having someone tell me after the fact that "well, actually she had statistically more of the base than previous elections" is maddening.
But the real kick in the balls is watching Biden make the same mistakes, try the same strategies that failed before, recognizing that Biden is our best hope to avoid catastrophe, and realizing that Trump is on track to move back into the White House.