"Oh we have a madman in the presidency because the Democrats forced Hillary on us"

[Fast Walker 52]

I STILL keep seeing this argument-- "Oh we have a madman in the presidency because the Democrats forced Hillary on us".

It is such complete obnoxious bullshit I can hardly maintain my composure when I see it.

I know, preaching to the choir here, but still--

First, it was clear from when he first announced that Trump would be EXACTLY like this, and I warned everyone as much as I possibly could. It wasn't that hard to see either. We had countless articles warning us of this, in fact.

Second, to say that "oh Hillary didn't excite people enough" is complete patronizing bullshit. Everyone who votes has agency to see the difference, and if anyone refused to believe that Trump was a madman and Hillary was just as bad as him, then they are to blame for our current situation. Period.

Third, this argument also ignores the three ways the election was actually stolen from Hillary which are actually separate from the media bias against her. 1) Republican voter ID laws and other efforts to suppress the African-American vote. 2) Russian hacking of Democratic emails that led to spread of disinformation about Hillary. 3) Comey's October surprise bullshit news release.

Fourth, we really need to deal with the madman.

[Afromania]

1. It's always somebodies else fault

always.

[DanTex]

2. Ironically, the very people saying that were the biggest Trump apologists during the election.

Before November, Trump was "not that bad" and really no worse than Hillary and blah blah blah.

[Trust Buster]

3. The knee jerk reaction is to blame the media and the party. A complete madman was observed on

the campaign trail for 18 months. A mad man who clearly represented a danger to our society. Yet, 46% of eligible voters could not be bothered to vote to avoid this danger. Say what you will about the government and the media but, I strongly believe the sector of American society that is underperforming the most are the American people themselves. So many refuse to make a minimal effort and that is sad.

[yodermon]

5. Those 46% did not spring forth from a vacuum. There has been a 40 year plan to propagandize

the populace. Starting with the Powell Memo through the removal of the Fairness Doctrine leading to rise of right-wing hate radio.

The left has no such long term entrenched, organized propaganda campaign. Oh well, sucks to be us.

[workinclasszero]

39. "The left has no such long term entrenched, organized propaganda campaign."

With the abolition of the Fairness doctrine the left surrendered the field to the reich wing.

The fruits of this act now control the entire government with a reality denying madman at the helm.

We and our children and generations to come are fucked beyond measure because of this.

[joshcryer]

13. Voter suppression to demoralize the left or moderates.

People who would normally vote for the Democrat but because the "purity left" says they're "no different" why bother. It's an exploitation of apathy. And it's worked wonders as 2010, 2012, 2014, and even 2016 have proven. Where in only blue states did progressives win and in rust belt states progressives like Feingold lost. It's mind boggling.

[karynnj]

25. It is hard to believe that the "purity left" affected the vote for Feingold

I think that Feingold was hurt by the avalanche of RW and Republican ads that attacked him, Hillary and Democrats in general. Feingold is about as pure as you can get and, unlike in 2010 when he turned down DNC money, he was vocal about needing help in the last few weeks. For months, he had been far ahead and then his numbers plummeted with the attack ads. His decline was actually steeper than HRC's in the same time frame. I conjecture that this is because at the Presidential level, there was far less a difference in how much paid and non paid air time there was for the nominee.

I assume your point was that HRC did not get all the people who voted for Sanders in the primaries. One observation is that he did bring in some people who ordinarily would not vote or not vote for a Democrat. It is very possible that two things are both true:
1) Some Sanders' non traditional primary voters voted for Trump
2) HRC got more votes because Sanders was able to convince some of these voters - who were not ours - to vote for HRC.

[Cosmocat]

17. T H I S x 1,000,000

After the 2010 mid terms when this country, for no reason other than republicans throwing a hissy fit, gave Rs the biggest mid term sweep in our lives, I put it all on US.

It isn't just Trump, this country has indulged republican ass hatery for decades - let Reagen off the hook for Iran Contra, let Bush lie the country into Iraq and walk into the sunset, gave BHO a democratic congress for two years then because of his mistake of signing off on the REPUBLICAN GOD DAMN VERSION OF HEALTH CARE this country has spent the last 6 years giving the assholes more and more power, until we sit here today with a full on authoritarian, fascist government.

These assholes are tripping overthemselves to tear down THEIR health care reform on the way to trashing medicare, SS, the environment, selling off our public commons, fucking up the internet ... And, this country seriously could not give a fuck.

People keep up with this mind set that it is half the country vs the other half.

As you accurately noted, it is THIRDS.

1/3 of us dealing in reality.
1/3 of us living in a hateful alternative reality.
1/3 of us who don't bother to even show up on election day, who far to often chew their cuds and follow the idiots in the alternative reality over whatever cliff they are taking us over.

[yodermon]

4. Hillary lost against TRUMP. Do you think she would have won against Cruz? Rubio? Kasich?

She thought Trump was the Pied Piper Candiate for fuck's sake.

Trump was the weakest possible candidate, even by her own reckoning, and she still lost.

[ismnotwasm]

6. It took a lot to bring her down

And they're those on the left that cheerfully helped

[Fast Walker 52]

9. yeah, for sure... sick

and now they complain about Trump

[Fast Walker 52]

12. well, first, that is an old strategy, hardly unique to Hillary's campaign

Second it's not clear how they could "elevate" GOP candidates?

Third, I don't think Trump was the weakest candidate at all! He was most unusual and obnoxious, but not weakest.

[JTFrog]

14. Derp. Because absolutely nothing interefered in this election on Trump's behalf.

No, he won fair and square. Comey is a standup guy. Russians wants nothing to do with the U.S. Oh, and GOP is only concerned about bad people not having proper ID so Democrats and dead people don't vote ten times each.



Are you fucking kidding me right now?

Do you think Cruz, Rubio and Kasich are also traitors? Did they deal only in Alternative Facts? Do you think Russia and Comey were gonna throw the election their way? Did they have direct servers to Russia's banks?

And let's not talk about having a spoiler within our own fucking party. And still, she beat the spoiler handily.

AND SHE STILL FUCKING GOT 3 MILLION VOTES MORE THAN DRUMPY. Yeah, that doesn't mean shit now, but that doesn't mean all that didn't fucking happen.

I understand that some folks need to gloss some shit over so they can sleep at night, but this shit is really getting old.

[SticksnStones]

22. Double derp.

Agreed.

[2naSalit]

27. Right?

All these "this is why we didn't win" is nothing less than attempting to cover the fact that this election was tampered with, bigly. One reason the cheato is obsessed with the vote count is that he knows he cheated and is doing everything possible to distract us from looking at that as we should as a point of first magnitude. He should not have been sworn in along with a lot of the Congress until the integrity of the election could be confirmed beyond a reasonable doubt.

[stevenleser]

45. I keep seeing this "Trump was the weakest possible candidate" nonsense from some Bernie supporters

Most Bernie supporters are too smart to suggest this.

The weakest candidate is not the person who wins the primary, sorry to tell you. Yes, Hillary would have won against Cruz, Rubio and Kasich. Let's go over why, shall we?

Trump destroyed Rubio in Florida, his home state, and barely edged Hillary there. Hillary beats Rubio in Florida easily. Rubio had no offerings to contest the rust belt state like Trump did. Hillary beats him easily there. Hillary easily wins the electoral college against Rubio.

Similarly, Cruz wasn't even on the map in Florida and he also had no policies with which to contest the rust belt states. Hillary easily wins the electoral college against Cruz.

Kasich wasnt on the map either in Florida. Outside of Ohio, he did not poll in the top two spots in any other rust belt state. He didnt win any other state than Ohio. Hillary wins the electoral college easily against Kasich.

Let's get something else straight. Everyone who doesnt go through a bruising general election race has better favorables than the folks who actually go through one. The nationwide polling can look good for those folks, sure. But as we found out, the national vote doesnt mean anything if you can't win the right states. None of the folks you mentioned could have won the states they need to win against Hillary. They didnt have close to the needed support.

[mcar]

7. K&R

[hollowdweller]

8. The GOP had like 30 years to frame Clinton

There was a telling comment last night on PBS's Frontline special about Trump.

They were talking about how after the tape came out about Trump, that he countered by really attacking Clinton by having a conference with the women who accused Clinton of sexually assaulting them, and then going on the attack on her during the debate.

They interviewed Frank Luntz and he said something like " if you were in NY you thought he was making a huge mistake. If you were polling people in Ohio they were loving it"

The GOP made Clinton so toxic that all republicans, most independents, and even some democrats voted Trump.

The Russians, Comey, voter disenfranchisement all played a part. But talk radio and the GOP propaganda machine was #1. Same thing would have happened in 2008 if she would have won. McCain would have connected her to the mortgage crisis and deregulation during Bill's term and beat her.

[Fast Walker 52]

10. yes, true, but I think the anti-Hillary demonization from the GOP could have been overcome

partly because it was partisan. Unfortunately the media played along and the hacking amplified the memes about her.

[hollowdweller]

29. Not sure. The media went after Trump too.

Although it was fairly close so any small thing might have tipped the balance.

[JTFrog]

11. Transparent bullshit. They can't handle the fact that they let their hate fuck the entire country.

I hope it keeps them up every single night.

[Skittles]

42. agreed

I hope it gnaws them every fucking day

[JTFrog]

16. Oh give it up. nt

[JTFrog]

20. Whatever helps you sleep at night. nt

[hollowdweller]

32. Dems should have fielded more candidates.

I would have liked to see Biden, and some younger folks.

[m-lekktor]

23. I actually thought she would beat him handily

so I no longer consider myself qualified to predict what might have been otherwise.

[karynnj]

21. What is even meant by "the Democrats forced Hillary on us"?

It is pretty clear that Hillary worked to get most powerful Democrats behind her almost from the point where she stepped down as Secretary of State - or even before that. This is NOT unfair, or something unethical, immoral etc ... All of the important people who supported her supported her because they thought she was a good choice - and it says something that they knew her.

It is true that that overwhelming support very early on could have precluded many from running. Yet, this was the choice of those potential opponents. In fact, many strong candidates, not favored in a particular year - either because someone else is a strong front runner for the nomination or because Democrats winning that year was unlikely - opt to wait their time, especially if they are young enough. ( Obama was an exception to that.)

It is very possibly true that Obama agreed to both make HRC SoS and his preferred successor to get support of both Clintons in 2008 and 2012. If true, it was a choice he likely made because he thought it improved his chances to both win and to accomplish the goals that he had. However, that would make sense ONLY if HRC was likely to do a good job, which she did. (In fact, in Kerry's oped last week in the NYU, he gives an example of Obama's foreign policy that I wish she would have used last year. He wrote of how when Russia invaded Georgia at the end of the Bush years, Bush objected, but could do nothing. When Russia invaded Ukraine, because we had improved relations especially in Europe, sanctions on Russia stopped them from going further. Hillary did speak of repairing the relationships damaged, but this example shows how that strengthened our ability to react. (It also counters the idea that Russia was stronger under Obama, than under Bush.)

Getting back to "forced on us" -- HRC won the nomination because she won the primaries. You can second guess whether someone who did not run might have come in and won a big enough share of both her votes and Bernie's votes to win the nomination -- and then ran better against Trump.

As you state, though, this was a clear choice -- probably the clearest choice since Johnson/Goldwater! One statistic that stands out is that Trump won a large percent of the people who had unfavorable opinions on HRC and Trump. This suggests that these were mostly Republicans who voted for party, the Supreme Court or simply for change.

Another Democrat might have sensed they needed to shore up the union/working class/white/rust belt or managed to gracefully tamp down the divisive identity issues without minimizing the underlying issues. However, the difficulty of being heard once the Republican echo chamber dominated what people in many areas heard can not be overstated. That it gave convenient scapegoats to people concerned that they were falling very short on their expectations to live the life their parents and grandparents could was very attractive -- casting the blame away from them and giving an easy solution - elect Trump. What we do know is that reason, careful studies, graphs showing all economic statistics improving do not work here, partly because they suggest that things have gotten better which does not match their own dissatisfaction. (In retrospect, Trump playing I can't get no satisfaction - over the Rolling Stones object was likely a better choice than I thought - as it likely provided a refrain for his supporters.)

[JHan]

24. I agree with most of your points except:

"It is very possibly true that Obama agreed to both make HRC SoS and his preferred successor to get support of both Clintons in 2008 and 2012"

that's not true. She wanted to return to the senate and aides from both the Clinton and Obama camp were against the idea of her being SoS.

Obama was a keen strategist, probably respected her, maybe felt she might primary him in 2012, and decided to bring her into cabinet. Everything I've read- that is credible- suggests Hillary wanted to just return to the Senate and become a Ted Kennedy type figure for Democrats.

[karynnj]

36. I don't think HRC was really eager to return to the Senate

She stayed away for nearly a month after losing the last primary. In addition, there were people allied with her angry because the Kennedy people rejected outright that she could head a subcommittee of the HELP committee and lead the effort on healthcare - rather than Kennedy who chaired the committee. The problem HRC faced in the Senate was that it is a seniority based organization and she had insufficient seniority to chair an important committee. There was a BIG imbalance in her power in the Senate and her power as one of the best known Democrats in the country.

Clinton was not part of the Kennedy wing of the party. I do think that the only, Ted Kennedy like thing she was seen to potentially do, would be to primary Obama. That would have meant a President Romney because of the power of both Clintons. I think that, even more than Hillary, Obama making her SoS was to tether Bill Clinton to his side - making Obama's success, Clinton's success.

However, as I said, Obama also did this because he thought HRC could do a good job. He designed the job to fit her skills. Her own fame meant that a visit by HRC was almost a Presidential visit. That went a long way to healing divides that grew under Bush.

[JHan]

40. Biographies I've read and accounts from those close to her suggest that she very much wanted to..

Her wanting to be a Ted Kennedy type doesn't mean she wished to align herself with him: But adopt the stature he had in the party through influence.

I would expect her to retreat after losing the primary, it was a bruising experience.

When the offer came to be SoS she said words to the effect "no way" - I don't have the exact quote on hand. Obama had to call her repeatedly to persuade her.

Just pointing out that I often hear the claim made of a deal but what I've read doesn't match up to such claims. My info came from: https://www.amazon.ca/HRC-Secrets-Rebirth-Hillary-Clinton/dp/0804136750 ( And I recommend it because it's well sourced)

[Rex]

26. I could go along with that IF HRC had lost the popular vote.

She didn't, she appears to have millions and millions more voters than Donny Tinyhands. So NO, we didn't get Trump because of HRC - we got Trump because of a rigged system. IMO.

[2naSalit]

31. +1

[raging moderate]

28. They would have deep-sixed anybody.

If Abraham Lincoln had risen to declare himself a Democrat and announce his candidacy, the Koch brothers and their cohorts would have found a way to trash him and energize the far-right reactionaries.

[WinkyDink]

30. Who knew Democrats are the true power?!

[Skidmore]

33. If blame must be assigned,

I still hold those who sat out the midterm elections to teach the President a lesson.

[JHan]

35. I'm still bitter about that as well.

[liberalhistorian]

34. I have some Democratic friends

who simply won't shut up about this and who are stuck in that way of thinking. No amount of reasoning seems to get through to them. They are as bad as Trump people who refuse to listen to any facts or reason no matter what. One of them is obsessed with Jill Stein, constantly posting on FB about how she was directly responsible and how the Green Party is now helping Trump. And this is an otherwise intelligent, thoughtful person. I don't even know what to say to him, or to the other friends, anymore.

[JI7]

37. many of the same ones who want to minimize russian interference and don't give a shit about social

issues which would mean the voting rights act.

Fuck them. They are hostile to minority groups which is why Clinton won the primary. Nobody forced her on them. They have always been huge supporters of her.

[NCTraveler]

38. "Oh we have a madman in the presidency because the Democrats forced Hillary on us"

Alternative facts. They weren't invented by the Trump regime. The decay of the educations system in the country more obvious than ever. What an ignorant statement. They are the flip side of a Trump coin.

[Skittles]

41. it is pure misogyny

there were plenty of DUers suffering from Hillary Hatred Hysteria, too

[Paladin]

43. Fuck that shit. (nt)

[yardwork]

44. This is a good thread. Lots of good points here.

Oh, and fuck Jill Stein.