2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: My Endorsement of Hillary Rodham Clinton for President [View all]BainsBane
(53,032 posts)and simply point to what you wrote 8 yrs ago as though nothing has changed since then and as though you didn't address your change in views in the OP. The response is ridicule because they have nothing else. Sadly, that is what passes for political debate in the current environment where facts are irrelevant and differences of opinion, no matter how minor, are treated as an act of war. The responses say far more about the people making them than the OP itself.
And I suppose for people who do not consider qualifications for a position irrelevant but rather look for the presidency to mirror themselves, experience as Secretary of State--a crucial difference between Clinton's candidacy in 2008 and today, is irrelevant. We live in a world where far too many refuse under any circumstances to examine evidence in forming decisions. They know what they know, facts be damned. Such a mindset cannot imagine how a different context and added experience might alter one's opinion, since theirs is entirely unencumbered by any of that.
I believe what we are seeing is also symptomatic of the hatred of government that comes from the right and influenced the so-called left. When ones sees government as only a source of ill, there is no concern for experience and competence or the ability to enact policy since they don't want government to actually function. Government and politics, like everything else in our society, has been reduced to a form of entertainment--cable TV cage match in business attire. Too many look to elected leaders to vent and express their anger and hostility at the world around them rather than to work together to get things done for the improvement of society. That section on the "left" is of course far more affluent that the general population and not in need of government assistance, so their desire for an entertainer in chief who mirrors themselves trumps any concern that a president actually be equipped or disposed to enacting any actual policy affecting those who need government to get by.
Good endorsement, and since I myself have changed how I see Clinton since 2008, I don't find it difficult to believe how others would. Also the fact is we choose whom we vote for from the available candidates. There is no Barack Obama running in 2016, and O'Malley just doesn't seem to be catching on. I couldn't support someone as conservative as Webb, and I can't trust someone who has been a Republican until very recently. That leaves Clinton. There simply is no one else, and she happens to be extremely well qualified. Different election, different field of candidates, different choice. That shouldn't be difficult to understand.