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Reflecting on why Hillary Clinton lost

Rest

All these years later I still chuckle at what a fucking moron that guy is.
The ones who thought she was talking about them are the ones who wouldn't have voted for her anyway.

It's like going to a job interview and insulting a manager that isn't in the room whose team you don't think you'll be working on. It doesn't make you look good and isn't going to help you with people who are on the fence about hiring you, it just makes you look like a jerk.
 

jmdajr

Member
its really just comes down to the rust belt (and Florida i suppose). Hillary had the votes. They just weren't in the right place. She lost those working class whites and whites w/no degrees, groups that were essential to Obama's victories.

Trump capitalized on that with all his empty rhetoric (Coal is coming back guys! And guess what? It's clean too!!) They didn’t care that Trump never relayed an actual plan. They just liked that it sounded like Trump was on their side. (America first!) All of the other problems with Trump (misogyny, racism, etc you know the rest) could bite it because Trump was gonna bring the jobs!!!

Hillary also wanted to help job market and get workers better prepared for the future and also had policy to do so but that message was cluttered up by other message that the white working didn’t particularly care about (lgbt rights, mass incarceration, women's rights, anti-discrimination, environmental protection etc etc).

so by comparison, on the surface, it looked too many that Trump was the one to be trusted. because he wrapped himself up in an American flag and harped "jobs, jobs, jobs" "the Mexicans and the Chinese are taking them! No its not the white billionaires that are holding all the money. Not at all. And you can trust me because I'm one of them. the Clinton's are the bad rich people.

Trump (and the right wing media) portrayed Hillary as untrustworthy. and trustworthiness is a huuuuge deal for voters. and the Comey letter was the last bullet of that assault.

Pretty scary how Michael Moore literally predicted all this.
 
I know we all say that but it isn't that they are stupid although his biggest base is uneducated white males but they just believed he was the chosen one.

The one to fix everything wrong with Washington
The one to get jobs back
The one to Make America Great Again

I gotta admit, they really know how to come up with slogans. MAGA, DTS, Lock Her Up, etc.

The DNC never had a cheer to rally behind. I mean there was #pussygrabber.

I don't think Dump even realized how right he was with the 5th Avenue statement. he could shoot someone and his hardcore base probably wouldn't bat an eye. (especially if its a liberal or a muslim)

I wa shocked (and i know i shouldn't have been) after all that "drain the swamp" bs during the campaign he appoints like ten Goldman Sachs guys to his cabinet. I thought "Surely this black and white example of lying and hypocrisy will get his base to turn on him fast as fuck" nope nope nope. in fact a lot of people think he "drained the swamp" successfully despite this

also the "Lock Her Up" died immediately after election day. two big campaign promises broken and not a peep. Trump thinks building is politically necessary for him since it was his biggest chant but I disagree. He can do or not do whatever the fuck he wants. his base is completely delusional.
 
Basically the Comey Letter, losing the white working class votes, the undecided switched at the last minute to Trump, people normally chose people they identify with rather than policy. The polls didn't really get it wrong, it was within margin of error, it was just that all the polls had Clinton ahead but trump was still a possibility. It went from 6-1 to 3-1.
No blame for her numerous campaign errors? This loss was her fault.
 
Please don't. Just, please, don't.



This. I remember that government (Social Studies when I was a kid) was indeed taught in school growing up. The system was still barely explained, but it was enough to know why it existed and what it did. I still didn't agree with it totally at the time until I went to college and got a 100% explanation of it. At this point all I see about "the electoral college is dumb" is just uninformed nonsense. To remove it in lieu of straight popular vote would be more damaging, as a much larger population of the country lives in cities than not, and a much larger number of major cities are liberal than conservative.

EC should stay, if and only if the EC votes were awarded proportionally with the votes in the state.

I.E. Hillary wins 70% of a state with 10 EC votes. She should get 7 EC votes and trump 3 from that state.
 

Exile20

Member
No blame for her numerous campaign errors? This loss was her fault.

I wouldn't say that. The fact it was this close was her fault, the fact that there were so many undecided was her fault but the comey letter is what lost it for her. That is what tipped the undecided to Trump.
 
EC should stay, if and only if the EC votes were awarded proportionally with the votes in the state.

I.E. Hillary wins 70% of a state with 10 EC votes. She should get 7 EC votes and trump 3 from that state.

That would still be part of the problem, just "less of" said problem. Would you do it as a popular per county? Popular per county would still have the same issue, it would just be a bit more granular.

The entire system should be revised, certainly, because the makeup of the country isn't the same as when the EC was enacted and population sprawl is obviously a thing. But using an imperfect system as a scapegoat for "why we lost" without critical thinking, like what I quoted above, is awful.

The problem with popular vote is that the popular vote isn't always the best for everyone, as we know. We wouldn't even be having this discussion if we didn't have such an ingrained 2-party system that ends up dividing people so easily. We need to be able to more easily keep someone who is doing the country well (forcing change is bad) and more easily get rid of someone who is not (impeachment process is bad). We've have entirely too many wild swings in all branches since the 90s because "we hated this guy so we vote the other party" and the cycle keeps repeating itself.
 

platocplx

Member
So white women identified more with a braindead senile white man than an accomplished white woman?

Yep because in a patriarchal society women like Hilary are despised based on her success, and I feel like many white women envied her success.

people normally chose people they identify with rather than policy.
This also is one of the saddest things about our country. They will choose a guy or someone that makes them feel good or they could have a beer with. and put policy and or actually merit last.

EC should stay, if and only if the EC votes were awarded proportionally with the votes in the state.

I.E. Hillary wins 70% of a state with 10 EC votes. She should get 7 EC votes and trump 3 from that state.

Honestly If we had the EC, BUT we had a run off after the first vote we prob would have gotten clinton elected. Some margins in states would be gone if there werent third parties after the first round of voting. Our system is so damn archaic. We need to have run offs and the EC doesnt kick in until we have two candidates or a certain threshold like at least 30% of the vote to have a final show down.
 
I know Hillary made her mistakes but that Comey Letter timing was seriously uncalled for. Trump also got all the free publicity in the world.
 
That would still be part of the problem, just "less of" said problem. Would you do it as a popular per county? Popular per county would still have the same issue, it would just be a bit more granular.

I'm not commenting on why we/she/they lost. But distributing E.C. votes proportionally would pretty much solve the problem, although I haven't ran the numbers, someone easily could if they had all the data. It would be very interesting to see what would happen if you took the last 10 presidential elections, applied that system, and to see if any of the results would change (Gore/Bush and Clinton/Trump are probably the only two that would change). There would be a much lower chance that someone would win the presidency but lose the popular vote.

The county argument doesn't apply as it is not like EC votes are done on a county level, then those EC votes are used for a state level, etc. Its the state level where the popular vote per state changes to a E.C. vote. I know the reason the EC exists and it would still have the same bearing if they were awarded proportionally.

Honestly If we had the EC, BUT we had a run off after the first vote we prob would have gotten clinton elected. Some margins in states would be gone if there werent third parties after the first round of voting. Our system is so damn archaic. We need to have run offs and the EC doesnt kick in until we have two candidates or a certain threshold like at least 30% of the vote to have a final show down.

Ive actually made this same argument to people as to why the two party system has its advantages. If you had 5 strong major parties in our current system, that all made it to the final ballot, than you could effectively win the presidency with just 21% of the vote (one person with 21%, the rest all break even at 19.75%). It ALWAYS should come down to two and only two choices imo. We sorta do already have a "rounds of" voting system (when you consider the primaries), but it is deeply flawed. Everyone should be on every ballot, have like 3 or 4 tiers/rounds. People who were at the bottom of each tier drop off until there are two remaining. It shouldn't matter if they are dem or repub or what, in this system even two dems could be the two remaining people at the end of the day. The problem with this is it is hard enough to get people out to vote for just one election every 4 years, let alone a tiered system. But even this system would have some flaws. There really is no "perfect" system.
 

Neoweee

Member
I know Hillary made her mistakes but that Comey Letter timing was seriously uncalled for. Trump also got all the free publicity in the world.

And Russian intelligence ran interference to drown out his scandals. They released the Podesta emails an hour after the pussy-grabbing video leaked.
 

ApharmdX

Banned
I know Hillary made her mistakes but that Comey Letter timing was seriously uncalled for. Trump also got all the free publicity in the world.

He did. The US media is complicit in Trump's election. I think a lot of Americans have forgotten that because Trump has been bashing them. Like, I have a hard time feeling sympathy for CNN or even MSNBC. Ya'll thought it was so great to air Trump 24/7 for ratings.
 
It's like going to a job interview and insulting a manager that isn't in the room whose team you don't think you'll be working on. It doesn't make you look good and isn't going to help you with people who are on the fence about hiring you, it just makes you look like a jerk.

Her comment:

You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic -- you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up


Sorry, but if someone was offended by her comment then they were already in that group of deplorables who would have voted for Donald Trump anyway. They weren't sitting on the fence. If anyone ran a campaign and said, "To all racist, sexist, and homophobic voters, I don't want your vote.", then those people would definitely not vote for that person. Anyone who's not racist, sexist, or homophobic knows the candidate wasn't talking about them.
 

boingball

Member
The election was so tight that there are of course a lot of reasons why Hillary lost. The Comey letter pushed Trump over the top. The Russian meddling pushed Trump over the top. And and and. But it shouldn't have never been that close.

The democrats pushed an incredible weak candidate in Hillary, the weakest candidate ever (if you discount Trump). That she had to go overtime against a 70year old white male "socialist" (I am not american, outside of America Bernie is just center-left) who just joined the Democratic party with no party support whatsoever was big big warning sign. And Hillary run an extremely weak campaign, her support was basically "we have to prevent Trump and we have to get the supreme court seat". Valid reasons, yes, but zero enthusiasm.

I am not sure whether Bernie's idea of Medicare for all is a good idea or not, but he has the right idea. If the democrats want to have any chance they need something which gives you enthusiasm from at least a good base (and while Medicare might scare the center, those would still vote for Democrats,same reason Republicans didn't like Trump either but they still voted for him to prevent Hillary and 8 more years of Democrats).

Republicans will increase their majority in the Senate next year so the only chance to prevent too much damage the Democrats have is to win the House.
 

Mahonay

Banned
I know Hillary made her mistakes but that Comey Letter timing was seriously uncalled for. Trump also got all the free publicity in the world.

And Russian intelligence ran interference to drown out his scandals. They released the Podesta emails an hour after the pussy-grabbing video leaked.

He did. The US media is complicit in Trump's election. I think a lot of Americans have forgotten that because Trump has been bashing them. Like, I have a hard time feeling sympathy for CNN or even MSNBC. Ya'll thought it was so great to air Trump 24/7 for ratings.
All of these points highlight pretty well what ultimate led to a Trump victory.
 

Daria

Member
And Russian intelligence ran interference to drown out his scandals. They released the Podesta emails an hour after the pussy-grabbing video leaked.

they ran propaganda but that doesn't change actual votes. Clinton put blame on herself for losing the campaign. Her campaign thought they were safe in a lot of blue areas when in reality they were not. It's her own fault for not campaigning and reaching out to voters that she actually needed to win. Russia is a leftist excuse (to an extent) to take blame off of her campaign.

and before somebody comes at me claiming I'm arguing that Russia wasn't a factor, i voted for HRC
 

IrishNinja

Member
The Electoral College needs to go. It's antiquated and Republicans keep using it to screw over Democrats.

yup - its intent (past its racist origins) was to balance things out for flyover states, what it managed was to disenfranchise many & overpower swing states
 

SeanC

Member
A lot of them

Especially when they're white women afraid of a black man. Obama holdovers that identify dems with black people, can't have that again.

I met six Trump supporters last week from my girlfriend's family. The casual racism was apparent and the sexism even moreso, just everyday no-biggie stuff for them. Say all you want that "Hilary was a bad candidate" or "The Media should have done their job" (though Fox actually did, and Trump voters won't read/watch things on their own anyways) but it comes down to a large part of the country uneducated, afraid, racist and bigoted and Trump feeding them exactly what they want to hear. He would have won no matter what because that's the state of the US and how good of a con-man he is.

In Short: She was right about the deplorables, plain and simple.
 

Mahonay

Banned
they ran propaganda but that doesn't change actual votes. Clinton put blame on herself for losing the campaign. Her campaign thought they were safe in a lot of blue areas when in reality they were not. It's her own fault for not campaigning and reaching out to voters that she actually needed to win. Russia is a leftist excuse (to an extent) to take blame off of her campaign.

and before somebody comes at me claiming I'm arguing that Russia wasn't a factor, i voted for HRC
Gerrymandering, voter suppression, the antiquated Electoral College, and HRC's poorly ran campaign are definitely largly to blame, but Russia also took advantage of the situation. I don't think most "leftists" blame Russia as the main reason Trump won. But they played a roll and were absolutely a piece of the puzzle. Members of Trump's team accepted the aide of Russian hackers in a successful effort to bog down and smear Hillary. It's undeniable.
 
The Electoral College needs to go. It's antiquated and Republicans keep using it to screw over Democrats.

Is there any realistic way that this changes any time soon? The country is currently growing in population due to minorities and every minority group overwhelmingly votes in favor of Democrats. Republicans know that their only path to the WH is through the electoral college.
 
EC should stay, if and only if the EC votes were awarded proportionally with the votes in the state.

I.E. Hillary wins 70% of a state with 10 EC votes. She should get 7 EC votes and trump 3 from that state.

the way EC votes are allocated per state is flawed

no matter how you divide each state's votes, the system is rigged in favor of states with fewer people (which tend to be more white & more rural)
 
Trump ran by lying his ass off on economics, but was truthful on the racism, and they went right along with him. It worked once (barely) but won't work again b/c he' s governed as a standard R on economics.

perhaps.

but if that's the case they just need a new TV celeb to get on that GOP primary stage and say what they want to hear.

(good article, btw)
 
Because they're valuing racism over economics. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_...p_and_why_obama_voters_defected_to_trump.html (there are two good detailed analyses linked in the article.)



Trump ran by lying his ass off on economics, but was truthful on the racism, and they went right along with him. It worked once (barely) but won't work again b/c he' s governed as a standard R on economics.

This right here is exactly what happened.

Which is why, to compensate for the white identity pull, the economic populism on the left would have to be even stronger than what Trump lied about in his messaging. That's why people were saying Bernie would have been a better match up against Trump. All democrats would have voted for him along party lines, plus independent/populist swing voters would have very likely been captured by him as well.
 

methane47

Member
Basically the Comey Letter, losing the white working class votes, the undecided switched at the last minute to Trump, people normally chose people they identify with rather than policy. The polls didn't really get it wrong, it was within margin of error, it was just that all the polls had Clinton ahead but trump was still a possibility. It went from 6-1 to 3-1.

Were the polls wrong? Or did they just not predict a technical knockout (on the basis of electoral college)
 

Izuna

Banned
She lost because when she speaks she sounds like a broken pre-recorded message with half the personality.

It's also elitest to suggest that the EC (or some form of it) isn't a good thing.
 

Mahonay

Banned
She lost because when she speaks she sounds like a broken pre-recorded message with half the personality.

It's also elitest to suggest that the EC (or some form of it) isn't a good thing.
And Trump as a raging, lying, bullying sexist/racist was a more preferable personality?

Explain to me what is good about the current EC.
 

JABEE

Member
A mixture of things. An incredibly flawed, uninspiring candidate. Puzzling campaign decisions (abandoning the midwest/assuming it was in the bag). Third term fatigue. The Comey letter, while damaging, seems like an excuse that waves away the institutional issues Clinton had. That one last brick, on a wall of shit, crumbled it...but the wall wasn't sound to begin with.

Yes. I feel like it shouldn't have been close.
 

ResoRai

Member
Still surprised she lost. I had little interest in politics till I voted for the first time last year, but it was clear from the jump Trump didnt seem fit to be in the White House. As I learned more about the candidates it became even more apparent that a racist manbaby who grabs women by their pussies shouldn't be in the White House.
Hillary had her faults, bit robotic too, but seemed decent. Like some of her policies. Heard a lot of bad about her, heard she's done a lot of good aswell, and of course emails. Figured a lot of awful people aligned with Trumps views and that others decided to cast their vote for him as a "protest vote" (I mean, Harambe even got over 10,000 votes I think), but I didn't think it was the time to be playing games and trying to stick it to the man.

A mismanaged campaign/ campaign faults, hackers, racism, misogny, etc., all played a part in her loss I believe, but I still think its crazy (though not so much anymore) that it wasn't enough for her to win anyways.

And now we have a slightly watered down Kim Jong Un in the White House.
 

kirblar

Member
This right here is exactly what happened.

Which is why, to compensate for the white identity pull, the economic populism on the left would have to be even stronger than what Trump lied about in his messaging. That's why people were saying Bernie would have been a better match up against Trump. All democrats would have voted for him along party lines, plus independent/populist swing voters would have very likely been captured by him as well.
Would they have been? Because the issue I see is that the economic populism alone is probably not the best matchup for populism + racism in terms of capturing those voters. (the "why not both!" problem)
 

Steel

Banned
I watched the whole thing last night. The one factor that stood out to me (that I didn't realize before) was how Trump had pretty much mastered manipulating the media.

Mastered makes it sound like it was calculated, but he was at the center of the 24/7 news cycle from the start simply by virtue of being so crazy. He made it so that no one paid much attention to the democratic primaries(and thus, neither Bernie nor Hillary had much air time) by virtue of existing as his idiotic self. Of course, most thought it would be to his detriment, seeing as most of the coverage was of how idiotic he was being.
 

kmfdmpig

Member
Ironic that a video from Fareed Zakaria, a well documented repeat plagiarist, is no longer available "on copyright grounds".
 

Grug

Member
I have it on good authority from my uncle that Trump won because politically correct Liberals insist on calling everyone racists, sexists and bigots.

I mean, what better way to show you aren't a racist bigot than to purposely vote for a racist, sexist bigot.
 

Patriots7

Member
She legitimately lost to a man caught on video boasting about sexual assault, mocking disabled reporters and claiming that a portion of immigrants are rapists.

Comey didn't do that. Hillary was just a terrible candidate who failed to excite voters. Or at the very least, failed to make voters realize that for the love of God, they cannot vote for Trump.
 

Rktk

Member
She lost because when she speaks she sounds like a broken pre-recorded message with half the personality.

It's also elitest to suggest that the EC (or some form of it) isn't a good thing.

I think if she had more of a personality that would have helped.

Frankie Boyle said:
Hillary has never quite learned to introduce humour or compassion into her speaking voice and on a good day sounds like an android trying to trick the last human out of a bunker.
 
Because they're valuing racism over economics. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_...p_and_why_obama_voters_defected_to_trump.html (there are two good detailed analyses linked in the article.)



Trump ran by lying his ass off on economics, but was truthful on the racism, and they went right along with him. It worked once (barely) but won't work again b/c he' s governed as a standard R on economics.

I agree with this

Or at the very least, failed to make voters realize that for the love of God, they cannot vote for Trump.

More people voted for Clinton though

At some point we need to hold people responsible for their own intellectual failings.
 

MIMIC

Banned
Mastered makes it sound like it was calculated, but he was at the center of the 24/7 news cycle from the start simply by virtue of being so crazy. He made it so that no one paid much attention to the democratic primaries(and thus, neither Bernie nor Hillary had much air time) by virtue of existing as his idiotic self. Of course, most thought it would be to his detriment, seeing as most of the coverage was of how idiotic he was being.

Well I mostly mean how he says things that just stick with people. From the "You're fired" from his stint on "The Apprentice" to the "lock her up," "make America great again," etc. His catch phrases (if you can call it that) makes him memorable and sticking out (for whatever reason) makes you a media darling. And he knew how to sell himself.
 
EC should stay, if and only if the EC votes were awarded proportionally with the votes in the state.

I.E. Hillary wins 70% of a state with 10 EC votes. She should get 7 EC votes and trump 3 from that state.

Frankly, the EC works exactly as it was meant to. The whole concept here is that people in Urban areas (major population centers) can't and won't have the same issues as people in rural areas. There needs to be a way to weight votes so that rural areas have equal representation in government.

The reason EC doesn't seem to make sense is that we literally only use it for presidential elections. So we only interact with it every 4 years. Less exposure leads to less understanding. The foundational concept is there, even if the application seems flawed.
 

ZFire11

Neo Member
this country just isn't too bright for the sophisticated democracy we have. A democratic republic works best when we have as george carlin would say "well informed citizens capable of critical thinking "
 

Bleepey

Member
Similarly, when Nate Silver/538 DARED to give Trump even the slightest chance of winning, they were lambasted on here as being inaccurate and terrible. Everyone moved on to a different pollster who had Clinton all the way.
Anyone who dared to mention that they didn't like Clinton was dogpiled on.
Embarrassing.
I don't go outside of Neogaf for this kind of thing, but I imagine it was very much the same out there.


TYT were screaming about Trump winning since the primaries. Just saying. They only changed their mind briefly with the pussy tape. Then the Comey letter happened.
 
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