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[Cybrwzrd]

I don't want to sound like some nutter conspiracy theorist. This is all hypothetical and I don't believe it happened.

That being said, news outlets and ground teams were reporting record voter numbers. early vote totals were high.

Trump had a former republican adviser to a Ukrainian pro Russia group on his staff. Russians had been caught trying to hack election computers.

Is it possible that the Trump campaign, Putin and even potentially the FBI at high levels conspired to fix the election by adjusting the vote tallies the machines reported and hide it with a well timed leak drop to provide cover and a reason for her low numbers?

http://www.politico.com/magazine/st...w-to-hack-an-election-in-seven-minutes-214144

 

[DontBeThatGuy]

We have the same problem that elected Reagan. These Blue Collar workers in the Rust Belt. These people voted for Obama but dident vote for Clinton why is that?

It was still ridiculously close in those 'firewall' states(and could've easily been made up for if people didn't stay home, or only vote down-ballot, or voter suppression in Wisconsin), but 4 years is a long time, and in 2016, Donald Trump was saying exactly what they wanted to hear, in a way they wanted to hear it, regardless of the implausibility of it all.

His bigoted, anti-pc, pro-white working class message bullshit was also a big plus in, and that shouldn't be discounted in any way whatsoever. It's a huge reason for his rabid support, and first hand experiences also helps inform that opinion.

You obviously aren't most people.

Most people are not even remotely that engaged in the process until you as a candidate get them engaged. That is literally what a candidate is supposed to be doing. Providing a central figure for people to rally around and invest their time in.

I would consider that a failure of the system, in many ways. It should be pounded into people's heads the importance of voting, and it should be done often and early. It doesn't help that voting isn't as easy as it should be in most states, by design of course.

 

[Chariot]

It was still ridiculously close in those 'firewall' states(and could've easily been made up for if people didn't stay home, or only vote down-ballot, or voter suppression in Wisconsin), but 4 years is a long time, and in 2016, Donald Trump was saying exactly what they wanted to hear, in a way they wanted to hear it, regardless of the implausibility of it all.

His bigoted, anti-pc, pro-white working class message bullshit was also a big plus in, and that shouldn't be discounted in any way whatsoever. It's a huge reason for his rabid support, and first hand experiences also helps inform that opinion.

That aside, the Clinton campaign deliberately focused on urban areas versus rural areas. They thought they would pick up two new votes for every one they lost. Bill Clinton even tried to warn them, but his advise went unheard. Nobody likes to be ignored, Trump at least showed them that they still existed. Hillary Clinton took them holding out by themselves for granted.

 

[Lenz44]

You can blame the Clinton campaign and the DNC for that because the media did exactly what they wanted them to do



http://www.salon.com/2016/11/09/the...ed-donald-trump-with-its-pied-piper-strategy/

I feel like this deserves a thread if there isn't one already, because holy shit this is the most irresponsible thing I have ever seen.

 

[B4s5C]

On the idea that Bernie lost the election for Clinton, I remember this thread:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1234980

It was Hillary and her supporter's attitudes towards Bernie supporters if it has anything to do with Bernie.

Edit: Particularly the ending where posters were implying Bernie was rascist.

 

[Tripon]

I don't want to sound like some nutter conspiracy theorist. This is all hypothetical and I don't believe it happened.

That being said, news outlets and ground teams were reporting record voter numbers. early vote totals were high.

Trump had a former republican adviser to a Ukrainian pro Russia group on his staff. Russians had been caught trying to hack election computers.

Is it possible that the Trump campaign, Putin and even potentially the FBI at high levels conspired to fix the election by adjusting the vote tallies the machines reported and hide it with a well timed leak drop to provide cover and a reason for her low numbers?

http://www.politico.com/magazine/st...w-to-hack-an-election-in-seven-minutes-214144

Wut. People just didn't turn up.

 

[teruterubozu]

You can blame the Clinton campaign and the DNC for that because the media did exactly what they wanted them to do



http://www.salon.com/2016/11/09/the...ed-donald-trump-with-its-pied-piper-strategy/

Hot damn! I know people were talking about forcing Trump to be the GOP nominee cuz he's such a joke, but as a campaign strategy??!! WTF was this campaign doing? Ugh, this election is making me physically ill.

I feel like this deserves a thread if there isn't one already, because holy shit this is the most irresponsible thing I have ever seen.

It definitely deserves its own thread, but there's so much finger-pointing going on right now that it's getting toxic around here.

 

[Easy_D]

You can blame the Clinton campaign and the DNC for that because the media did exactly what they wanted them to do



http://www.salon.com/2016/11/09/the...ed-donald-trump-with-its-pied-piper-strategy/

Yo, fuck you Hillary.

 

[Cybrwzrd]

Wut. People just didn't turn up.

Did you read the article I linked to?

 

[jakonovski]

The Democrat apparatus needs to be asking itself, do we know anything? Do we even have the right axioms?

 

[MHWilliams]

I don't want to sound like some nutter conspiracy theorist. This is all hypothetical and I don't believe it happened.

That being said, news outlets and ground teams were reporting record voter numbers. early vote totals were high.

Trump had a former republican adviser to a Ukrainian pro Russia group on his staff. Russians had been caught trying to hack election computers.

Is it possible that the Trump campaign, Putin and even potentially the FBI at high levels conspired to fix the election by adjusting the vote tallies the machines reported and hide it with a well timed leak drop to provide cover and a reason for her low numbers?

http://www.politico.com/magazine/st...w-to-hack-an-election-in-seven-minutes-214144

We do not track in conspiracy theories here on GAF.

 

[Jobbs]

Holy fucking shit at this Racheal Maddow tweet. Myopic doesn't even come close to describe it

https://youtu.be/-xK5NaH0oy4

I mean she's not wrong... Just because Clinton was a weak candidate doesn't mean this information is wrong

 

[Audioboxer]

I don't want to sound like some nutter conspiracy theorist. This is all hypothetical and I don't believe it happened.

That being said, news outlets and ground teams were reporting record voter numbers. early vote totals were high.

Trump had a former republican adviser to a Ukrainian pro Russia group on his staff. Russians had been caught trying to hack election computers.

Is it possible that the Trump campaign, Putin and even potentially the FBI at high levels conspired to fix the election by adjusting the vote tallies the machines reported and hide it with a well timed leak drop to provide cover and a reason for her low numbers?

http://www.politico.com/magazine/st...w-to-hack-an-election-in-seven-minutes-214144

 

[KingV]

On the idea that Bernie lost the election for Clinton, I remember this thread:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1234980

It was Hillary and her supporter's attitudes towards Bernie supporters if it has anything to do with Bernie.

Edit: Particularly the ending where posters were implying Bernie was rascist.

Goddamn I love this gem:

2) If Bernie wasn't going to bother spending time in the South (or "Clinton Territory" as you called it), he should have stayed his ass home and not wasted our time with his DOA campaign. Let it be repeated ad nauseam for any hard-headed future candidates: You do not win the nomination and the presidency as a Democrat without The Obama Coalition. You do not win without the diverse coalition that carried Obama to the white house twice. You do not. And that includes the South. That includes minority voters.

Someone should have told that shit to Hillary.

 

[Cybrwzrd]

We do not track in conspiracy theories here on GAF.

Sorry, I'm not trying to make a conspiracy theory. I just thought it was a fascinating politico article.

 

[Adam_Vania]

when u think about it, it makes sense of the DNC to want to hype up the far right elements, after all they paid for twice the media coverage, better get some good footage that is exciting and scary, people love that stuff - it gets ratings! Trump was after all a tv/movie star. they tried to make him Clinton's reality tv star and failed.

 

[Fancyarcher]

Well they're kinda right, but at the same time the team just wasn't very successful with getting enough people to come out and vote for Trump. Not enough people really liked him, which is a shame, since we have Donald Trump in the white house, ugh.

hillary for 2020!

Wouldn't surprise me at all if Clinton goes into obscurity / hiding. I doubt she'll show her face for years.

 

[UnemployedVillain]

I really do wonder what would be revealed if other candidates emails were hacked. There seems to be the underlying assumption here that the Clintons are the ONLY ones to have engaged in all of this, which is laughable, because I have no doubt many campaigns have some...unsavory elements to them that they'd rather not get out public, especially if they lost.

I'm really interested in seeing how deep the Trump Russia well runs, but seems like we never will, and I bet the emails are being destroyed as we speak *sigh*

 

[KingV]

Well they're kinda right, but at the same time the team just wasn't very successful with getting enough people to come out and vote for Trump. Not enough people really liked him, which is a shame, since we have Donald Trump in the white house, ugh.



Wouldn't surprise me at all if Clinton goes into obscurity / hiding. I doubt she'll show her face for years.

If I never see or hear from her or Bill again it won't be soon enough. Pied Piper....

 

[perfectchaos007]

We do not track in conspiracy theories here on GAF.

Don't we have a mega thread for all conspiracies?

 

[IrishNinja]

i mean, anyone can see the logic behind the pied piper thing: trump didn't strike anyone as a serious candidate, and seemed the easiest mark. it was expected to be a much harder race against rubio, or even a shitstain like cruz.

looking at what we got, it's hard to imagine shed've fared much better against either of them, either. if she couldn't get the left on board to stop trump, how would that have played out against a less scary opponent? at best, we're arguing that she might have made an effort to chase more key states without thinking she had it in the bag, i guess?

granted, in this hypothetical at least we wouldn't be under trump, but that's hindsight.

you see it here post election with the poster IrishNinja insistent on how correct this was..

because posters like you are still on about some nonsense narrative that the one-time adjective "deplorable" was this election-losing move, or that liberals pointing out the growing alt-right embrace of white supremacy was "arrogant" and lost votes they clearly never had.

only, yet again, trump saw fewer votes than romney, so any weak angle you're pushing that this "energized their base" clearly didn't happen, and there's lots of actual discussion on what hillary did wrong to lose here.

nothing points to the election being lost because of a lack of racist apologist garbage. also, feel free actually quote me if you're bringing my name into it, or miss me with this mess.

 

[NoMoreTrolls]

The amount of lost voters for Republicans was smaller than the amount of missing Democratic voters. Both shrank from past numbers. Sounds like Clinton didn't get people energized to vote to me. Why not blame Clinton and her campaign managers?
I mean, I get the CYA messages at present because they all want to have jobs after this, but this post mortem makes it hard to believe they're going to learn anything from this loss.

 

[Chumley]

The issue is not the extreme Bernie supporters being hit, but the moderate ones that were constantly hit with the insult just for being Bernie supporters too.

Context matters. The moderate ones who were open to having a discussion about Hillary weren't really hit on, at least not by me and people I know. Most of the Bernie supporters I'd see were the unbelievably hardcore ones who hated Hillary as much as any Republican, it was literally impossible to have a discussion with them. They weren't looking for a middle ground, and that bred the condescension and "we don't need you" attitude from Hillary's camp.

 

[Chariot]

Context matters. The moderate ones who were open to having a discussion about Hillary weren't really hit on, at least not by me and people I know. Most of the Bernie supporters I'd see were the unbelievably hardcore ones who hated Hillary as much as any Republican, it was literally impossible to have a discussion with them. They weren't looking for a middle ground, and that bred the condescension and "we don't need you" attitude from Hillary's camp.

You say that, but my experience is this and this. And I was asking people to work together for months, because I saw people getting dogpiled by aggressive Clinton supporters or basically for having any other opinion than that Clinton can't lose. In every thread there was a very mean spitefulness. Take a look at this thread from a few days ago. People tried to bury them with denial and dog posts, but you'll find quite some stories of people leaving the board or getting buried by PoliGAF.

 

[ErasureAcer]

Someone could say her gender, the media and James Comey were the only reasons she was the nomunee.

Gender. A lot of people on the left want to see a woman President. Some people I would imagine voted for her solely because she was a woman. Some probably voted against her for her gender. All in all a wash.

The media. The media didnt give two hoots to Bernie Sanders. Yeah you'd see him on Sunday talk shows. You'd see Ben Carson there too. Nightly news gave Bernie zero coverage on what he believes. Just horserace shit and a Scott Pelley walk through the childhood neighborhood. Hillary was corporate media's choice.

James Comey. Dude could have recommended charges. He gave her a fighting chance. She lost.

 

[Stinkles]

I'll be honest: you're attacks in these last few months are one of the reasons why I didn't dare to say anything anti-Hillary in Off Topic throughout the election. So to hear you say that they did everything right is, well, not too surprising.

Well they obviously didn't in hindsight. They did based on the evidence everyone had prior to the freak result. Even the Trump campaign thought it was being crushed. Unless you think "rigged" was 4d chess.

This election sure did provide a lot of hindsight scientists.

 

[Seventy70]

Someone could say her gender, the media and James Comey were the only reasons she was the nomunee.

Gender. A lot of people on the left want to see a woman President. Some people I would imagine voted for her solely because she was a woman. Some probably voted against her for her gender. All in all a wash.

The media. The media didnt give two hoots to Bernie Sanders. Yeah you'd see him on Sunday talk shows. You'd see Ben Carson there too. Nightly news gave Bernie zero coverage on what he believes. Just horserace shit and a Scott Pelley walk through the childhood neighborhood. Hillary was corporate media's choice.

James Comey. Dude could have recommended charges. He gave her a fighting chance. She lost.

The biggest thing I think is that people were just fed up of politicians showing up every 4 years with empty promises. I think most people can agree with that sentiment whether they are minorities or white working class. This is why we've ended up with Trump. It seems that Bernie was gaining a large following, but he wasn't an option anymore, so either people just gave up and sat this one out or they went for the next anti establishment candidate.

I'm especially angry at the information that's come out about the Clinton campaign the last few days. It was so irresponsible and only confirms what people had suspected all along. They just don't give a shit about us. We only matter when they need our vote. The empty feeling that many people got when listening to Clinton speak was justified. Now that the general is over what has she done to soothe the fears of people who feel worried? I thought she said she would be out there trying to bring everyone together. Instead, it seems they are only worried about how they will survive.

 

[Deku Tree]

Clinton people are still so arrogant out of touch.

They have lied to us over and over again and they have now delivered to us a horrible era of republican dominance. Yes it is the Clinton people's fault. Hillary lost to the least likable Republican candidate in the last 25 years and Trump ran a terrible low budget campaign but he won a razor thin victory anyway. Democrats are completely out of power. There is unprecedented republican control of this country from the local state governments all the way up to the presidency and the supreme court. And the Clinton people are fully responsible because of their out of touch and arrogant behavior. Hillary was campaigning for a blow out and the Clinton people were laughing at people who warned them about the rust belt.

This is the reality we are now in and to say it is just "hindsight" is ridiculous... Anyone who is advocating for Clinton or "more of the same" is just begging for more Republican dominance.

 

[old manatee]

I really do wonder what would be revealed if other candidates emails were hacked. There seems to be the underlying assumption here that the Clintons are the ONLY ones to have engaged in all of this, which is laughable, because I have no doubt many campaigns have some...unsavory elements to them that they'd rather not get out public, especially if they lost.

I'm really interested in seeing how deep the Trump Russia well runs, but seems like we never will, and I bet the emails are being destroyed as we speak *sigh*

Yeah. I love when info about our government gets leaked, because I'm sick of it being a black box where all sorts of corruption goes unchecked. But it is really frustrating when the leaking is selective and one-sided.

 

[TheLaughingStock]

i mean, anyone can see the logic behind the pied piper thing: trump didn't strike anyone as a serious candidate, and seemed the easiest mark. it was expected to be a much harder race against rubio, or even a shitstain like cruz.

Why was it expected to be a much harder race? Additionally, Cruz and Rubio are two con men i.e. politicians with bad ideas...so why are they viewed as serious candidates? They're awful candidates and Donald beat them easily. I remember in PoliGAF when people were saying Cruz had a better chance than Donald vs. Hillary because his favorability ratings were slightly higher. Cruz is a joke that would've lost to Hillary had Don not pulled through near the end of the primary.

 

[GorillaJu]

Hindsight is a helluva drug


They campaigned correctly based on understood conditions.

The result was unpredictable freak.

Now everyone is an expert analyst.

Unpredictable freak, yet you have people like Michael Moore calling it in July, exactly how it would happen, and being right?

The campaign was based on the faulty premise that Hillary Clinton was the right candidate for this election—she wasn't. Scores of us on the left didn't like her in the first place because she's a war hawk, pro-TPP, was only pro-gay rights recently... the list of grievances goes on. But we had to stay silent because the vitriol would come out immediately if anyone said anything remotely anti-Clinton.

Clinton didn't excite anyone. I was actually shocked to see my friends on Facebook acting like she is anything more than a "better-than-Trump" candidate. Maybe they're just young and don't remember her voting record prior to the Obama administration, but anyone who thought Hillary's campaign was "love" against Trump's "hate" were high as a kite, or just delusional.

 

[IrishNinja]

Why was it expected to be a much harder race? Additionally, Cruz and Rubio are two con men i.e. politicians with bad ideas...so why are they viewed as serious candidates? They're awful candidates and Donald beat them easily. I remember in PoliGAF when people were saying Cruz had a better chance than Donald vs. Hillary because his favorability ratings were slightly higher. Cruz is a joke that would've lost to Hillary had Don not pulled through near the end of the primary.

i'm by no means a fan of cruz & well aware he's not liked by either side of the aisle, but....that seemed true of donald for a while there as well. true, rubio got his soul taken out by christie, but prior to that, what about he or cruz made them seem so different from your average GOP candidate?
moreover: what about cruz makes you think it'd play out that way? less skeletons, more GOP backing, and even if he managed to underperform (compared to romney last time) like donald did, what about that scenario would change hillary doing likewise & the electoral map?

i keep seeing this like what happened in '08 where they clearly setup mccain to take on hillary, and then obama blindsided them from barely even being on their map before.

 

[Anarky]

I'm still wondering why the hell Hillary didn't get Sanders as VP. Could've helped increase turn out a bit for her.

 

[Rentahamster]

I'm still wondering why the hell Hillary didn't get Sanders as VP. Could've helped increase turn out a bit for her.

According to the leaked emails, Kaine was already promised the VP spot as early as 2015.

 

[Isaac Otherworld]

According to the leaked emails, Kaine was already promised the VP spot as early as 2015.

She should have just told him

It was such an obvious misstep. The primary was extremely bitter. There needed to be a real showing that the half of democrats that voted Bernie were being heard and understood and making Bernie or Warren VP would have done that. Instead she picked some complete nobody who got her 0 votes, and only served to show Bernie voters her arrogance and contempt for them.

 

[Zok310]

Yeah, she is just bitter. Don't matter, the whole left is moving away from the Clintons, they will be irrelvent like the Bush's by end of year maybe sooner.

 

[Kumquat]

This video nailed it for me and it really nailed why I left the Democratic party for the Libertarians.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLG9g7BcjKs

This was a huge reason why the election went the way it did and this dude was spot on.

 

[cheezcake]

Hindsight is a helluva drug


They campaigned correctly based on understood conditions.

The result was unpredictable freak.

Now everyone is an expert analyst.

They didn't do tracking polls for the last month

A campaign schedule which can only be described as lazy

A campaign strategy which David Axelrod has described as flawed in its core

Bill Clinton imploring to extend campaign outreach to rural areas in the exact states which flipped Republican, only to be shut down as the campaign are on record saying they'd rather try and flip republican suburbanites.

I mean in video game terms it's pretty simple, you gotta PTFO. Hillary went for the disrespect plays.

 

[IrishNinja]

It was such an obvious misstep. The primary was extremely bitter. There needed to be a real showing that the half of democrats that voted Bernie were being heard and understood and making Bernie or Warren VP would have done that. Instead she picked some complete nobody who got her 0 votes, and only served to show Bernie voters her arrogance and contempt for them.

at the time, the mentality was that primaries get bitter - hillary's camp vs obama wasn't pretty in '08, either. i don't know that bernie would've taken the spot, but yeah, in retrospect it's hard to think he wouldn'tve brought some excitement/more votes, in key areas too.

honestly, i didn't think it was a huge mistake at the time, either - though you're right, i don't think Kaine brought much. what i imagine stung more was seeing DWS stay on, but in the time since it kinda sounds like they did that to keep her from fucking things up worse, i don't know if that's still true or not.

They didn't do tracking polls for the last month

A campaign schedule which can only be described as lazy

A campaign strategy which David Axelrod has described as flawed in its core

Bill Clinton imploring to extend campaign outreach to rural areas in the exact states which flipped Republican, only to be shut down as the campaign are on record saying they'd rather try and flip republican suburbanites.

I mean in video game terms it's pretty simple, you gotta PTFO. Hillary went for the disrespect plays.

yeah, of all the monday morning quarterbacking we've seen so far, this stuff has been the harshest/most accurate so far. it's why i argued with OP's article that those things were clearly factors, but yeah, in light of that in particular, the hubris was clearly strong as well.

 

[Rentahamster]

She should have just told him

It was such an obvious misstep. The primary was extremely bitter. There needed to be a real showing that the half of democrats that voted Bernie were being heard and understood and making Bernie or Warren VP would have done that. Instead she picked some complete nobody who got her 0 votes, and only served to show Bernie voters her arrogance and contempt for them.

I'm not sure if she could have altered the deal so easily, considering who it was that got Tim Kaine's DNC chair job right after him. But that's just speculation.

 

[Bad_Boy]

Man this thread is so bizzare. Such a different tone than gaf 2 weeks ago.

 

[qcf x2]

All three of them, repeatedly, were talked over and many times shouted down because Trump surrogates become unhinged in a second. CNN at no point made efforts, except for fact checking which was few and far between until the last 2 weeks I'd say, to repudiate anything Trump or his surrogates would say. It was always left open for interpretation. Jeffrey Lord in particular, in just about every time I saw him on a panel took 5 minutes to explain identity politics and then turn around and remind everything that the KKK started with democrats, which again happened just about every time I saw him and an off the cuff remark of saying that's not true while he's still speaking is NOT being called on their bullshit. He and the other surrogates, especially Corey L were active bullies who always got their last word in.

Man this must be a case of perception because I was 100% sure the opposite was going on. Trump was bashed at every opportunity, they often had one Trump surrogate for every 2 or 3 anti-Trump surrogates, the Trump surrogates were the ones being shouted down with misquotes, etc.... and I'm saying all this as a guy who never liked Trump at all. They repeatedly invited Benedict Arnolds like Ana Navarro and whatever the other lady's name is as the "republican representatives" long after they had established their unbridled hatred for Trump (mostly because of his destruction of their ex-bosses and the ample egg on face) to pretend to balance out the Clinton representation.

I was disappointed that the media was so partisan every step of the way. But from the opposite perspective as what you're describing. Ultimately I don't think it determined the race, though. As the links in this thread and the leaked emails show, the Democrats absolutely did this to themselves. Can't blame the referees when you swing and miss.