A lot of you just want Hillary Clinton to go away.
How do I know this? You tell me. Like all the time.
It infuriates you that I won't take my support for her off my Twitter bio or that I regularly mention what an amazing president she would've been when I appear on Fox News.
But since #ImWithHer always and forever is the truth and she would undoubtedly have been an amazing president, I'll just let you stay mad.
I'll even add fuel to the fire for good measure. The “excuses” for her loss that she's making need to be heard because they point to very real deficiencies in how the 2016 election played out and we need to ensure that 2020 is done better.
For the sake of objectivity – I still have some, despite what many of you think – I’ll begin with the most important deficiency: Hillary Clinton had issues. This was an outsider election and she is the ultimate insider. She didn’t purge members of her team that had no business being at her side (I’m looking at you, Huma). She didn’t handle the email server controversy with the thoughtfulness it required. And yeah, she should’ve gone to Wisconsin. Maybe even twice.
That doesn’t mean this was an election she should’ve lost. Clinton ran against the least qualified candidate in history while she was, arguably, the most qualified in history. We applauded when now President Trump managed not to say “nasty woman” in a debate and chase her around the stage. We let it slide that he encouraged chants of “lock her up” regularly when it’s now all too clear that there was nothing to lock her up for.
And what did we do? We talked about her emails. Incessantly.
Wednesday Clinton said that the media covered the email server scandal “like it was Pearl Harbor.” Now that’s obvious hyperbole, but consider Gallup data from the summer of 2016 – including the timeframe when former FBI Director James Comey came out with his non-indictment indictment of Clinton -- which now appears to have been linked to bad Russian intelligence reports – and you see that out of more than 30,000 interviews Gallup conducted, Americans most frequently mentioned the words “email,” “lie” and “health”.
What words did they associate with Trump? “Speech”, “President” and “immigration.”
How nice it is to be Donald Trump. You can call for a Muslim ban, mock a disabled reporter, regularly criticize women for their appearance and have no idea what the nuclear triad is and the first words people associate with you is “speech” followed by “President.”
Sigh. (I actually just sighed).
As for Clinton’s claim that Russians would’ve needed to be guided in weaponizing the information they had been digging up on Americans, a former double agent working for the FBI against Russian military intelligence, Naveed Jamali, confirms her account. He tweeted, “Dealing with RUS Intel for FOUR yrs I can confirm that they recruit but don’t always know how to use assets. I agree w her assessment.”
I don’t know about you, but I’m going to trust the double agent guy.
Some other “excuses” that bear attention. Wisconsin’s voter ID laws suppressed 200,000 votes in the 2016 election. Trump won the state by 22,728.
James Comey’s October 28th letter, which may very well be the most consequential false flag in modern American political history, directly impacted the election results.
Take the time to read Nate Silver’s pointed analysis. And if your first thought is “all the polls were wrong! Why should I trust a pollster? He never called my house” consider the fact that the polls weren’t wrong: they said she would win the popular vote by about two points. And she did.
Then there’s the fact that WikiLeaks saved Donald Trump from being buried by the famous "Access Hollywood" tape that showed him off as the presidential candidate who thinks you can just “grab her by the…”
They dumped John Podesta’s emails just hours after the "Access Hollywood" tape surfaced. Why? Well, U.S. intelligence officials found Russian intermediaries who delivered stolen emails to WikiLeaks. And we know the Russians were rooting for Trump in the 2016 election (the U.S. intelligence community has confirmed it – over and over).
Remember when Trump declared “No puppet, no puppet!” after Clinton said that Putin would rather have a puppet as the president of the United States.
Well, no puppet not so much.
There’s more of course. I could write a book on the role of misogyny in the 2016 election. Maybe I will actually – stay tuned.
If we don’t address the deleterious impact of fake news not only on politics but also on our society, we will continue to struggle.
Sometimes there can be no difference of opinion. Facts should be facts.
“Performance artists” like Alex Jones shouldn’t get to masquerade as journalists. And their organizations certainly shouldn’t get credentialed for White House press briefings, even for a day.
Wow, this is quite the rant. But I make no apologies.
Hillary Clinton would’ve been a crazy amazing president. We’re all suffering right now because she isn’t back living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue even if we don’t realize it at this moment (though by looking at Trump’s approval rating, it looks like a strong majority feel the same way I do).
All this said, she lost and I get it. She gets it, too. Even considering all these factors, she still could’ve won if her campaign had made better decisions. Clinton could’ve beaten Trump, the Russians, Comey, Assange, voter ID laws and whoever else stood in her way – I believe she is that good.
Sure, she has moments where you wonder if she’s just trolling the media. For instance, there’s no way the DNC hurt Hillary and she had the superior data operation in both the primary and the general.
I’m not going to lie, though. The thought that Bernie supporters, who promoted the argument that Clinton and Trump were the same, are mad because she said anything about the DNC hurting her, makes me smile a little.
Despite their posturing, Clinton would’ve leveled the playing field, reformed ObamaCare and been first to sign the Paris Agreement.
Those are the facts. And facts should mean something.
Welcome out of the woods, Hillary. I missed you.
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