The Real Culprits

I wanted to take note of a passage from Jonathan Turley’s USA Today op-ed:

While Bill Clinton insisted that his wife lost because Trump figured out “how to get angry, white men to vote for him,” the fact is that it was the Democratic leadership that secured the election for Trump. Despite long-standing polls showing that voters did not want an establishment figure, the establishment pre-selected Clinton, who is not only one of the most recognized establishment figures but someone carrying more luggage than Greyhound. She is also someone who had even higher negative polling on character and truthfulness than Trump.

More importantly, it is a well-maintained myth that Clinton was the candidate of women who overwhelmingly rejected Trump. Clinton pulled basically the same percentage of female votes as Obama did four years earlier. Indeed, Clinton actually did slightly worse this election than Obama did in the prior two presidential elections with women. She received just 54% of women’s votes while Obama received 55% against Romney and 56% against McCain. Trump handily beat Clinton among many groups of women. For example, 62% of white women without college degrees voted for him over Clinton. Even among college-educated women, Clinton only won 51%. She lost the votes of white women by a whooping 52-43% against Trump. It was her margin among black female voters (over 90%) that eked out an overall majority of women.

The emphasis is mine. That’s what I’ve been saying for some time. It wasn’t racism, the FBI, or Russian tampering that lost Hillary Clinton the election. She was the wrong candidate, forced on the party by the DNC.

The present Democratic National Committee is packed with Clintonistas. That doesn’t represent today’s Democratic Party let alone the Zeitgeist.

30 comments… add one
  • Guarneri Link

    Better don your hard hat.

  • michael reynolds Link

    1) Another single bullet theory.

    2) Utter nonsense to say something like “It wasn’t X, Y or Z.” You have no basis in fact for those statements.

    3) She won by three million votes.

  • 1) Another single bullet theory.

    Like most humans I can distinguish between factors that are more important and those that are less important.

    2) Utter nonsense to say something like “It wasn’t X, Y or Z.” You have no basis in fact for those statements.

    That’s an instance of the “burden of proof” fallacy.

    3) She won by three million votes.

    Is immaterial.

  • Modulo Myself Link

    We will never know, but I’m convinced that there were enough people who voted for Trump as a protest vote assuming–like all of us–that Clinton would win and they tipped the election. They didn’t want him as President, and they certainly didn’t want the coming GOP shitshow.

    But overall she was the wrong candidate because she and the DNC hacks were incapable of addressing the racism, the cultural isolation of rust belt and southern whites, and the consequences of neoliberal economics. Calling her wrong independent of these reasons is just weird. She managed to get more votes than Trump, after all.

    The bigger picture is that the Democrats have been unable to address the facts that despite being able to win more votes on a national level and, um, having a base that is at the center of cultural life in this country, they now have no political power whatsoever.

  • michael reynolds Link

    Dave, when you are dealing with human motivation – and that is what we are talking about, a hundred million individual choices – there is never a simple, one-size-fits all answer, and simply waving away factors we know provably, demonstrably had at very least a considerable effect, is nonsense.

    No one voted for racist or misogynist reasons? No one? In the United States of America? Really? How many votes did Trump carry Michigan by? And none of that tiny margin was occasioned by racism or sexism?

    It doesn’t pass the laugh test. It is false on its face. You are uncomfortable with non-policy motivations so you dismiss them, but you have no logic to support your conclusion.

  • We will never know, but I’m convinced that there were enough people who voted for Trump as a protest vote assuming–like all of us–that Clinton would win and they tipped the election. They didn’t want him as President, and they certainly didn’t want the coming GOP shitshow.

    Just to repeat myself, I did not vote for Trump and would not have even as a protest.

  • No one voted for racist or misogynist reasons? No one? In the United States of America? Really? How many votes did Trump carry Michigan by? And none of that tiny margin was occasioned by racism or sexism?

    The straw man argument.

    See what I wrote above:

    Like most humans I can distinguish between factors that are more important and those that are less important.

    which is just about the opposite of what you’re attributing to me.

  • Modulo Myself Link

    Look, the claim that the Democratic leadership secured the election for Trump is just bizarre. Republicans voted for him regardless of the candidate, and they did so knowing exactly who he is. That condemns an entire voting block right there. 80% of evangelical Christians voted for a guy who bragged about sexual assault on tape, and now we have to watch these ugly sociopaths praying in Congress because it apparently was Hillary who voted in Trump and all of America has to pay for it.

    Screw that. Needing to cross out the actual will of a huge number of voters because it makes those voters look bad is a hack’s argument.

  • michael reynolds Link

    Dave, you made a positive statement:

    It wasn’t racism, the FBI, or Russian tampering that lost Hillary Clinton the election. She was the wrong candidate, forced on the party by the DNC.

    You provide no evidence for that statement. “It wasn’t” is not “it wasn’t only.” An accurate statement would be that 100 million people made choices based on many factors, among which were that no one especially liked Hillary. One factor among many.

    And she won 3 million more votes.

  • You provide no evidence for that statement. “It wasn’t” is not “it wasn’t only.” An accurate statement would be that 100 million people made choices based on many factors, among which were that no one especially liked Hillary. One factor among many.

    Actually, I agree with that but I also think that racism, the FBI, and Russian activity were less important than other factors.

    And she won 3 million more votes.

    is still immaterial. Repetition does not make it more relevant.

  • Andy Link

    Along a similar vein to the discussion here is this about third parties:

    https://www.rawstory.com/2017/01/are-third-party-candidates-spoilers-what-voting-data-reveal/

    where they conclude:

    “We found that not only do third-party candidacies fail to increase turnout, they are actually associated with a statistically significant reduction in turnout. Put simply, fewer people vote in elections in which third-party candidates receive a substantial portion of the vote.”

  • michael reynolds Link

    Dave, it is not irrelevant that she won by three million more votes if the context is an attempt to shift blame for this country’s worst ever political decision onto the back of the candidate who actually got 3 million more votes.

    Despite running for what was effectively a third term with all the difficulty that carries; despite being a not terribly exciting person; despite the fact that she has been the victim of a decades-long Republican smear campaign; despite the fact that Russia was aiding her opponent with help from an incompetent and perhaps corrupted FBI, she got 3 million more votes.

    The American people chose Hillary. The electoral college chose Trump. Perfectly legal and Trump will be president. But he was not chosen by the people, the people chose Hillary. And if you could erase or reduce factors of racism (key to the smearing of Obama with whom she was closely identified, and the great motivator for his neo-Nazi and KKK supporters) and misogyny (a central feature of Trump’s Twitter trolling), and the actions of the Putin/Assange/FBI troika (which coincided with a sudden drop in her numbers) you would almost certainly be talking about our first female president. So no, those are not irrelevant factors and while some of the blame rightly falls on Hillary, so do those other factors.

    When I went to Vegas to canvass I ran into one openly, explicitly, loudly racist Trump voter, and another somewhat more subdued, and this is from a set of people chosen because we thought they were Dems. In other words, despite not in any way trying to engage with Trump voters, I managed simply by virtue of wrong addresses to turn up two openly racist Trump voters who explained their support in those terms.

    Big parts of this election took place on Twitter and on Reddit where openly misogynist (I will rape you!) and openly racist (Michelle Obama is an ape) Trump people congregated. You won’t see those people in the pages of mainstream publications, but they’re there. Not hard to find.

  • Dave, it is not irrelevant that she won by three million more votes if the context is an attempt to shift blame for this country’s worst ever political decision onto the back of the candidate who actually got 3 million more votes.

    Sure it is. When running a race and the objective is to cross the finish line first, it’s irrelevant who took the most steps. Hillary Clinton must have known that the objective was to win the most electoral college votes. She was either categorically unable to do that, she could have but used the wrong strategy, or an accumulation of factors, none of which had much to do with her behavior, prevented her from capturing the number of electoral votes necessary to win. I believe the first explanation. I think she was the wrong candidate at the wrong time. Presumably the third explanation I’ve offered in the preceding sentences is the one you prefer and I think it’s really a stretch.

    Note that for my preferred explanation to be true it doesn’t matter if the electorate is racist and sexist. A candidate runs with the electorate that’s there not with the electorate that she might want to be there. All that matters is whether Hillary Clinton could have been elected president. I don’t think Comey’s statements, whatever effect leaking DNC emails had, racism, or sexism lost Hillary Clinton as many votes as one word: “deplorable”, an unforced error.

  • Gustopher Link

    In an election this close — less than 100,000 votes total in three states would flip it — it is ridiculous to say it was A, B or C that was decisive. It was A, B AND C, along with D, E and F.

    Basically, anything with a measurable impact probably had an impact greater than the difference between the candidates.

    “If only Clinton did better with people who own guinea pigs, she would have won the election” is likely a true statement, but it doesn’t follow that the one key error was not cuddling up to guinea pigs for photo ops.

  • Andy Link

    “I don’t think Comey’s statements, whatever effect leaking DNC emails had, racism, or sexism lost Hillary Clinton as many votes as one word: “deplorable”, an unforced error.”

    I agree with you there. It doubled down on President Obama’s famous “bitter clinger” speech which talked specifically about people who live outside of big cities in the midwest. Ironically, Clinton’s team considered this area to be part her “blue wall” and her campaign clearly took it for granted.

  • CStanley Link

    If the popular vote count is relevant at all, it’s also noteworthy that her tally may have been driven UP (and Trump’s down) by protest votes from the other side. How many people cast a vote for her, who would not have done so had the GOP candidate been more mainstream? I think both candidates caused so much fear and revulsion that a not negligible number of people stayed home or voted in protest.

    My point is, I think it’s rather silly to use the popular vote differential as a proxy for HRC’s actual popularity or alignment with the will of the American electorate…and that’s over and above the main argument that the campaigns have to play to win the EC vote.

  • Modulo Myself Link

    ‘Deplorable’ hurt Clinton, sure. But it hurt her because it was not wrong. It was the exact opposite of Romney’s ‘47%’ comment which was completely wrong–nobody in the 47% really thinks they’re mooching.

    But plenty of Trump voters think they might be deplorable. It’s painfully obvious that this is the case. Worse was the fact the people who were wounded by this were the ones who she could have potentially reached. The dudes on the internet named DeplorablePepe don’t think they’re deplorable, and the moderate Republicans who voted for Trump for the tax cuts and a chance to put the liberals in their place don’t care about anything except their limited egos.

    Hillary Clinton is so inane that she probably thought the answer to wondering if you are deplorable is to not be deplorable. It’s like saying the answer to poverty is just to get a job.

  • PD Shaw Link

    @Gustopher, when politically active people’s candidate lose an election, particularly in the case of men, they experience deep-seeded depression and anger, which can lead to violence. I know this must be true because it was reported before the election. We need to move the country through the stages of grief.

    Pointing out that Trump only won an electoral college victory is just finding some positive, irrelevant fact for comfort, which can lead to denial. Lincoln only won an electoral college victory. The larger picture is that the Republicans control more political bodies in this country than they possibly ever have. I don’t think that is all about Clinton; she didn’t cost Democrats the Minnesota legislature. There are some fundamental issues here beyond the Presidential contest involving some very odd candidates.

    I also wouldn’t describe the loss in terms of the three narrowest states. She lost the big three of Florida, Ohio & Pennsylvania, which is almost certain death historically. At that point, she had to run the house on about 9 smaller purple states that would be close; she won pluralities in 6 of those and lost by a plurality in 3. She really lost Wisconsin and Michigan in Ohio and Pennsylvania; they should not have been relevant. I don’t blame Clinton for not making a campaign stop in Wisconsin.

    Also since I mention Congressional districts, gerrymandering isn’t an answer. Both sides do it, and a lot of states that Republicans are doing well in, like Minnesota, have judges do the maps. The current anti-gerrymandering court decision heading to the SCOTUS would cost the Republicans 4 seats in the House if it was adopted today.

    I’m pretty confident that eventually the Democrats will form a stronger national coalition; the question is how long and whether the coalition will build on Democratic strengths or Republican failures.

  • michael reynolds Link

    Hillary lost Michigan by two tenths of one percent. Neo-Nazi groups were very active in supporting Trump in Michigan and elsewhere. But all that matters is that she was a lousy candidate, and it could not possibly have involved racism or misogyny? That is patently ridiculous.

    Dave, you are cherry-picking data to support your preferred conclusion. You don’t want this to be about racism or misogyny. You don’t want it to be about psychology at all. You want it to be about policy because you are comfortable talking policy, and very good at it, and you are less comfortable with humans and their disorderly craziness. So now we’re to dismiss all that stuff and blame the DNC for supporting a perfectly competent candidate so we can move briskly on to discussing policy.

    Trump does not do policy, he does ego. 99% of his actions over the next 4 years will be about his ego. Policy will be incidental, a function of who flatters and who pushes back, who is willing to tell him whatever he wishes to hear, and those with the intellectual integrity to speak truth to stupidity. And every Trump policy will be subject to sudden reversal depending on whether Trump is feeling flattered or challenged. The only through-line is narcissism.

  • Modulo Myself Link

    Michael–
    Anyone who has dealt with Trump personally in business is petrified about what is going to happen. There are a lot of bad things about rich developers in NY, but people talk about Trump like they talk about Bob Durst, who is basically a psychopath.

    I know someone who was in a meeting with Trump. Midway through, Trump calls up his Melania (he hadn’t married her yet), puts her on speaker, and orders her to tell the room what she did for him sexually that morning.

    Disgusting as that is, that’s his entire life. That’s all he really does. He’s a bully who needs a reaction. There’s no pleasure, no happiness, nothing interior in him, no empathy, no sense of others.

  • michael reynolds Link

    Pointing out that Trump only won an electoral college victory is just finding some positive, irrelevant fact for comfort, which can lead to denial. Lincoln only won an electoral college victory.</blockquote.

    Had we both been alive in 1860, and had you asked me who won the election, I'd have said Lincoln. Had you asked me who won the American people, I'd have said no one. And pretty clearly given what happened next, that would be correct.

    There is a difference between a mandate election and a squeaker in terms of the politics that follows. A new POTUS with Reagan's numbers gets whatever he wants; a man with Trump's numbers (and other factors) gets no honeymoon, no cross-aisle support, no benefit of the doubt. In terms of who holds office the popular vote is irrelevant, but it is very relevant to how they hold office.

  • Gray Shambler Link

    Interesting to me is that when Clinton made the “deplorables”comment she was speaking to a group of GLTQ? folks at a fundraiser telling them what they wanted to hear, asking for their money, not their votes which she already had. She thought she had the election in the bag and was spending time begging money when she should have been outside of the coastal states asking for votes if she wanted to win. As a white, working class male approaching retirement, I kept waiting for her to address issues important to me, ask for my vote, she never did. This against a backdrop of having had a Democrat President, House, and Senate for four years who ignored my retirement issues. So, I said the hell with it, they only pretend to care, try something new, and voted Trump. Glad he won, glad he has a congress he can work with. Anybody wants to call my vote racist, good. I get a kick out of it. That’s just a liberal tantrum. God Bless America, and all of her intermingled bastard races, may they prosper forever.

  • There is a difference between a mandate election and a squeaker in terms of the politics that follows. A new POTUS with Reagan’s numbers gets whatever he wants; a man with Trump’s numbers (and other factors) gets no honeymoon, no cross-aisle support, no benefit of the doubt. In terms of who holds office the popular vote is irrelevant, but it is very relevant to how they hold office.

    I agree with that, too.

  • michael reynolds Link

    Modulo:

    I’ve said from the start that he is a psychopath. I’d say ‘textbook’ but the term ‘psychopath’ has been replaced by new jargon. Nevertheless, that’s what he is. It’s why normal people don’t understand him at all. Psychopaths think very differently from a normal, socialized human. And on top of being a psychopath he’s just an absolute pig.

    He is literally not capable of caring about other people. He never has, he never will, that part of him is not present in his brain, it’s not going to suddenly develop at age 70. He will never do anything that is not about the fragile, endlessly hungry ego of Donald Trump.

  • Andy Link

    “Hillary lost Michigan by two tenths of one percent. Neo-Nazi groups were very active in supporting Trump in Michigan and elsewhere. But all that matters is that she was a lousy candidate, and it could not possibly have involved racism or misogyny? That is patently ridiculous.”

    Obama won Michigan handily in 2008 and 2012, so racism in 2016? When the margin is as close as it was in Michigan in 2016, any number of factors could be the tipping point. It’s probably mathematically possible that there are a statistically relevant number of people in Michigan who prioritize electing a man above all else. There’s no way to prove it either way.

    But that argument is a sideshow. The issue is it shouldn’t have been close enough for us to be having this debate. Clinton’s weakness is what turned these contests from the safe “blue wall” into coin tosses. With a better candidate and a better, less arrogant campaign, the racist and misogynist vote wouldn’t have mattered because the blue wall would have held.

  • Andy Link

    Another thing, you’ve said before that Obama would have easily beaten Trump. Well, how can you believe that if racism was the decisive factor in Clinton’s defeat? The difference between Obama beating Trump and Clinton beat Trump doesn’t hinge on small numbers of radicals and racists, it hinges on the qualities of the candidates and their campaigns.

  • PD Shaw Link
  • Jan Link

    There’s so much rationalization, hyperventilating, and crass mud slinging reverberationing among some of those whose party lost the election.

    They keep wringing hands, heaping aspersions on the electoral outcome of this election because of the close margin of votes in a few taken for granted blue-wall states, especially MI. However, another way to see the voting differences is there was a 9 PT turnaround from dem to republican votes from 2012 to 2016 – Obama 54% to Romney 45%. That’s a significant statistical change, and if the Dems dropped their penchant to lay blame anywhere except where it rightly belongs, they might learn where they misjudged people’s concerns, and come back with more humility and insights. After all, mega tons of money, a ground game that virtually drove their people to polling places, celebrity-filled venues, thumb’s up endorsements for HRC, accompanied by ample derision of people type cast as “deplorable,” didn’t cut it. Just get over it, acknowledge mistakes, depart from your pity party, adjusting your suspenders to meet the challenges of 2018 and beyond.

  • steve Link

    Dave is clearly correct. Since I have made the same point, of course I agree with him. Yes, Hillary as the candidate was not the only issue, but it was by far the main one. Trump was such an awful candidate he should have lost. The only person who could have lost to him was Clinton, and the Democrats chose to nominate her anyway. She really was a horrible candidate. The only reason to vote for her was to keep Trump out of office. Not much of a reason.

    Parenthetically, it does make the whining about what is wrong with the Democrats kind of funny. If they nominate almost nay other candidate they win, and then we don’t have the dissection of the Democrats that is going on. Not that they don’t have problems mind you, they just would have been able dot delay facing them while the GOP blew up for a while.

    Steve

  • Gray Shambler Link

    Well, she aint Obama, he’s so cool, so hip, so now, so black, so European, so global,so popular with entertainers, so fit, chiseled abs, a wife with chiseled biceps, accomplished dancer, nobel prize, grammy award winner, author, orator, constitutional scholar, perfectly even crease in his pants, GOD, pant, pant,pant, He Was Perfect. How could Little Hill top that?

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