9 ms·

> I think what killed her is that she is a very unexciting stay-the-course President. No major changes, Also lies and corruption, that's what killed her. But

by rdtsc 10y ago

> I think what killed her is that she is a very unexciting stay-the-course President. No major changes, Also lies and corruption, that's what killed her. But you're right that it would have still been "no major changes" from what she was before. She had major investors behind her, all that money from speeches, all the media, Obama, the DOJ, people at CNN passing her debate questions before hand. And she still lost. To a TV show star. I don't buy the idea that was "experienced", "the most qualified", "a good manager". She lost to Trump. That is a fact now. The argument of her competence, integrity, intelligence is very hard to make at this point.

foota 10y ago
The money she's made from speeches is relatively trivial.
- rdtsc 10y ago
  Alright, let's take that off the table. How do you explain other stuff. How did she manage to lose this election?
  - foota 10y ago
    I don't really think I'm qualified to say, but that's never stopped anyone ;) I don't think she could pivot too far to the right, and so had difficulty attracting any conservative vote. I'm not sure why she couldn't get out the democratic vote more. Maybe she just wasn't charismatic enough. There's also sexism.
foota 10y ago
Also remember all the free press Trump has gotten?
serge2k 10y ago
> I don't buy the idea that was "experienced", "the most qualified", "a good manager". She was a lawyer, first lady for 8 years, a senator, and secretary of state. She's incredibly experienced and qualified. Trump is nothing but lies and corruption. It's hypocritical to whine about Hillary and ignore trump.
- rdtsc 10y ago
  > It's hypocritical to whine about Hillary I didn't know I was "whining" sorry about that. Will try to keep my tone in check. > and ignore trump. Have you read the rest of the posts? Are you responding to the same comment section in HN? There is a lot of stuff being ignored but Trump is not one of those things. > She's incredibly experienced and qualified. Let's accept that. How do we reconcile the fact that she completely blew this election? With a star team of strategists, Obama behind her, all the financial support, media helping her every single step of the way, even down to passing her debate questions in advance, all that experience. Out of all people she lost to Trump? What happened there?
  - sprafa 10y ago
    Trump got debate questions as well. See Megan Kelly. Yes Hillary blew the election. In the end Colin Powell was right - whatever she did right she ruined with hubris
    - Natsu 10y ago
      Can you give a cite for that? I missed that story. The ones I read in Podesta's emails were quite clearly leaked, and then Donna lied about the message being changed by Russia. That was false, because it's DKIM validate and those headers cover the body as well as the headers.
  - serge2k 10y ago
    She's dull and kinda unlikeable. She had some good ideas but nothing really exciting. Trump has, in his way, an Obama like gift for getting people excited to vote for him. It makes him look god awful to his opponents, but it gets people to vote.
  - dpark 10y ago
    > How do we reconcile the fact that she completely blew this election? We don't reconcile them, because while not unrelated, they also aren't tightly correlated. "Experienced and qualified" don't guarantee success in an election (or anything else for that matter). Trump is clearly not experienced politically and a large number of people agree that he's not qualified, yet he still won. Experienced and qualified people fail at stuff pretty regularly.
tootie 10y ago
If voters cared about lies, they would have strongly rejected Trump. They just wanted lies that appealed to them.
- rdtsc 10y ago
  Agree. Well in this case we know which ones they picked. So what do think she should have done better? Did she not lie convincingly enough, and Trump was a better liar?
  - sprafa 10y ago
    Some of Trump's statements made more sense, others were more exciting, many of them were just lies, as I suspect we are about to find out. But yes charisma is often the ability to persuade, and persuasion passes through exaggeration, bravado, and if you are completely lost, lying. Everything indicates Trump is a pathological liar (same with Hillary). But because voters got caught up in his narcissism, he "won" (again electoral college only etc.)
    - mercer 10y ago
      I think that doesn't do justice to the many people who voted Trump because they didn't want to vote for Hillary. Whether justified or not, many of the Trump voters/fans I've spoken to did not get caught up in Trump's 'narcissism'; they just feel so sick of 'the establishment' that they'd do anything to not get another Clinton in office. To be clear, I myself would probably have voted for Hillary instead of Trump, because I'm a cautious person and I prefer the 'evil' I know over the unpredictable nature of Trump. But if I squint, so to speak, I could see myself voting for Trump just because I dislike Hillary so much. That in itself scares me a bit (I'm big on LGBT rights and whatnot, on a very personal level). The reason why I'm pointing this out is that 1) we are now stuck with Trump, so let's try and make the best of it, 2) part of why we got here was the incredibly shallow name-calling and condemnation and stereotyping from both sides, encouraged by the media. Our best way forward is to try and understand the situation and most important the people involved, and why they voted the way they did, and go from there. And perhaps being honest and factually correct is a good idea too. Could be further analysis proves you right, btw. But right now I have no reason to believe that most people voted Trump primarily because they got 'caught up in his narcissism'.
jrockway 10y ago
We certainly had the opportunity to examine the inner workings of Hillary Clinton and the DNC. We had no data whatsoever on Trump or the RNC. Beyond his barrage of lies, low-level offenses (paying fines with his nonprofit, bribing elected officials, all that), and alleged sexual assaults, that is. I think he did so many little bad things that the American People couldn't keep track of them, and voted for the interesting television personality. It is unfair to assume that "no news is good news", but assume we did. The Clinton campaign lost the information war badly. (And apparently against state-sponsored adversaries!) And what did we conclude from Hillary's emails? That she got paid by investment banks and accepted donations to her Foundation from foreign dignitaries that she interacted with while Secretary of State? While I don't think that influenced her decision-making, the appearance of impropriety is just as bad as actual impropriety, and so I can see why people were upset. But like I said, I trust her decision-making and voted for her anyway, because her positives vastly outweigh her negatives. (The DNC is another issue altogether, but it's very simple why they didn't support Bernie. They're the DNC, not the "independent who suddenly claims to be a democrat" NC. The system of political parties sucks. But it's the system we set up and keep voting for. I don't think Bernie would have beaten Trump. College students can make some pretty good subreddits and Facebook posts, but they just aren't enough of the electorate. Clinton and Trump both have Very Powerful Friends, and you need them to be elected.)
- saalweachter 10y ago
  Re: the DNC I think the focus on the DNC also over-emphasizes the power of the DNC (eg, the primaries are run by the State committees, not the DNC) while confusing the direction the influence flows in the DNC -- members of the DNC are influential members of the Democratic Party because being an influential member of the Democratic Party is how you become a member of the DNC. If the DNC's role in the primaries was replaced with a laptop to add up the popular vote of all of the primaries, all delegates and superdelegates eliminated, the members of the Democratic party who would otherwise be "superdelegates" -- elected Democrats in Congress, top members of the state Committees, past and current Democratic Presidents, Democratic governors, etc -- would still have an outsized influence in backing one candidate or another, because they are influential people with personal experience with the candidates whose opinions are trusted by many people. Pretending it could be any other way is silly; when I need an opinion on someone, as either a political candidate, a plumber, or a potential new engineering hire, I talk to people who have personal knowledge, whose opinions I trust. Demanding that these people not share their opinions is absurd.

by rdtsc 10y ago

foota 10y ago

The money she's made from speeches is relatively trivial.

rdtsc 10y ago
Alright, let's take that off the table. How do you explain other stuff. How did she manage to lose this election?
- foota 10y ago
  I don't really think I'm qualified to say, but that's never stopped anyone ;) I don't think she could pivot too far to the right, and so had difficulty attracting any conservative vote. I'm not sure why she couldn't get out the democratic vote more. Maybe she just wasn't charismatic enough. There's also sexism.

foota 10y ago

Also remember all the free press Trump has gotten?

serge2k 10y ago

> I don't buy the idea that was "experienced", "the most qualified", "a good manager". She was a lawyer, first lady for 8 years, a senator, and secretary of state. She's incredibly experienced and qualified. Trump is nothing but lies and corruption. It's hypocritical to whine about Hillary and ignore trump.

rdtsc 10y ago
> It's hypocritical to whine about Hillary I didn't know I was "whining" sorry about that. Will try to keep my tone in check. > and ignore trump. Have you read the rest of the posts? Are you responding to the same comment section in HN? There is a lot of stuff being ignored but Trump is not one of those things. > She's incredibly experienced and qualified. Let's accept that. How do we reconcile the fact that she completely blew this election? With a star team of strategists, Obama behind her, all the financial support, media helping her every single step of the way, even down to passing her debate questions in advance, all that experience. Out of all people she lost to Trump? What happened there?
- sprafa 10y ago
  Trump got debate questions as well. See Megan Kelly. Yes Hillary blew the election. In the end Colin Powell was right - whatever she did right she ruined with hubris
  - Natsu 10y ago
    Can you give a cite for that? I missed that story. The ones I read in Podesta's emails were quite clearly leaked, and then Donna lied about the message being changed by Russia. That was false, because it's DKIM validate and those headers cover the body as well as the headers.
- serge2k 10y ago
  She's dull and kinda unlikeable. She had some good ideas but nothing really exciting. Trump has, in his way, an Obama like gift for getting people excited to vote for him. It makes him look god awful to his opponents, but it gets people to vote.
- dpark 10y ago
  > How do we reconcile the fact that she completely blew this election? We don't reconcile them, because while not unrelated, they also aren't tightly correlated. "Experienced and qualified" don't guarantee success in an election (or anything else for that matter). Trump is clearly not experienced politically and a large number of people agree that he's not qualified, yet he still won. Experienced and qualified people fail at stuff pretty regularly.

tootie 10y ago

If voters cared about lies, they would have strongly rejected Trump. They just wanted lies that appealed to them.

rdtsc 10y ago
Agree. Well in this case we know which ones they picked. So what do think she should have done better? Did she not lie convincingly enough, and Trump was a better liar?
- sprafa 10y ago
  Some of Trump's statements made more sense, others were more exciting, many of them were just lies, as I suspect we are about to find out. But yes charisma is often the ability to persuade, and persuasion passes through exaggeration, bravado, and if you are completely lost, lying. Everything indicates Trump is a pathological liar (same with Hillary). But because voters got caught up in his narcissism, he "won" (again electoral college only etc.)
  - mercer 10y ago
    I think that doesn't do justice to the many people who voted Trump because they didn't want to vote for Hillary. Whether justified or not, many of the Trump voters/fans I've spoken to did not get caught up in Trump's 'narcissism'; they just feel so sick of 'the establishment' that they'd do anything to not get another Clinton in office. To be clear, I myself would probably have voted for Hillary instead of Trump, because I'm a cautious person and I prefer the 'evil' I know over the unpredictable nature of Trump. But if I squint, so to speak, I could see myself voting for Trump just because I dislike Hillary so much. That in itself scares me a bit (I'm big on LGBT rights and whatnot, on a very personal level). The reason why I'm pointing this out is that 1) we are now stuck with Trump, so let's try and make the best of it, 2) part of why we got here was the incredibly shallow name-calling and condemnation and stereotyping from both sides, encouraged by the media. Our best way forward is to try and understand the situation and most important the people involved, and why they voted the way they did, and go from there. And perhaps being honest and factually correct is a good idea too. Could be further analysis proves you right, btw. But right now I have no reason to believe that most people voted Trump primarily because they got 'caught up in his narcissism'.

jrockway 10y ago

We certainly had the opportunity to examine the inner workings of Hillary Clinton and the DNC. We had no data whatsoever on Trump or the RNC. Beyond his barrage of lies, low-level offenses (paying fines with his nonprofit, bribing elected officials, all that), and alleged sexual assaults, that is. I think he did so many little bad things that the American People couldn't keep track of them, and voted for the interesting television personality. It is unfair to assume that "no news is good news", but assume we did. The Clinton campaign lost the information war badly. (And apparently against state-sponsored adversaries!) And what did we conclude from Hillary's emails? That she got paid by investment banks and accepted donations to her Foundation from foreign dignitaries that she interacted with while Secretary of State? While I don't think that influenced her decision-making, the appearance of impropriety is just as bad as actual impropriety, and so I can see why people were upset. But like I said, I trust her decision-making and voted for her anyway, because her positives vastly outweigh her negatives. (The DNC is another issue altogether, but it's very simple why they didn't support Bernie. They're the DNC, not the "independent who suddenly claims to be a democrat" NC. The system of political parties sucks. But it's the system we set up and keep voting for. I don't think Bernie would have beaten Trump. College students can make some pretty good subreddits and Facebook posts, but they just aren't enough of the electorate. Clinton and Trump both have Very Powerful Friends, and you need them to be elected.)

saalweachter 10y ago
Re: the DNC I think the focus on the DNC also over-emphasizes the power of the DNC (eg, the primaries are run by the State committees, not the DNC) while confusing the direction the influence flows in the DNC -- members of the DNC are influential members of the Democratic Party because being an influential member of the Democratic Party is how you become a member of the DNC. If the DNC's role in the primaries was replaced with a laptop to add up the popular vote of all of the primaries, all delegates and superdelegates eliminated, the members of the Democratic party who would otherwise be "superdelegates" -- elected Democrats in Congress, top members of the state Committees, past and current Democratic Presidents, Democratic governors, etc -- would still have an outsized influence in backing one candidate or another, because they are influential people with personal experience with the candidates whose opinions are trusted by many people. Pretending it could be any other way is silly; when I need an opinion on someone, as either a political candidate, a plumber, or a potential new engineering hire, I talk to people who have personal knowledge, whose opinions I trust. Demanding that these people not share their opinions is absurd.