this post was submitted on 28 Mar 2025
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[–] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 15 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Even if we didn't now know for a fact due to Donna Brazile laying out in writing, that Hillary had control of the DNC during the 2016 primaries, and used it to box Sanders out, she still ran such an unlikeable, uninspiring campaign, with outdated and out-of-touch messaging, that I don't think she has any right to be smugging about anything.

If she had not chosen to (whether successful or not) attempt to ostracize literally ever demographic aside from 50+ white women by being actively antagonistic towards most of them (Millennial voters? Just laugh if someone asks how you'll appeal to them!), she very well might have won. Not to cast aspersions, but I sure don't call that 'smart'.

The sad thing is that our current predicament was mostly perfectly understood back in 2016, even prior to the election. But no one in the DNC, Hillary included, seemed to have bothered to learn from their mistakes, and are all still making the same mistakes.

...the fear is that if younger voters really are committed to a host of ideological positions at odds with the mainstream of the Democratic Party, then that Party, without a Trump-sized cudgel, is doomed. It should not escape anybody's notice that politics by negative definition—the argument, at bottom, that "we're better than those guys"—has become the dominant electoral strategy of the Democratic Party, and that despite the escalation of the "those guys" negatives, the mere promise to be preferable has yielded diminishing returns. At some point, the Democratic Party will either need to embrace a platform significantly to the left of their current orthodoxy, or they will lose.

There are only so many times one can insist that young voters capitulate to a political party's sole demand—vote for us!—in exchange for nothing.

[–] eestileib@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 2 days ago

Wow that quotation really gets to the heart of it.

[–] meyotch@slrpnk.net 32 points 2 days ago

Please tell us how dumb we are again, Hillary. Your contempt for working people is palpable, and it is not limited to those deplorables.

In my book, you have become the barely-lesser of the evils we have been forced to choose from.

Fade away, please.

[–] melsaskca@lemmy.ca 22 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Hillary, Trump won because people were sick of the entrenched insiders like yourself. Your opinion means nothing.

[–] HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 3 points 1 day ago

Yeah. When voters were given a choice between maintaining the status quo versus fascism, voters couldn't tell the difference until after fascism was implemented.

[–] LukeZaz@beehaw.org 6 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

In part.

It can't go unacknowledged that bigotry was very involved in the outcome of 2016.

[–] melsaskca@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 days ago

Certainly. It was a myriad of complexities.

[–] EmpireInDecay@lemmy.ml 13 points 2 days ago

If she would just kindly fuck off all of us would be appreciative

[–] alykanas@slrpnk.net 14 points 2 days ago

Painful lack of shame

[–] Rivalarrival 10 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Go be irrelevant somewhere else, Hillary.

[–] Powderhorn@beehaw.org 7 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Shooting the messenger is not strategically sound. The message is on point and coming from someone with a bit of experience.

Regardless of how one feels about her (I'm not a fan, either), we need these sorts of pieces to point out the utter incompetence of the junta. You'd really rather she shuts up so we can fill the space with fully right-wing "thinkpieces"?

The problem with "not this" is not considering the alternatives. Something's going to run. I'd rather see a column critical of what's going on than supporting it. It's not binary, but given the political climate, that's the other option.

[–] Rivalarrival 13 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Shooting the messenger is not strategically sound.

She's not the messenger. She is the speaker. Here, she is attempting to exert her own brand of political influence.

Her political influence is largely responsible for the sorry state of the Democratic party today.

Whatever message needs to be sent, someone else can send it.

[–] Powderhorn@beehaw.org 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

If you think Hillary Clinton is "largely responsible" for the state of the Democratic Party, you've not been paying attention. It's not as though they were populist just up until 2016.

[–] Rivalarrival 10 points 2 days ago (1 children)

She has been a major player in the party since the 90s. She is, indeed, largely responsible for the current state of the party.

[–] Powderhorn@beehaw.org 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Yes, she obviously was a major player. But she didn't engineer the rightward lurch as you claim. Again, I don't much care for her, but the GOP talking points for decades as though she was somehow the one pulling the strings was effective.

[–] Rivalarrival 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Again, I don't much care for her,

Who do you care for? Let's spend a little more time on people who actually matter.

[–] Powderhorn@beehaw.org 2 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I care about policy, not the person.

[–] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

There is no such thing.

The person is the one who pursues, builds, and implements policy. A bad person will not be a good ally, no matter their professed policy beliefs, because it is only integrity that binds a politician to work for their constituents once elected.

Without a good person, you have no way to trust that good policy will follow.

[–] Rivalarrival 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Yeah?

Check out the rest of the comments in this thread. Getting a lot of insightful and innovative policy discourse from your post?

If you care about policy, you'll avoid any mention of that person in the future. As soon as her name is mentioned, the policy conversation ends.

[–] Powderhorn@beehaw.org 2 points 2 days ago

That is a failure on the order of how we have a Trump cult.

[–] Feyd@programming.dev 3 points 2 days ago

Nobody likes her so she can't possibly be an effective messenger. It's as simple as that.

[–] DontMakeMoreBabies@lemm.ee 10 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Paywalled, so I can't read it all.

But honestly Hilary calling folks dumb? Has she completely forgotten 2016??

[–] alykanas@slrpnk.net 9 points 2 days ago

You don’t need to read it. Knowing she wrote it, and they published it, is enough.

[–] furrowsofar@beehaw.org 7 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Wow! What is all the hate. I agree that Hillery was not exactly personable but she was quite competent. Trump on the other hand, great at media and crowds but really pretty much incompetent otherwise. As far as I can tell the only thing he has done for working people is channel hate and rage which is authentic. If there are are concrete things feel free to list them.

[–] LukeZaz@beehaw.org 13 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

We all know Trump is worse. But none of that changes that competency doesn't make up for Hillary being an awful person and a worse candidate.

[–] Feyd@programming.dev 15 points 2 days ago (1 children)

All the hate is that if the DNC hadn't forced an unpopular candidate in 2016 maybe we wouldn't be where we are now. Disliking Trump and HRC isn't a binary choice.

[–] furrowsofar@beehaw.org 1 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Thanks. I wonder though. The DNC has chosen a woman twice now. Sad if true but it is probably lot harder for a woman to win the general election. Hillary could not do it, and Kamala could not do it against frankly very flawed candidate.

[–] Feyd@programming.dev 16 points 2 days ago (1 children)

This is a common take and maybe it has merit, but I'm not convinced.

Hillary had decades of propaganda to compete with, a general attitude is "it's my turn" (political dynasties are bad) and made some major gaffes.

Kamala was chosen without any voter input at all, was not popular as a primary candidate in 2020, ran on being "the top cop" in an environment where only the right likes cops, and lurched right to compete for the Republican base, completely betraying the base that voted for Biden. I was personally sick to my stomach listening to her praise Dick Cheney and parade around with Liz Cheney. (I voted for her anyway because what choice did I have). Harris was a weak Democrat candidate to begin with AND the campaign basically did everything wrong.

Anyway, it's possible that the US electorate won't elect a woman for president out of sexism but I personally don't think that's what has happened because I don't think a woman that also happens to be a good candidate that ran a good campaign has gotten past primaries.

[–] furrowsofar@beehaw.org 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I suspect that basically a women has to be a lot better candidate say 10% or something better because she is going to loose a certain number of voters that would otherwise vote the ticket. These are not even all men that will not vote for a woman.

I understand why a certain genre of white male might vote for Trump for example but it mystifies me how a woman or a person of color would.

[–] Feyd@programming.dev 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

It's hard for you to understand because you're more knowledgeable. A lot of people see Trump saying he's going to make groceries cheaper and even though he's completely full of shit at least he was acknowledging working class problems where the dems were not

[–] furrowsofar@beehaw.org 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

I talked with a Trump voter. They thought inflation was high. I said no, it is under 3% which is normal. They thought it was like 6%. They even looked it up and agreed. Then I asked them if they were better of now then 4 years go. They said yes. After all that I am sure they still voted for Trump.

As far as numeric price, everyone should know that prices are sticky. They rarely drop but inflation can be controlled to the 2 to 3 percent range and they were by the summer of 2024.

I agree with this about hearing people. Dems for some reason are not good at making people feel seen and heard. The other is making a personal and emotional connection which is roughly similar.

[–] Powderhorn@beehaw.org 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

There's not a lot of mystery behind the Dems' problems. They're in the oligarchs' pockets just as much as the GOP, just different oligarchs. This is why we're seeing the sort of turnout at Sanders/AOC rallies that dwarfed campaign events in 2024 (and in prior cycles) pointing out where things have gone off the rails.

More than 99% of us know the government doesn't work for us. This has been laid bare, and while some saw it far earlier, it's now in everyone's face. The flaccid response to Trump's authoritarian moves it not winning them any voters, but I suppose the "we're less bad" playbook is the only one their handlers will allow (see: bullshit getting Sanders out of the way in 2016).

[–] FatCrab@lemmy.one 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I think this is a gross oversimplification of the issues, but that's a big part of the problem. Currently, the problems facing both the DNC and the country are very complex and one very large and diverse side has to present ultimate complex solutions to complex problems to an electorate that collectively can barely tie its shoes, and the other just handwaves over this complexity, others a whole punch of folks, and says they'll "fix" it by pushing the bad mean "others" out.

Government actually DID work for a huge swathe of people in subtle, often taken for granted ways. It had vast room for improvement, but nevertheless was better than the alternative of simply not existing. The VA is a good example of this. But when you try to explain that to folks, they just glaze over. Another example is I've had discussions with multiple people now who were convinced that Harris just "never even had any policy" despite this being objectively untrue and very easily refuted.

This is all to say, no, "people" don't know or see shit. The average voters is wildly uninformed, uninformable, and cannot engage in anything beyond magical thinking. Long term solution is to make politics at the individual level more engaging with their day to day and increase general competence and access to true information. No idea what the short term solution is--as the saying goes, you can't use reason to convince someone out of a stupid fucking opinion.

[–] Powderhorn@beehaw.org 2 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago)

Of course it's an oversimplification. I'm posting a comment on Beehaw, not penning an essay for Foreign Affairs.

But to paraphrase Carville, "It's the messaging, stupid."

There's been no coherent message that meets voters where they are. The boots-on-the-ground effects of both the BIL and IRA weren't effectively leveraged, especially in red areas seeing jobs and benefits from federal infrastructure grants. This is incompetence.

[–] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 9 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

There are piece of shit Democrat voters who won't vote for any women.

But the 2 women candidates that the DNC has put their weight behind were massively unpopular compared to many other well-known Democrats who are women.

So it becomes hard to actually suss out which is the bigger factor in their losses.

On one side you have people like my dad, whose conclusion is that we're all still too sexist... so we need to just stop running women, so that we don't lose.

And on the other side you have people like me, who think that kind of cynical politicking is exactly what lost us 2016 and 2024, and a popular, inspiring, progressive, female candidate is exactly what we need to counter the fashies.

I actually do feel bad for the very real sexism that Hillary has obviously encountered in her career. Everything else aside, that is (by definition) never deserved or justified. But she is very legitimately a huge warhawk, a close personal friend and advocate for at least one major war criminal, thoroughly corrupt, a huge pusher of cutthroat capitalism for workers, anti-M4A, and just an all-around condescending asshole when being candid (everyone forgets her being caught joking about young people being basement-dwelling losers at a private fundraiser).

[–] DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 7 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

That bitch campaigned with Henry Kissinger after all his war crimes were proven and we had such memorable quotes from him like

"If it were not for the accident of my birth, I would be antisemitic.... Any people who has been persecuted for two thousand years must be doing something wrong."

Fuck her.

[–] Clent@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 2 days ago

There is no depth to American's stupidity.

The comments here prove it.

We will fighting ourselves without relent as we slid into absolutely stupidity.

[–] shittydwarf@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] dumblederp@aussie.zone 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] SteevyT@beehaw.org 1 points 2 days ago

Actually, nevermind, I need a pick me up.