One thing I'm sure to be doing, is to get out and vote. This is the only way to ensure something is done about this whole mess.
Needless to say, this has very little to do with Hillary Clinton, the one female candidate who has achieved the highest honor so far in US history to becoming a presidential candidate as a woman in her own right, the one who can supposedly galvanize the support of all those that oppose everything that Trump stands for. She has star power, the credentials, the works.Yet she lost the election.
Much has been analyzed, all stones turned over (many times over), of what happened, why, and the what-ifs. Let's see if bullet points might have it easier to discern:
- Young voters don't like her. Some find her too old (but hey, Bernie Sanders is even older, for chrissake). More importantly, they don't find her progressive enough.
- Unions and working class feel abandoned by the Democratic Party, and HRC has come to symbolized all the wrongs from liberal economic policies like NAFTA (thanks to her husband, Bill Clinton) and the nascent (and now dead) TPP (courtesy of Obama).
- Even some female voters were turned off. It's still a puzzle of how women in the conservative ranks would rather vote for a guy like Trump who would gladly and readily call them names if they cross his path, than someone whom they can reason with civilly.
It is unfair how women have to bear the wrongs done by their husbands, as HRC did with Bill Clinton's transgression in the Monica Lewinsky affair. It might have been even noble to forgive her husband and stand by him (rather than divorcing him). What she could have done, is to stay silent (to maintain privacy) on this affair, rather than lashing out against Lewinsky as if there is no power play at work. In the revisionist history, Lewinsky would have us believed that she's cowered into having sex with Bill Clinton. In the midst of #MeToo movement, it's easy to take in that version of the story. But I do believe in the other version, the version that Lewinsky flirted furiously with Bill, even flashing her thongs to him. She is no Rose McGowan, she was not coerced into compromising position, she aggressively sought after it due to the lure of power of the White House office. For all those, I would have gladly sided with HRC. There really is no need for HRC to lash out against media and even Lewinsky, she could have risen above the fray. But HRC didn't.
As to the unloseable election in 2016, Bill Clinton had advocated HRC to focus on jobs, economy, and working class votes, as did Joe Biden. They were right. Sadly to say, HRC would rather focus on more progressive issues like refugees' rights and the transgenders fight. (Ironic enough, even those positions of hers are not progressive and far-left enough for most young supporters in the Sanders crowd.) Perhaps HRC and her army of advisers were under the impression that the economy was on the mend (thanks to the steady hands of Obama's administration for the preceding eight years in office). What she did not realize was that, a lot of folks who were hurting from the demise of manufacturing sectors have fallen off of the radar (and unemployment roll) for the longest time. She has come to symbolize all the wrongs of NAFTA. Instead of revisiting the issue, she doubled down on it in advocating TPP. All these liberal trade policies have been great for corporates, with lots of people losing their livelihood in its wake and no means to turnaround.
In a way, Dems have become so similar to GOP when it comes to fundraising and big money influence. This has been the sticky point raised by the late John McCain, that was partly reversed-course during the first Obama campaign when he was able to lure in scores of new voters, young voters, all willing to make small donations to his campaign. But the success of the Obama campaign turns out to be a fluke. Since then, no one has been able to replicate his success with small-time donations; in fact, Obama hasn't even been able to rub off his popularity to candidates that he supports. That's where HRC comes in. She was THE fundraiser of the Dems for the longest time, raising money for both her campaign and those candidates the party supports. In US, money oftentimes equates to winning. In the 2016 season, HRC and the war chest of super PAC was huge, but she still lost. That goes to show the limits that big money could play.
There is the argument that even though HRC lost the 2016 election, she won the popular vote; hence, she still has her appeal. No matter. When it comes to playing the system of electoral college, it's all about swing states, popular vote be damned.
For all the strong deck of cards that HRC has had in 2016, she lost. She was bitter. She blamed sexism. Her staffers blamed Bernie Sanders and his supporters (much as Al Gore's supporters blamed Ralph Nader) for not toeing the line. Bottomline is, it's always someone else's fault. Put it another way, if she had run again, she would run essentially the same campaign all over again. Which she did once before, against Obama, and lost in the primaries.
Given all those, there's little wonder why she refuses to go away. She's only in her 60s, she still has energy, she believes she still has the votes of her support base, and she can still raise money handily. Better yet, she has stature and respect aboard, even though it's less so in US. Could she have done more good by taking the Jimmy Carter route, rather than the Bill Clinton route? Would she be better off elevating herself as elder statesman, rather than over-staying her welcome mat by staying in the trench a tad bit too long? Perhaps if HRC is ready to wrap up her legacy, she would have taken the high road. By rolling herself in the mud and continue fighting it out in the gutter, it's quite clear that she still believes that she has a few more chapters to write before her legacy is done. Messy, it sure is, but then, we won't expect less of that from HRC who has always been a fighter all her life.
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More to the point of the legacy of HRC, is the future of female candidates. It's hard enough to come up through the ranks. It's almost inconceivable for US to have a female leader, as Margaret Thatcher once did in UK once upon a time and Angela Merkel now in Germany. Why? Because for all the progressive talks in US, most (even the women) still prefer to see a man in the leadership position. Don't tell my word for it. Just take a look at what happens in Massachusetts, the solidly blue state that has yet to see a female governor.
Afterthoughts...
Speaking of Massachusetts, if Dems put Elizabeth Warren on the 2020 ticket, Dems will surely lose since GOP will have their field day with the pocahontas name-calling.
It's all well and good to be progressive and liberal-minded. But let's face it, most (if not all) people will not give a damn about refugees rights or trans rights or human rights of workers in some other countries if they can't even put food on their own table. In short, liberal progressiveness is a high ideal that's great when one's station is safely secured. And in US these days, more than half of the country (hello, white working class) is not.
It's time for Bill Clinton to sunset his campaigning days. Folks from the last generations might look back on the Clinton years longingly, given how the internet boom has spurred one bubble after another. Surely rising tide lifts all boats, but as we can see it now, the Clinton way was not the only way to go about it, but Clinton has effectively traded away the house jewels, dismantling safeguards and regulations to let the markets run wild. It's no surprise that the GOP hates Bill Clinton so much, since he effectively co-opted almost all of their favorites policy talking points, including tax cuts (eg. capital gains tax cuts), welfare cuts (eg. forcing those on welfare roll to work for it), deregulations (eg. dismantling Glass-Steagall Act), and more. For that count alone, anyone with the Clinton last name, including HRC, will not be forgiven.
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