Clinton Hatred Origins?

[narad]

She called the deplorables deplorables.

 

[bostjan]

Not to take this thread completely off track, but interesting side note about Dan Quayle and Mike Pence - there have been six Vice Presidents hailing from Indiana (more than any other state except New York). None of them ever became president, and only one served a second term. Only two presidents in the past 40 years have been one-termers, and both had VP's from Indiana. It seems like having a VP from Indiana is a sort of a curse. Maybe that's no surprise, since the state tried to pass a law declaring the value of pi=3.2 (pi is actually irrational, and rounding to the tenths place is 3.1, and, as a fricking number, doesn't care what legislators think - for a fun read - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Pi_Bill ).

Hillary might have suffered from not really having a home state, though. She was born in Illinois, educated in New England, then moved to Arkansas, then to Washington DC, then to New York... it might be a minor detail, but she didn't really have a "home state" to take advantage of. In Arkansas, people in 2016 voted for Trump over her 2:1, which is ridiculous for someone's own home state. In Illinois, she had already been snubbed by Obama's nomination there eight years earlier, and I think it caused some people in the state to sort of subconsciously disown her, and then in New York, Trump was just as much from NY as she was, if not more, so she didn't have the usual advantage there other than simply being a Democrat.

Every candidate runs into a gaffe or two during a campaign, but neither her nor Trump ever apologized for anything. When the email server thing came up during the election, her playing stupid ("What, like, [wiped the emails] with a cloth or something?") didn't look good for her morals nor for her cleverness, and there were plenty of similar groan-worthy moments from her.

What we needed to see from her wasn't for her to simply be better than Trump, nor to "tell it like it is" to attract Trump's voters (which would have never voted for her anyway), we needed to see her show honour and credibility, as well as poise and determination, to make sure that people who were not going to vote for Trump went out and voted for her. What we got was really just poor performance all around. Compared to Trump, sure, she looked good, but, compared to Obama, absolutely not.

Probably, though, most of all, the reason why people dislike her, honestly, is because, despite some of the more brash pundits shouting that she would lose against Trump, we were told to trust her, and then she lost, which led to four years of spiraling into chaos. In hindsight, if she had simply kept her emails on a government server, she might have scraped together enough votes to win PA, MI, and WI or maybe not, but the election was close enough in key states to tempt the thought that a little bit of levity might have made all of the difference.

But, also, let's not pretend that we know for a fact that, if Clinton had been elected, we wouldn't be sitting here complaining about her in various threads. As S.O.S., she took a very handsy approach to foreign policy that maybe would have been played well, or maybe would have led to diplomatic disaster. We'll never know. What we do know, though, is that we got Trump, and his approach to foreign policy, on paper, wasn't supposed to be as bad, but, in practice, was centered around bribes and blatantly empty threats - so it ended up being really really bad.

 

[Xaios]

Maybe that's no surprise, since the state tried to pass a law declaring the value of pi=3.2

WHAT THE FUCK!?

 

[narad]

I thought it was a completely rational proposal?

 

[thraxil]

I was only a teenager for Clinton's presidency and not paying very close attention to politics back then. I do remember a friend's dad, who was a big gun nut, being extremely negatively obsessed with Hillary even back then. And he wasn't alone. I remember being at his house and flipping through these photocopied gun/right wing newsletters that he was subscribed to that were filled with the "Hillary murdered five people and engaged in satanic ritual sacrifice" type articles. I assume that part of it was the 1994 assault weapons ban which really offended the 2nd ammendment folks (I think it started before then, but that really solidified her as the literal devil incarnate to them). Somehow a large part of the hatred of Bill's policies was shifted onto her as a person. I think part of it might have been that Bill always presented himself with this very "aw shucks" goofy humble kind of persona, speaking plainly, eating junk food, womanizing, etc. That combined with her being a lawyer, more outspoken on politics than previous First Ladies, and generally coming off as more "sophisticated" let a lot of the right wingers believe that she was actually somehow the brains behind the operation and was really calling all the shots. That time period was also around when Rush Limbaugh was getting widely popular and he always seemed to have an obsession with her being a "feminazi."

 

[mmr007]

It actually is quite simple. She was an "activist" first lady with respect to health care when her husband was president. Although first ladies often have pet causes (Nancy Reagan Just say No) Clinton was the first to be treated by her elected spouse as also being elected and having a role in government. From day 2 she was the head of a government universal healthcare task force. Since she was trying to upend healthcare Republican lawmakers hated her and wanted to ruin her and the spin machine began. Her husband Bill was also seen by right wingers as a problem with their way of life. Don't ask dont tell as a compromise to allowing gays in the military, the "heavy handed" approach AG Janet Reno took in Ruby Ridge and Waco are all rallying cries for the far right as to how the government under leftists oppresses the freedom right. Since Bill left office and Hillary became more involved in politics she just became the de facto target for hate of the two of them together.

As far as democrats go...they don't like her because she is actually quite right of center on many issues and they don't view her as one of the true blue tribe. Her carpetbagging, treatment of Bernie in the 2015 primaries, and the fact she stayed with Bill after the affair are all the evidence they need to feel she wants to be a politician for her own ambition, not to make their lives better.

Finally she has an annoying laugh/cackle. Some things are unforgivable.

 

[Strobe]

As others have mentioned, she was a right wing media boogeyman since back in the 90's during the Clinton presidency. Her original crime was being a first lady who did stuff. She's a villain in this alternate universe framework. It's really a shared story, it is not particularly fact based; rather facts are bent to fit the narrative.

 

[devastone]

I have no dog in this fight, no, I'm not a HRC fan, but I'm not a fan of any politician, especially in today's extreme right/left politics.

But by this logic:

It's also only about half false, as they didn't land IN sniper fire, but passengers were issued flack jackets, they were briefed at length about the risk of potential snipers before landing, the helicopter flew in under gunship escort...

I have a fire extinguisher in my house, therefore I have been in a house fire.

 

[bostjan]

I thought it was a completely rational proposal?

I rate that pun 16 out of 5.

 

[BigViolin]

Damn, Carter should have pushed harder. Those dickweeds in Indiana would be measuring their junk in millimeters instead of trying to mess with pi.

 

[Drew]

Thanks a lot Drew! You know me and my hot sauces.

https://www.mariesharps.bz/

Stuff rules, I promise. Also, 1984, Geraldine Ferarro as the Democratic VP.

 

[Drew]

Surprised to see the argument so often that people who dislike HRC are just misogynists. Had HRC beaten Obama in 2008, she would have run against a Republican with a female running mate, so, in that case each major ticket would have included at least one female.

I really never personally heard anyone outright say that they disliked her for being female. I'm sure at least someone did, but I highly doubt that was a mainstream reason, especially now that we have a female veep who is much better liked, only four years later, with a president who is old enough that she will be likely to run for president in four more years.

I don't think her sex is the main reason people hate her - I went into that at length above - but certainly, there are large swathes of the country that were quick to use the fact that she was a woman as a reason to attack her, and misogyny informed a lot of the attacks on her that DID occur. Trump generally stuck to coded language, questioning her "strength" and "stamina," though occasionally being more overt, suggesting she wouldn't even be the nominee if she wasn't a woman and that's the only reason her supporters supported her. There was also the way he crowded her personal space in debates and tended to glower behind her while she was talking, etc. Then there's the matter of her supporters:

https://www.npr.org/2016/10/23/4988...e-2016-campaign-that-may-have-been-inevitable

It's hard not to conclude at least SOME misogyny in a popular "Trump that Bitch" slogan, you know?

I still put the misogyny a distant second behind 30 years of GOP attacks of the Clinton family, but just because it's the smaller of the two doesn't mean it wasn't real.

 

[Drew]

I have no dog in this fight, no, I'm not a HRC fan, but I'm not a fan of any politician, especially in today's extreme right/left politics.

But by this logic: I have a fire extinguisher in my house, therefore I have been in a house fire.

More like, you went and grabbed that fire extinguisher because your wife started yelling about a fire, but by the time you got there she'd put out the toast in the toaster. And then telling the story 8 years later.

 

[Drew]

As others have mentioned, she was a right wing media boogeyman since back in the 90's during the Clinton presidency. Her original crime was being a first lady who did stuff. She's a villain in this alternate universe framework. It's really a shared story, it is not particularly fact based; rather facts are bent to fit the narrative.

I'm honestly surprised this doesn't get more air time when people talk about why Clinton was so unpopular - having Rush Limbaugh call you the devil for 30 years takes its toll, you know?

 

[StevenC]

I rate that pun 16 out of 5.

It's more like 22 out 7

 

[Xaios]

It's more like 22 out 7

I rate this conversation a perfect 5/7.

 

[SpaceDock]

Independent lady who has been saying America isn't #1 at everything consistently since she came to prominence. When she became First Lady she went around the world to figure out how other countries were doing things better than the USA. Came to prominence at the same time as large portions of the world stopped seeing America as an aspiration place and started realising how much better their own countries were.

That was not to just see how other countries were doing better at anything, it was about health care. The USA was starting to really lose our ground on excellent health care at that time in the mid 90’s and took 20 years afterwards to get Obamacare. I honestly wish we would have listened to her way back then and we might not be stuck with the horrible bankruptcy machine we call health care in the USA.

 

[bostjan]

That was not to just see how other countries were doing better at anything, it was about health care. The USA was starting to really lose our ground on excellent health care at that time in the mid 90’s and took 20 years afterwards to get Obamacare. I honestly wish we would have listened to her way back then and we might not be stuck with the horrible bankruptcy machine we call health care in the USA.

Good thing the people on the right are so staunchly opposed to backing anyone with less-than-stellar moral authority just because they like their ideas. Otherwise, imagine who they might back as a presidential candidate!

 

[devastone]

More like, you went and grabbed that fire extinguisher because your wife started yelling about a fire, but by the time you got there she'd put out the toast in the toaster. And then telling the story 8 years later.

I haven't had one of those in many years, a wife I mean, my toaster works fine.

 

[Drew]

I haven't had one of those in many years, a wife I mean, my toaster works fine.

She didn't take the toaster??

Well, there goes everything I thought I knew about marriage!