# Clinton Hatred Origins?



## Shoeless_jose (Jan 20, 2021)

Sorry if this doesn't need its own thread or if it opens up past wounds since we are finally past Trump BUT hoping for some clarity.

Many attributed Trump's 2016 victory to a deep seeded hatred of Hilary Clinton.

While I personally have always found her to be an absolute black hole of charisma I am curious where all the animosity comes from.

I'm in Canada so may have missed some of the origins of it, but even one American friend I know any time the Clinton's were mentioned he would call Hilary the devil talk about how there are so many bodies buried to cover up what they and their foundation have done ect. And this is a guy I get along great with and is overall "normal"

Is it all just fringe things that got amplified or is there some real issue that caused the hate to grow.


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## MaxOfMetal (Jan 20, 2021)

For a subset of the American people there is nothing more reviled than a strong woman with opinions.

That was weaponized politically, mostly in bad faith.


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## SpaceDock (Jan 20, 2021)

I think it is no different from AOC or even the Swalwell attackers that never end in right wing media. They figure these people might end up higher on the ballot at some point so they need to start beating the war drum as early as possible to build up negative name recognition in the general public.


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## cwhitey2 (Jan 20, 2021)

SpaceDock said:


> I think it is no different from AOC or even the Swalwell attackers that never end in right wing media. They figure these people might end up higher on the ballot at some point so they need to start beating the war drum as early as possible to build up negative name recognition in the general public.


I agree with this.

Shes no more or less evil than any other politician.


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## fantom (Jan 20, 2021)

I always had the impression it was because she didn't stand up to Bill and get divorced after their marital problems went public. So there was a perception that people could walk all over her. Then again, no one seems to hold that against Melania.


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## Shoeless_jose (Jan 20, 2021)

fantom said:


> I always had the impression it was because she didn't stand up to Bill and get divorced after their marital problems went public. So there was a perception that people could walk all over her. Then again, no one seems to hold that against Melania.



See I get people disrespecting her due to her decision but yeah just seems like such a passionate strong dislike to be attributed to that but who knows


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## bostjan (Jan 20, 2021)

Older people remember her as the epicenter of the cattle futures insider trading scandall and the Whitewater scandal, moreso than her husband Bill.

Then, after Bill Clinton was elected president, he became probably the most scandalous president since Nixon, getting investigated and eventually impeached. A lot of people, even then, mocked the entire ordeal, but it was also clear that the Clintons had some issues with their moral fiber, which was more important to republicans of the 1990's than today. Even though HRC wasn't associated with Bill's presidential gaffes, her reputation sure didn't get better over that time period.

She went on to support some goofy ideas as a Senator, like the Iraq War and the Patriot Act, and then the media wasn't kind to her when she ran against Obama.

So, given the choice between HRC and pretty much anyone else, well, I'd say most Americans would at the very least be very interested in who "anyone else" happened to be.

I, personally, can't stand her. I have no problems voting for women or democrats, since I'm independent and don't think sex, gender, or race matter at all for our leaders, but I just have seen how quickly she had historically been able to throw anyone and everyone under the proverbial bus for her transgressions, and seemingly feel no remorse.

But, well, then 2016... and the choice between her and Trump... well, we were doomed either way, IMO. Easy to look at how much of an atomic dumpster fire Trump was as president and assume she'd have at least been less toxic, but no way to know that for sure, although I do see many indications she would have been at least somewhat attached to reality and kept her corruption at least somewhat in check.


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## MaxOfMetal (Jan 20, 2021)

bostjan said:


> ...but no way to know that for sure...



I don't know why folks cling so tightly to the alternate reality where HRC puts kids in cages, kicks trans folks out of the military, and campaigns on white grievance. 

Folks gambled on the GOP "doing the right thing", and lost. That's it. 

Listen, I'm not some raging HRC fan, I was pretty vocal about my problems with her in the Primary and very reluctantly supported her in the general, but come on. In no timeline, real or imaginary, is she objectively worse or even as bad as we've seen from the GOP the last decade and change. 

I'm not attacking you directly, Bostjan. I think we share many of the same opinions on her, only really disagreeing here.


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## bostjan (Jan 20, 2021)

MaxOfMetal said:


> I don't know why folks cling so tightly to the alternate reality where HRC puts kids in cages, kicks trans folks out of the military, and campaigns on white grievance.
> 
> Folks gambled on the GOP "doing the right thing", and lost. That's it.
> 
> ...



Oh, I agree with everything you said. My biggest worry about HRC was her foreign policy, but nothing about her appeared to be _as bad_ as Trump - less corrupt, less likely to start WW3, less likely to screw up healthcare or the economy; however, all of those things still seemed more likely with her than I was comfortable. My only point was that there's no way to go back and see how she would do - I expected Trump to be bad, and he was worse than I expected. HRC could have been a surprise either way - for better or for worse (compared to expectations). The odds of her ending up worse than Trump was, in retrospect, is probably on the order of 0.1% odds.

I will never defend Trump's presidency. I honestly think it was the worst in history. If you look at the presidents rated worst prior to Trump, and the reasons why historians rate them poorly, the same logic applies to Trump in every single case.

I would *not* have expected HRC to have been worse than Herbert Hoover or James Buchannan, but my expectations were still somewhere closer to the bottom than to the top.


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## Shoeless_jose (Jan 20, 2021)

bostjan said:


> Oh, I agree with everything you said. My biggest worry about HRC was her foreign policy, but nothing about her appeared to be _as bad_ as Trump - less corrupt, less likely to start WW3, less likely to screw up healthcare or the economy; however, all of those things still seemed more likely with her than I was comfortable. My only point was that there's no way to go back and see how she would do - I expected Trump to be bad, and he was worse than I expected. HRC could have been a surprise either way - for better or for worse (compared to expectations). The odds of her ending up worse than Trump was, in retrospect, is probably on the order of 0.1% odds.
> 
> I will never defend Trump's presidency. I honestly think it was the worst in history. If you look at the presidents rated worst prior to Trump, and the reasons why historians rate them poorly, the same logic applies to Trump in every single case.
> 
> I would *not* have expected HRC to have been worse than Herbert Hoover or James Buchannan, but my expectations were still somewhere closer to the bottom than to the top.



Well said on so many fronts. Also the whole like almost pre ordained nomination just because "it's time for a woman" was junk. Like if she had not been former first lady all her well documented negatives surely would have made the party apparatus hold her back


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## MaxOfMetal (Jan 20, 2021)

I think it's important to separate the genuine criticisms of HRC as an elected official and the absolutely batshit insane Benghazi/"Lock Her Up" crowd. 

There's no winning over anyone who thinks she's the queen of a satanic cannibal pedophile cult operating out of a pizza parlor. 

Outside the crazies, the worst you could really say is that she was a sketchy politician that over promised and under delivered, who valued her own brand and corporate interests over the people. That describes at least 75% of DC.


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## ElRay (Jan 20, 2021)

I didn't dislike HRC prior to her being a Senator. 

I did find her very sly and calculating, which unfortunately (to me) automatically makes someone (regardless of gender) unreliable, because the assumption is that they will always do what's in their best interest -- Which isn't always what's right or what was initially stated, agreed upon, etc. I joked from the beginning of the Bill Clinton Campaign in the Primaries, that getting Bill elected President was Hillary's end-run around the 22nd Amendment.

During the Senate campaign, I had a big issue with her being a carpet bagger. She had no connection to NY, it was just the politically "best" state to run in. Joining the Iraq War Bandwagon (again, because it was politically expedient), without reading the intel report, was a HUGE 2nd strike against her. Her time in the Senate, and while campaigning against Obama, was also when the cold, calculating, in-control image started to crack and nastiness started to peek through - strike three.

I think that HRC and tRump are different sides of the same coin. Admittedly, she was more like having the tips of your non-dominant-fingers cut-off vs. tRumps full-amputation-of-your-dominant-fingers, but essentially the same unreliability due to being self-serving, with constant, tightly controlled, anger simmering below the surface.

HRC vs. tRump was the epitome of "lesser of two evils".


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## nightflameauto (Jan 21, 2021)

I can say, in all honesty, there's something inherent about her that just rankles. Like, I sometimes agree with the points she's making, but by the time she's done speaking I'm starting to change my mind because she's just so obviously self-important. I felt that way about her all the way back during Bill's presidency, and it only got worse as she pulled herself further into the spotlight.

Combine that general vibe of "ick" with her over the top "it's my turn" attitude both during the Obama primaries and during her run against Trump, and her absolute lack of desire to run an effective campaign since she considered it a lock. . . well, she hasn't helped me or folks like me think much more highly of her. Had she stepped back and allowed a viable candidate to run, maybe we wouldn't have had four years of dumpster fire level shame to contend with.

I honestly skipped voting for president when it was her vs. Trump because I saw it as two bullshitters with absolute garbage agendas meant only to serve themselves. I also had the mistaken belief that the senate and house would stop or at least curtail Trump's most abusive stupidities if he were elected, even though I knew his inability to see reality was at least as bad as Hillary's ability to manipulate and cajole her way into whatever she wanted. Clearly, I forgot the golden rule of politics. Democrats attempt cooperation to prevent momentum in their direction. Republicans grab whatever direction their top brass decides on and ride that direction as hard and as fast as they possibly can.

It was the only time I've skipped voting for president since I was able to. I won't make that mistake again, even if I know my vote is a throw-away like it was this go-round. My state went solidly Trump. But at least I don't have it on my conscience. I tossed my bit of paper in the direction of the stodgy white dude that can behave like a human instead of an out of control toddler. Yay me.


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## Ralyks (Jan 21, 2021)

I think the only reason I would have voted Hilary was to give Bill the honors of being the first First Husband. Now I don't even think that would have been good.
But yeah. I didn't vote in 2016 because it was worse than Bush and Kerry as far as "lesser of two evils"


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## MaxOfMetal (Jan 21, 2021)

I don't know, I never really hated HRC viscerally, so I sort went back through her legislative history, and honestly, she wasn't that bad in the context of the time. I mean most of her biggest blunders (which, again, were shared by almost the entire Democratic caucus at the time, even more so GOP), the Iraq War vote and Patriot Act, she mostly realized she was wrong and actively worked to correct. Was she successful? Not always.

What am I missing? She just seems like a boring center right politician...like pretty much all of the Dems the last 20 years. Why don't we hate Schumer this much? He's pretty much voted 1:1 with her. Same for Joe Biden.

Even for the not whacky stuff, it seems like the hatred is far outsized. 

It more or less seems like she was seen as a rising star in a popular political dynasty and that put a major target on her back, from both parties.


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## c7spheres (Jan 21, 2021)

One reason people hate her was when she lied about being in that helicopter taking fire. I don't hate her or like her.


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## nightflameauto (Jan 21, 2021)

MaxOfMetal said:


> Even for the not whacky stuff, it seems like the hatred is far outsized.
> 
> It more or less seems like she was seen as a rising star in a popular political dynasty and that put a major target on her back, from both parties.


I think the blame for that can lie at least partially on her personality. Her husband was massively charismatic, and she was precisely the opposite. Some people just have a talent for being able to turn a room against them.


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## MaxOfMetal (Jan 21, 2021)

c7spheres said:


> One reason people hate her was when she lied about being in that helicopter taking fire. I don't hate her or like her.



Seems kind of quaint compared to "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."


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## bostjan (Jan 21, 2021)

MaxOfMetal said:


> I don't know, I never really hated HRC viscerally, so I sort went back through her legislative history, and honestly, she wasn't that bad in the context of the time. I mean most of her biggest blunders (which, again, were shared by almost the entire Democratic caucus at the time, even more so GOP), the Iraq War vote and Patriot Act, she mostly realized she was wrong and actively worked to correct. Was she successful? Not always.
> 
> What am I missing? She just seems like a boring center right politician...like pretty much all of the Dems the last 20 years. Why don't we hate Schumer this much? He's pretty much voted 1:1 with her. Same for Joe Biden.
> 
> ...



I might be totally wrong, but, I strongly suspect that, if Schumer ran for president, there would be a great amount of bellyaching about it from the left, though.

And that's not even accounting for the fact that Schumer's controversies have been more about public speaking gaffes and his spouse's crusade against bike lanes, as opposed to Clinton's more fraudulent endeavors and her spouse's impeachment and tons of other much more serious shenanigans.


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## mastapimp (Jan 21, 2021)

I still voted for her in 2016, but some of the pandering was difficult to stomach. When you appear on an urban syndicated morning show with a predominantly young black audience and the first thing you mention about what's in your purse is hot sauce, it comes across as disingenuous and reaching. Appearing on "Broad City" was another instance of this kind of pandering. She's trying a little too hard to appeal to certain demographics. 

On the flip side, I was equally disappointed when Ted Cruz made his "machine gun bacon" video. It's fun and cool when you have some idiots from Epic Meal Time cooking their foods in zany fashion, but a senator going to a gun range with bacon wrapped around the muzzle of a machine gun is not the first thing I think of when I hear someone's an advocate of "gun rights."


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## Xaios (Jan 21, 2021)

I never hated her, although "Pokemon Go-to-the-polls" proved that she was that awful combination of pandering while still being incredibly out of touch. Granted, I never thought she was nearly as out-to-lunch as Trump. Otherwise, she's a career politician. In 2016, that was a bad thing for her. Here in 2021 after 4 years of Trump, I can think of much worse things.


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## groverj3 (Jan 22, 2021)

Radical right wing media hates women, women in positions of power, and Democrats.

That's simplistic, and there's baggage there with her husband's record as being scandal-prone, but I honestly don't think that's the reason there's so much hatred for Hillary. It's mostly sexism and political polarization.


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## philkilla (Jan 22, 2021)

She is the most famous serial killer in American history after all..


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## Shoeless_jose (Jan 22, 2021)

I more meant even the left hated her I never try to understand right wing motivations just so much loathing and disinterest even from within her own party but yeah she does suffer from crippling lack of Charisma likely wouldn't have even got elected to congress without Bill.


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## groverj3 (Jan 22, 2021)

Dineley said:


> I more meant even the left hated her I never try to understand right wing motivations just so much loathing and disinterest even from within her own party but yeah she does suffer from crippling lack of Charisma likely wouldn't have even got elected to congress without Bill.


The left doesn't like her because she's the definition of a centrist, and panders to left wing causes when convenient.

But that's most Democrats.

I think the root is still sexism.


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## philkilla (Jan 22, 2021)

groverj3 said:


> Radical right wing media hates women, women in positions of power, and Democrats.
> 
> That's simplistic, and there's baggage there with her husband's record as being scandal-prone, but I honestly don't think that's the reason there's so much hatred for Hillary. It's mostly sexism and political polarization.



The exact same is true for left wing media as well...


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## MaxOfMetal (Jan 22, 2021)

philkilla said:


> The exact same is true for left wing media as well...



You're not wrong. 

The overwhelming majority of news media is aimed at appealing to straight, white, Judeo-Christian men. Anyone who deviates, regardless of politics, is typically cast in a poorer light vs. the archetype. 

There's still just not a lot of diversity in leadership roles in newsrooms, and that definitely applies to the more centrist and left leaning ones too.


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## Drew (Jan 25, 2021)

c7spheres said:


> One reason people hate her was when she lied about being in that helicopter taking fire. I don't hate her or like her.


Eh, this kind of stuff is a symptom of hatred for Clinton, more than it is a cause. 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, and the passengers were originally told a brief welcoming ceremony on the runway was cancelled due to a bomb threat, before it went back on after the area was deemed clear. The "Aftermath" section of this provides a lot of interesting context that emerged in the aftermath of the NY Times' original fact check report. 

I say symptom of hatred more than cause, because a lot of this stuff got legs precicely because a whole bunch of people in this country were looking for reasons to hate Clinton, so a lot of the alleged "causes" of this hatred were found after the fact. I think the causes are pretty simple, though. 

Bill Clinton was the first popular, successful Democratic president in, honestly, generations. Probably since JFK. He ran an underdog campaign, was (then) young, charismatic, and (in the eyes of the GOP) even worse, presided over a period of American economic peace and prosperity that we hadn't seen since. He even played the damned sax well enough to be credible, and he re-energized the Democtatic party and was the first Democratic candidate to win a second term in the White House since LBJ finished JFK's term and then won a second - since the Great Recession/WWII if you exclude presidents who stepped in after the death of their predecessor. Clinton's legacy is a little more tarnished today than it was ten years ago, particularly his criminal justice reforms (which, in context, the DNC was getting blown out in national elections for being painted as "soft on crime," which doesn't make it right but probably makes it unavoidable), welfare reform, and of course the sex scandals, but he was also unquestionably a _successful_ Democatic candidate and democratic president and was in no small part responsible for the Democratic party not becoming completely marginalized at the federal level. After serving out his second term, his nonprofit, the Clinton Foundation, was actually a fairly successful force in global philanthropy and has done a fair amount of high profile, important work. Of _course _the right hated him. The Whitewater scandal probably didn't help matters, and was before my time so I can't speak to details, but I think it's important that even the GOP couldn't find enough evidence to make it stick (doesn't mean they were innocent, just that there wasn't enough evidence to prove anything), and Bill eventually got impeached for lying about a blowjob, not for anything directly related to the real estate deal in question. 

Clinton had the bad fortune to not only be a Clinton, but also a woman, with an opposition party that _really _hates women who have the gall to be both seen and heard. Even then, people only seem to hate her when she's running for office - she was quite popular, both with her constituents, and her colleagues, in the Senate, and had high net favorability when serving as the secretary of State under Obama that held up and only tanked when she began to show signs of having ambition in 2016. 

It's pretty simple, I think. People hate Hillary because she's a Clinton, a name the GOP has been busy whole-heartedly hating since the early 1990s, and because large swathes of this country, particularly those that vote Republican, hate women with ambition. Pretty much all the "evidence" that people point to for why they hate her is stuff that's been identified well after the fact, and some of the examples - the helicoptor story above, which is both kind of silly but also is pretty plausibly an honest mistake, or Benghazi which after countless hearings even the GOP had to quietly admit, in a report released late on a Friday so it would be buried in the news cycle, that Clinton had done everything right. Even her famous email server, Clinton points out quite rightly that this was done before her tenure in the State department, was done with their knowledge, was still done after (no one on the right seems to give a shit about Jarrod and Ivanka's use of a private email server), nothing was hacked or lost, and the only "classified" emails that made it to the server were not classified at the time they were sent and only retroactively classified, and the whole thing was a trumped up Clinton-hunt that ironically is probably the only reason she didn't win in 2016, thanks to Comey's 11th hour letter. 

FWIW, in Clinton's "What Happened," she spends a lot of time on the fact that her sex was used against her in the election, with (I think) a fair amount of justification, but she doesn't really acknowledge how much her being a Clinton hurt her, after the right spent 30 years trying to demonize her husband for having the nerve to be a well-liked two-term Democratic president at a time where even the Republican voters had to say stuff like "well, I don't like him... but get a look at this economy!"


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## Drew (Jan 25, 2021)

mastapimp said:


> I still voted for her in 2016, but some of the pandering was difficult to stomach. When you appear on an urban syndicated morning show with a predominantly young black audience and the first thing you mention about what's in your purse is hot sauce, it comes across as disingenuous and reaching.


I don't want to come across as a Clinton apologist, and this doesn't _preclude_ the fact that the whole thing was calculated pandering... but one of the things that I found the most unexpectedly humanizing about her take of life on the campaign trail in 2016 in "What Happened" (which I did not expect to like, but wanted to at least get a better sense of _her_ side of the story to see how it jives with my own, and again as noted above I disagree in places) was an anecdote about how one of her staffers came back with a bottle of Marie Sharpe's hot sauce from a vacation in Belize, and she and her staff loved it so much that they all basically fought over access to that bottle until someone realized you could order as much as you wanted on the internet. As a guy who, longer ago than I'd care to admit, spent a spring break on one of the Cayes off the coast of Belize and also came home with a bottle of that stuff because it was awesome, I could completely relate (and wasted no time placing my own order). I'd also say that it's not THAT surprising that someone from a state bordering Lousiana and Mississippi had a thing for good hot sauce.


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## bostjan (Jan 25, 2021)

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've already given my reasons why I didn't particularly like her, but also take into account how her campain was run. Trump played her. She ended up in this crazy place where she was flipping back and forth between telling it like it was ("deplorables") and trying to be political. Some of her followers were acting as insane as Trump's followers. Sander's grass-roots campain was up against a stacked deck with the way the DNC is set up, which also soured some people, whether they were Bernie Bros. or not. It all added up for a lot of people, and they'd rather not vote or vote 3rd party than pull the lever for Clinton or Trump.

It's likely a lot of people would be happy to see a woman president, but not just any woman.


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## jaxadam (Jan 25, 2021)

Drew said:


> was an anecdote about how one of her staffers came back with a bottle of Marie Sharpe's hot sauce from a vacation in Belize, and she and her staff loved it so much that they all basically fought over access to that bottle until someone realized you could order as much as you wanted on the internet. As a guy who, longer ago than I'd care to admit, spent a spring break on one of the Cayes off the coast of Belize and also came home with a bottle of that stuff because it was awesome, I could completely relate (and wasted no time placing my own order). I'd also say that it's not THAT surprising that someone from a state bordering Lousiana and Mississippi had a thing for good hot sauce.



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

https://www.mariesharps.bz/


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## jaxadam (Jan 25, 2021)

bostjan said:


> 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.



This. Everyone keeps forgetting that the Republicans were the first to put a female on the ticket.



bostjan said:


> It's likely a lot of people would be happy to see a woman president, but not just any woman.



I would have totally gone for Tulsi.


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## mastapimp (Jan 25, 2021)

Drew said:


> I don't want to come across as a Clinton apologist, and this doesn't _preclude_ the fact that the whole thing was calculated pandering... but one of the things that I found the most unexpectedly humanizing about her take of life on the campaign trail in 2016 in "What Happened" (which I did not expect to like, but wanted to at least get a better sense of _her_ side of the story to see how it jives with my own, and again as noted above I disagree in places) was an anecdote about how one of her staffers came back with a bottle of Marie Sharpe's hot sauce from a vacation in Belize, and she and her staff loved it so much that they all basically fought over access to that bottle until someone realized you could order as much as you wanted on the internet. As a guy who, longer ago than I'd care to admit, spent a spring break on one of the Cayes off the coast of Belize and also came home with a bottle of that stuff because it was awesome, I could completely relate (and wasted no time placing my own order). I'd also say that it's not THAT surprising that someone from a state bordering Lousiana and Mississippi had a thing for good hot sauce.


Yes, I ended up liking her a lot more after her sit down on Howard Stern a while back. Definitely humanized her to hear her explain things in a long form interview.


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## bostjan (Jan 25, 2021)

jaxadam said:


> This. Everyone keeps forgetting that the Republicans were the first to put a female on the ticket.


Well, first would have been Geraldine Ferraro in 1984, I think, but I think the point still makes sense either way.


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## mastapimp (Jan 25, 2021)

bostjan said:


> Well, first would have been Geraldine Ferraro in 1984, I think, but I think the point still makes sense either way.


Wasn't Geraldine on the Democratic ticket?


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## MaxOfMetal (Jan 25, 2021)

I thought he was just dunking on Dan Quayle.


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## bostjan (Jan 25, 2021)

MaxOfMetal said:


> I thought he was just dunking on Dan Quayle.


Potatoe.

Ferraro ran with Walter Mondale on the Democratic ticket. IIRC, she was the first female VP candidate on a major party ticket.But my point was that the GOP had a female candidate on their ticket before Hillary Clinton was on the Democratic ticket, not that the Republicans had the first female candidate.


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## nightflameauto (Jan 25, 2021)

jaxadam said:


> I would have totally gone for Tulsi.


Yup. Gabbard, Warren, even Klobachar, while not my favorite people, I would have happily tossed a vote at them. Harris has some policies that make me wretch, but she's still an acceptable candidate in comparison to what the Republicans were offering.

As a person that isn't at all on the Hillary Clinton train, the constant refrain that all of "us" must be misogynists gets a little tiring. But it is what it is. We either love all women all the time, or we're misogynists.


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## BenjaminW (Jan 25, 2021)

MaxOfMetal said:


> I thought he was just dunking on Dan Quayle.


_*insert anything about Dan Quayle and JFK here*_


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## StevenC (Jan 26, 2021)

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.


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## narad (Jan 26, 2021)

She called the deplorables deplorables.


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## bostjan (Jan 26, 2021)

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.


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## Xaios (Jan 27, 2021)

bostjan said:


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


*WHAT THE FUCK!?





*


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## narad (Jan 27, 2021)

I thought it was a completely rational proposal?


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## thraxil (Jan 27, 2021)

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."


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## mmr007 (Jan 27, 2021)

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.


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## Strobe (Jan 27, 2021)

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.


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## devastone (Jan 27, 2021)

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:


Drew said:


> 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.


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## bostjan (Jan 27, 2021)

narad said:


> I thought it was a completely rational proposal?


I rate that pun 16 out of 5.


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## BigViolin (Jan 27, 2021)

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


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## Drew (Jan 27, 2021)

jaxadam said:


> 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.


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## Drew (Jan 27, 2021)

bostjan said:


> 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.


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## Drew (Jan 27, 2021)

devastone said:


> 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.


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## Drew (Jan 27, 2021)

Strobe said:


> 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?


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## StevenC (Jan 27, 2021)

bostjan said:


> I rate that pun 16 out of 5.


It's more like 22 out 7


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## Xaios (Jan 27, 2021)

StevenC said:


> It's more like 22 out 7


I rate this conversation a perfect 5/7.


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## SpaceDock (Jan 27, 2021)

StevenC said:


> 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.


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## bostjan (Jan 29, 2021)

SpaceDock said:


> 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!


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## devastone (Feb 1, 2021)

Drew said:


> 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.


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## Drew (Feb 1, 2021)

devastone said:


> 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!


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## devastone (Feb 1, 2021)

Drew said:


> She didn't take the toaster??
> 
> Well, there goes everything I thought I knew about marriage!



Actually, I think I had to buy a new toaster after, that one stayed with the house!


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