Thursday, March 28, 2024

Hillary Clinton: These Are the 4 Reasons I Lost

After several long walks in the woods and months of sober self-reflection, Hillary Clinton thinks she has figured out why she lost the presidential election to Donald Trump.

Clinton sat down with Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times at the Women in the World Summit to talk about the election. She listed off four primary reasons for losing, according to NBC News:

  • Russia. “A foreign power meddled with our election,” she said, labeling it “an act of aggression.” She called for an independent, bipartisan investigation into the Kremlin’s involvement and said the probe should examine whether there was collusion with the Trump campaign.
  • Misogyny. “Certainly, misogyny played a role. That has to be admitted,” she said. Clinton added that “some people — women included — had real problems” with the idea of a woman president.
  • James Comey. Clinton cited as damaging to her campaign his unusual decision to release a letter on October 28, less than two weeks before Election Day, that said he was looking at additional emails related to the FBI probe of the former secretary of state’s use of a private server.
  • WikiLeaks. Weeks of disclosures of stolen emails from the personal account of then-Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, were particularly harmful, Clinton said, adding that it “played a much bigger role than I think many people yet understand.”

Four major reasons she lost, and not one happened to be her fault? Imagine that! Unfortunately, self-awareness has never been one of Hillary Clinton’s strong suits.

Here are four real reasons Hillary Clinton lost:

1.) Hillary Clinton was unlikable, not because she was a self-identified “powerful woman,” but because she was divisive, awkward, and lacked empathy. She seemed physically incapable of connecting with working-class voters, which cost her in critical states like Michigan and Pennsylvania.

2.) People are sick of federal government overreach on matters of education, environmental policy, and health care. Trump understood that and promised to return control over these issues to the people. Hillary Clinton promised more of the same government control and bureaucratic red tape in every instance. She was the ultimate establishment figure in an anti-establishment wave election.

3.) The Clinton campaign committed political malpractice by prioritizing the wrong states, ignoring critical swing states like Wisconsin and Michigan which Trump ultimately won, and failing to use its massive fundraising advantage to deliver an effective, persuasive message. Clinton’s ads focused entirely on attacking Trump as a racist, misogynist, etc., while offering voters nothing to vote for. While the mainstream media doubled down on Clinton’s ad buys by echoing the Clinton campaign’s portrayal of Trump as a divisive and dark figure, Clinton failed to contrast herself by offering a positive vision for the country. Ultimately, the only aspirational message in the election came from Trump, who promised over and over again to “make America great again,” a message that resonated with voters.

4.) Hillary Clinton was a radical, progressive extremist who scared independents and motivated conservatives who otherwise didn’t like Trump to go vote for him as a lesser of two evils. Voters understood that Clinton would have replaced the late Justice Antonin Scalia with a radical progressive who would affirm abortion in every instance and seek to destroy the First and Second Amendments, so they went with Trump instead — a decision that was vindicated by today’s confirmation of Justice Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court.

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore

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