Said good piece opens with a lie. The CIA hasn't officially determined anything. First, the CIA doesn't do that, and second, if they did, it wouldn't be distributed via anonymous evidence-free leak.
I know I made an earlier point about education cut backs and how that leads to dumb people voting for Trump but check this out: Retired Associate Justice of the Supreme Court David Souter said on Sept. 17, 2012, in an interview with Margaret Warner on the PBS News Hour, when he talked about “pervasive civic ignorance” in America: “Because of cutbacks in civic education from the 1970s onward, and exacerbated by the No Child Left Behind law, two-thirds of Americans today don’t even know that their country has three branches of government. So they don’t know whom to hold accountable for the country’s festering problems. What I worry about is that when problems are not addressed, people will not know who is responsible. And when the problems get bad enough – another serious terrorist attack, another financial meltdown – some one person will come forward and say, ‘Give me total power, and I will solve this problem.’ “ [Note the similarity when Donald Trump said, “I alone can fix it.”] Souter continued, “That is how the Roman Republic fell….That is how democracy dies. And if something is not done to improve the level of civic knowledge, that is what you should worry about at night.”
Ceez, that is the state of journalism. These are the people saying what needs to be said. Shake, CIA has confirmed but openly believed, investigation is on-going but I would call it a lie.
So, what was decisive in 2016? I think you could make an argument for the following: 1. Obama retaining Comey at the FBI. 2. Anthony Weiner's sex life. Indeed, I think you could make an argument that Anthony Weiner alone cost Clinton the Whitehouse.
Yeah, you could make that argument too. But it sounds like the data says Clinton was still winning until that final Comey letter. So, on further reflection, I think I'd give the "decisive" title to Anthony Weiner. If the FBI isn't investigating him, there's no Comey letter just before the election. That was the very last thing, and the thing that ultimately did her in.
I think that when trying to dissect how Clinton lost, you can focus on two basic schools: circumstances or fundamentals. I prefer to engage on fundamentals. Yes, the circumstances of the Comey fiasco were awful, but the reason why it was damaging refers to a more fundamental element: voters did not trust Clinton. Why? Part of it has to do with the fact that Clinton never had a clear and concise answer when events called her into question. She would just sort of do a rhetorical pirouette or try to minimize it using technical and qualifying language. She also never got around to a positive message; she never answered a fundamental question, why am I in this race? To the degree she did, it was kind of a long-winded "more of the same, essentially on the right track" answer, which alienates the change-minded voter that may have voted Obama both times but didn't see a lot of change in their communities. She was also careless and dismissive about appearances in ethics; there might not have been much there there, but she allowed too many easily-avoidable nothingburgers to surroumd her. From the e-mails, to the Bill meeting with Lynch on the tarmac, to the Podesta leaks, etc. Regardless of whether it was fire or a Republican smoke machine, she let too much smoke out for people to question. Trump was an awful candidate of epic proportions; circumstances alone wouldn't be enough to catapult him into the WH unless he received an assist from unnecessary Clinton own goals.
Yeah, Clinton was vulnerable on all sort so of points. But was there an event that actually did her in? In most elections, no such events exist because it really is about fundamentals. This time, however, I think there might have been a decisive event. And that event involved Weiner's weiner. If the FBI isn't investigating Weiner, there's no Comey letter before the election, Clinton's numbers don't crater among certain key groups in certain key states, and she probably ekes out a narrow win. But that's not what happened. Also, I want to blame Anthony Weiner because it's fun.
If Lynch didn't leave everything to Comey, there's no Comey letter. Don't blame Weiner, he can't help himself. Blame Huma Abedin for marrying him.
It really was a misjudgment. It would have been better if they were divorced/separated. Otherwise it was a liability. It really should not have affected things, but perception is reality now a days.
When the vote is as close as it was, does it really make sense to place blame on anything? I mean, virtually anything could have put her over the top. For example, some guy in Michigan named Darrell Castle got WAY more votes than the difference between the major parties. Obviously, Johnson and Stein voters are smarter than average and should have known better; there can be no doubt that they bear significant responsibility. If just one out of every four Stein voters in Michigan flipped to Democrat, Hillary wins.
Pulling on this thread - I think you can actually blame the media. Comey was effectively a non-story, but the media blew it up into a scandal a week out.
Here's another candidate. This typo: Typos, man. https://t.co/9ef7fAFskj pic.twitter.com/WZKWKtz6yt— Teddy Schleifer (@teddyschleifer) December 13, 2016 Podesta went ahead and clicked the illegitimate link. The rest is history. But I'm still going with Weiner as the final cause.
Responsibility for what?? You understand people that voted Johnson/Stein did so mostly because Clinton/Trump were not options. To say they hold some sort of "responsibility" because the election didn't turn out the way you wanted is pretty damn obtuse. If Clinton had won, how would you view people that said the same?
There's a word for people who voted in swing states for the candidate they didn't like to ensure that the candidate that represents national humiliation and global catastrophe wasn't elected. That word is "adult." You, sir, are a baby.
I agree. There's plenty of blame to spread around, but nobody else did more more to turn nothing into something. Imagine that the media in 1973 had collectively decided that the really big story of the DNC break-in was that a few stolen letters contained exchanges that were (very mildly) embarrassing to Democrats. And then, imagine that the media further decided that the question of who sent the Watergate burglars in the first place wasn't terribly important. That's more or less what happened in 2016.