Tuesday, November 15, 2016

Reasons I find it hard to blame Hillary Clinton for her loss

It's not that I am exactly a fan of Hillary Clinton, but I couldn't really see the aged Bernie Sanders doing well in this election either; and I don't really know why the Democrats could not come up with a third, younger alternative.   But all of this post election analysis makes me feel sorry for Clinton when people start pointing the finger at her, for the following reasons:

*  as people now realise, the vote for Trump was not huge - it just happened in the right States;  

*  when it comes down to a matter of 100,000 or so votes in 3 states, then Clinton probably can plausibly site the Comey late intervention as a key factor - it clearly did influence polls close to the election; it may well have energised the turnout for the Trump vote, and suppressed the turnout for Clinton, just enough to swing it Trump's way;

*  by election eve, the near universal media opinion that, despite the FBI situation, Clinton was going to win may also have suppressed her voter turnout just enough to swing the election, too.  Why vote if she looks a certainty anyway?

*  it's not Clinton's fault she came down with mild pneumonia, sufficient to give the Right wing conspiracists video with which to run their ridiculous "she's about to die" propaganda.  The effect of Right wing media/social media information bubble is so important to where American politics are at the moment, and no one really knows how to overcome it.

*  the "deplorables" comment was not as bad as it was made out to be when the full context is read.  It was a mistake, but I find it hard to condemn her for it, given that the true argument is really only over the exact percent of deplorables in the Trump camp.


1 comment:

not trampis said...

I think we can two things,

There was a complacency about turnout. This cost them dearly.

Given the polling ( it happened in Brexit as well) people thought Clinton would win anyway so there was no need to vote.

Ironically polling for both Clinton and trump had Clinton winning easily. Reminded me of 2004 in Australia