As Hillary Clinton releases her tell-all, behind-the-scenes breakdown of the 2016 election, we've been hit with a slate of — mostly men — telling her to sit down and shut up.
And to that I say: fuck you.
Hillary doesn't need to shut up about anything.
I was recently having a conversation with a dear friend, who told me that he didn't have a problem with Hillary releasing a book, that his problem was with "Democrats claiming that her strategy worked and only sexism stopped her from winning [an Electoral College majority]".
Mate, I love you, but we're gonna have to have a serious chat.
No one is saying only sexism stopped her. Sexism stopped her alongside the Comey letter, unprecedentedly one-sided media coverage, a primary challenger that barely lifted a finger to see her elected and a narrative that turned people away from her that had been hand-crafted by the Republican Party for 25 years.
"Oh but her campaign should have been able to cut through". Cut through? Which bit? Because she fucking tried, friend.
Saying the campaign should have been able to weather the Comey bullshit doesn't really fly for me. How are you supposed to recover from the death of your momentum? She had to spend 9 days answering questions about the emails AGAIN! Her campaign was unable to communicate with people because no one wanted to hear about her plan at that point (not that they ever really did), they just wanted to know whether or not she was going to be criminally indicted.
And by the time Comey announced there was nothing there, it was about 38 hours from the opening of polls. There was no chance to reclaim the narrative or revive the momentum.
Clinton's campaign was chronically crippled by its inability to break through the media wall that was more interested in whatever batshit crazy thing Trump had said or done that day, or her emails. I don't blame her for not being able to cut through that, how do you cut through that?
"Maybe that says more about her electablity. She's been public enemy Number 1 for decades". (Oh honey, sit down. I mean first of all she won the popular vote, beat Bernie Sanders in the 2016 primary, won the popular vote in the 2008 primary and twice won election as Senator for New York.)
In 2013 she was the most popular politician in America as she left office as Secretary of State. She was more popular than Obama. She was a perfectly logical candidate for 2016 when she was flying high in the polls. Its only after she announced her candidacy in 2015 that there was a change in her favorably ratings. Maybe because Bernie attacked her and damaged her reputation, or maybe because she's a power-hungry bitch. We'll never know.
Clinton has been the target of a 25 year campaign by the GOP to discredit her and build a narrative that she's corrupt and when people feed into that narrative, they didn't help the situation. Hillary has always been talking about her vision for America, what she wanted to achieve and how she wanted to make people's lives better. Like any politician she's run into scandals, but most are able pick themselves up and move on. And she tried to but there was an constant attention on her scandals months and years after they had become irrelevant.
The most searched thing about Trump during the campaign was the Wall — a policy platform. The most searched thing about Clinton? Emails
It had nothing to do with her electablity, and everything to do with the narrative around her. And despite her best efforts to contrary, she was unable to reclaim that narrative about herself. Now here we are, and she's reclaiming the narrative and people want her to shut up, which proves the point that people never really cared what she had to say in the first place. People love to hate Hillary because its easy. Because its been made easy. Because the narrative about her is so simple to buy into, and she's apparently easy to dislike.
I pointed out to my friend that Bernie Sanders fed into the narrative about Clinton — something she points out in her book. Sanders' campaign against Hillary Clinton focused lots on her credibility for office. He talked about her ties to Wall Street, which I will pay are valid questions to ask a presidential hopeful.
But this is the key point. I say Bernie talked about it. He really should have asked.
When he spoke about Hillary Clinton's ties to Wall Street (its worth noting that many other Democrats have similar ties to the finance sector but whatever, they're not women named Hillary so shut up its not important), he never allowed her to give a response. His rhetoric was accusatory and bought into the narrative around her.
He basically attacked her for being rich and successful. Being rich plays into the image of corruption that has been attached to Hillary for so long.
Bernie is in the one percent. He's rich as fuck but no one cares about that, because the GOP haven't been tearing him down for 25 years. He bought into the narrative about her.
(Its okay for Bernie to do it and not okay for Hillary. That's not sexism guys!)
Its not that hard to jump from "Wall Street relations" to "disappearing people and taking money from the Saudis through the Clinton Foundation and pay-for-play at State". And before BernieBros @ me on Twitter, I have had Sanders supporters argue with me about those very topics.
There was widespread convenient re-writing of history or simple ignorance of history. The Iraq War, for example. Hillary Clinton voted to give President Bush the authority to go to war with Iraq. And yes that war was a disaster. But its worth noting here that Joe Biden and John Kerry also voted for that, and we don't lambaste them on the daily for it.
So here we are, in the ruins of the American democracy, with an orange possessedhowling demon sitting in the Oval Office that was meant for the most intelligent and qualified candidate ever to run for the job. And somehow its all Hillary's fault.
Hillary Clinton has a problem. And that problem is you motherfuckers who say there is a "likability" or "electabilty" problem with Hillary Clinton. She's been fighting for America basically her whole adult life, and yet despite everything that is said about her, done to her, she just continued to fight.
Like it or not, Hillary made history. And she will be remembered. I hope history looks kindly on this amazing woman, who inspires me (a gay Australian 19 year old man) and the thousands of women who signed up to run for office.
And I especially hope that will be her legacy; the woman who put the biggest fucking crack in that highest, hardest glass ceiling.
This article by Jesse Cuthbert appeared on Medium on September 12, 2017.
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September 18, 2017
Addendum. The man wrote this with cursing. I wasn't about to be his censor. Great analysis. Thanks to Sanders, Russia, Comey, media and a gullible public, Hillary lost control of her narrative which was replaced by a hateful one. Remember 12% of Sanders voters didn't in the end vote for Hillary .
