We are rapidly approaching the 365-day anniversary of one of the most titanic upsets in American electoral history. Donald Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton was incomprehensible to some, a shock to others, and expected by few.
That’s 365 days of angst for Democrats. And for Hillary Clinton, somewhere close to 365 excuses why she lost.
She was at it again on Sunday, telling CNN’s Fareed Zakaria that she lost because the American people are sexist.
“I was the beneficiary of these radical changes in, you know, women’s rights and opportunities that began in the ’60s and continue, and that I could have and maybe should have tried harder to tell that story,” she said. “I never thought there would be that receptive an audience.”
Clinton first spoke out about misogyny’s role in the election at a May Women for Women event, saying simply, “Yes, I do believe it played a role” when asked directly about it. Since then, she’s becoming increasingly outspoken on this point in particular, touching on it multiple times in her new book, What Happened. In the memoir, she writes that “sexism and misogyny” helped Trump, a “flagrantly sexist candidate,” clinch his presidential win.
Perhaps there is light at the end of the tunnel. Perhaps she is repeating herself because she has finally — finally — run out of excuses. We’ll see.
In the meantime, Newsweek has performed the public service of compiling a list of every single reason Hillary Clinton has given for her epic and historical defeat.
- Sexism
- Barack Obama didn’t help enough
- Bernie Sanders was a meanie
- James Comey wanted to see me lose
- Women let men tell them how to vote
- The media (?)
- Stupid voters
- Republicans suppressed the vote!
- Evil, evil Russia
- Her staff failed her
- The Democratic National Committee failed her
- All that deep, dark money (maybe she thinks she didn’t get enough of it)
- Green Party candidate Jill Stein
- The electoral college (yeah…that damn Constitution gets ya every time)
- Anthony Weiner’s emails
- Her “basket of deplorables” comment. Yes, but it went over GREAT on the left.
Of course, Clinton has to find room in there to blame herself — sort of.
Clinton hasn’t completely absolved herself of responsibility for her election loss. Though she faults Comey and the media for turning her use of a private email server into a full-blown scandal during the campaign, she admits that sending the emails from a personal device was “dumb.”
“I take absolute personal responsibility. I was the candidate. I was the person who was on the ballot,” Clinton said at the Women for Women event.
Clinton doesn’t get it. Most Democrats don’t get it. There are a lot of Republicans who don’t get it. Hillary Clinton lost because she was the most god-awful candidate of a major party in history. Unliked, unloved, untrusted, bereft of ideas — the Republicans could have run Satan against her and won.
Come to think it…maybe they did?
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