# I Pit Hillary Clinton **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 9, 2016, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-hillary-clinton/771189 "2016-11-09T13:35:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2016, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-hillary-clinton/771189/61 "2016-11-09T17:07:47Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > Look on the bright side: our enemies will now tremble. Trump will go through 'em like you-know-what through a canebrake! In a funny kind of way, that will work to Trump’s advantage. It’s like Kim Jong-whoever it is in North Korea - don’t fuck with the crazy guy. And we already have nukes. > [@](#): > > And it’ll be interesting to see how he can improve on [Bush’s greeting of Angela Merkel](https://www.theguardian.com/news/blog/2006/jul/28/bushrubsmerke). Grab her by the - Nah, I can’t do it. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2016, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-hillary-clinton/771189/62 "2016-11-09T17:10:38Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > No, you don’t disagree. 😃 > > Because I agree with you - her campaign was well run. That’s what is so unsettling about all this - she should have won. > Maybe it is unfair. Heck, not even “maybe” - it _is_ unfair to just look at the results. But the results are that we have Donald Fucking Trump as President. > > Most of us have had the experience of being on a major project that goes down in flames, and then there is a post-mortem to figure it out. A good project manager tries to find out what happened and fix it. A bad one just wants to assign blame. > > I’m a bad manager. Because I don’t have a fricking clue what went wrong. So all I can do is point fingers and blow off steam. > > Regards, > Shodan Although you and I mostly take adversarial positions, there have been a handful of posts from you over the years that I have found truly excellent and notable, ones that cut across the idealogical divide or ignore it altogether; this post is at the top of that list (currently). ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2016, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-hillary-clinton/771189/63 "2016-11-09T17:15:48Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > So after being given the biggest F-U in modern history, does Hillary have a political future? Richard Nixon did. …I mean, you know, for awhile. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2016, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-hillary-clinton/771189/64 "2016-11-09T17:17:40Z")
> [@Memnon](#): > > Since the Republicans still hold the house and the senate, is there any way Democrats can effectively oppose Ryan’s agenda? [QUOTE=Snowboarder Bo] Nope. [/QUOTE] > [@Chefguy](#): > > The only weapon the Dems have at this point is the filibuster. Actually Democrats could wield a weapon the GOP was essentially too timorous to employ against Obama: vigorous and determined opposition (including court challenges) to executive overreach. Will the Dems knuckle under to Trumpian orders while whining piteously, or will they display some gonads? OK, I can dream. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2016, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-hillary-clinton/771189/65 "2016-11-09T17:19:06Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > Actually Democrats could wield a weapon the GOP was essentially too timorous to employ against Obama: vigorous and determined opposition (including court challenges) to executive overreach. > > Will the Dems knuckle under to Trumpian orders while whining piteously, or will they display some gonads? > > OK, I can dream. You can dream but you and I both know that not only will the Dems knuckle under, they’ll be blamed for everything that doesn’t work and/or doesn’t happen during the next 4 years. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2016, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-hillary-clinton/771189/66 "2016-11-09T17:34:05Z")
In other news, both assisted suicide and recreational marijuana passed state referenda. One way or the other, we have tools to deal with our situation. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![D\_Odds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/d_odds/32/2882_2.png) [@D\_Odds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Odds)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2016, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-hillary-clinton/771189/67 "2016-11-09T17:51:39Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > I doubt I normally agree with the OP on many political issues–but I agree wholeheartedly with this thread. > [@madmonk28](#): > > If you told me that I’d be agreeing with Shodan on a political thread the day after a presidential election, I would called you crazy, but here I am. > > During the primaries, we were told we had to get behind Hillary because she was electable. Can we finally be done with the Clintons (and throw the Bushes on that ash heap of history while were at it)? If we’re going to lose elections, can we at least run Democrats next time? > [@VinylTurnip](#): > > Room for one more fellow in this strange bed? > > To think, all the wingnut pundits who wailed and screeched for years that the Clintons would destroy America may be proven right. > [@bump](#): > > Clearly not; I think the biggest thing the Democrats did was underestimate the amount of baggage among Republicans/conservatives that Hillary inherited from Bill. > > Not understanding that was a huge millstone around her neck from the beginning, even though she was palatable to the Democrat establishment. Another one. I think we’re going to need a really big bed here. America disgusts me right now. I am not proud to be an American (and when the Philippines elected Duterte, they took away my fleeing option). ---
**Author:** ![D\_Odds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/d_odds/32/2882_2.png) [@D\_Odds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Odds)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2016, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-hillary-clinton/771189/68 "2016-11-09T17:57:56Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > I find it interesting that this idea is being put forward so quickly. It’s like everybody knows he’s going to be a shitshow and are trying to apportion the blame already. Everyone is just borrowing from a “winner’s” playbook. After all, it is what the winner did since securing the nomination. And I’m still seeing some who think the loser’s were rigging the election but they just weren’t good enough at it. [QUOTE=DT] I Love the Poorly Educated! [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2016, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-hillary-clinton/771189/69 "2016-11-09T17:59:02Z")
> [@bump](#): > > You’re missing the point; the baggage that Clinton brought to the party wasn’t a big deal… _to Democrats._ It was most certainly a huge deal to a lot of other people who didn’t like Bill, and see her as a continuation of what they perceive as their corrupt behavior. > > Trump certainly brought his own baggage- nobody’s disputing that. But what he brought was baggage that was out in the open- verbal diarrhea, a certain 1960s style caveman mentality, and a refusal to really give a shit what the polls or media said. To a lot of people, that implies an inherent unsuitability for the presidency, but to others, it’s stuff that can be overlooked; a lot of people DO have that 1960s style caveman mentality, especially 50-something and older voters. > > What it boiled down to as far as I can tell, is which candidate’s baggage was more easily overlooked by voters. This wasn’t an election of issues, or even of parties. It was an election of the candidates themselves, and I’m not sure Clinton realized that, as she ran a campaign of a more conventional sort, where the candidate is sort of like the pointy tip of their party’s legislative spear, while Clinton ran his in a totally self-centered, non-party focused way. > > So everyone looked at the people, and not at the parties, policy proposals, etc… I’m not sure what your point was with all of this. Yeah, partisans tend to downplay or overlook the faults of their own people and focus on and play up those of the other guy. OK. Now what? Bottom line is that Trump’s faults were a lot harder to overlook and downplay than Clinton’s were, and no rational person would have predicted going in to the campaign that if you stacked up a candidate with Trump’s baggage against a candidate with Clinton’s that it would be an advantage for the Trump guy. I agree with you that Trump had an edge in being a non-party guy (and speculated along those lines in an [earlier thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=792759)). ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2016, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-hillary-clinton/771189/70 "2016-11-09T18:01:32Z")
It came down to people who don’t live in the cities giving a big middle finger to the urban folk - the highly educated, middle- and upper-class, media- and wall-street controlling city dwellers. Trump’s celebrity and bombast riled them up, and every time a celebrity or city newspaper or TV journalist pointed out how awful, racist, misogynistic, inexperienced and fraudulent he was, his supports become more and more determined. It was a big FU to the elites. Yes, running someone who wasn’t the most hated Democrat in American would have helped. I said two years ago that she was too hated to win. But I’m not sure any Democrat would have done better. The emails and other manufactured scandals weren’t reasons, they were justifications for doing what those people wanted to do - exercise some control and screw the system. It worked. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2016, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-hillary-clinton/771189/71 "2016-11-09T18:04:03Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > As for this being an ‘extinction level event’, I agree. We are seeing the end of the Republican party looming. Republicans control all three branches of government, the majority of states, and the most popular media channels. But sure, they’re going to collapse. Any day now. The progressive movement is dead for a generation, if not more. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2016, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-hillary-clinton/771189/72 "2016-11-09T18:04:32Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > Apparently, couldn’t have hurt either. > > And this is the problem that we are seeing. That it’s not the most qualified candidate that gets elected. It’s not the candidate with the best policies. It’s not the candidate that has worked their entire life for the betterment of others. > > It is the candidate who wins the insult contest. So Bill Maher/Michael Moore for 2020? ---
**Author:** ![bucketybuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@bucketybuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bucketybuck)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2016, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-hillary-clinton/771189/73 "2016-11-09T18:11:50Z")
So a bunch of American morons voted for a dumb racist cunt but now its all the woman’s fault? I really do hope your country gets everything it deserves. ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2016, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-hillary-clinton/771189/74 "2016-11-09T18:13:54Z")
I’m going to pit her too, but for a different reason. Why the fuck is she conceding? She is at this moment still winning the popular vote, and by about 1.3% nationwide which is not insignificant. Several key states which went Trump are within 1 percent. Fuck being an adult in the room, the Dems should be flinging lawsuit after lawsuit, denying the legitimacy of Trump’s presidency and filibustering every single bill to make sure nothing gets done in the next 2 years until the mid-terms. Playing nice with the GOP achieved absolutely nothing in 2000 and it will achieve worse than nothing now… Why the fuck are the dems rolling over and playing nice AGAIN? I’m ready to start flinging the “loser, cuck, weak” insults at them, despite being roughly as much of a leftie as Bernie is. If the US does collapse into fascism, it’s because the left won’t fight it hard enough, by any measure necessary (legally and without violence…I hope) ---
**Author:** ![Gray\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c0e974/32.png) [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2016, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-hillary-clinton/771189/75 "2016-11-09T18:40:28Z")
> [@coremelt](#): > > …Why the fuck is she conceding? She is at this moment still winning the popular vote, and by about 1.3% nationwide which is not insignificant. Several key states which went Trump are within 1 percent. Fuck being an adult in the room, the Dems should be flinging lawsuit after lawsuit, denying the legitimacy of Trump’s presidency and filibustering every single bill to make sure nothing gets done in the next 2 years until the mid-terms… I’m not sure where you’re getting your numbers. The [AP results map I’d linked to before](http://www.wmur.com/article/election-2016-interactive-us-presidental-congressional-results-map-and-balance-of-power/7146582) shows Clinton with a 205,000 vote lead in the national popular vote, which is a lead of around 1/6th of 1 percent. The only states I see where her margin of defeat is within 1 percent are MI, 47.6 to 47.33; and WI, 47.87 to 46.94. If you want to add PA, with a 48.79 to 47.65 and FL, with a 49.06 to 47.79, O.K, I guess. Has a US federal position election been overturned where the margin of victory was greater than 1 percent, yet a recount yielded a different result? As I see it, the current electoral college results (assuming that idiot WA elector does his sworn duty) is [306-232 Trump](http://www.270towin.com/maps/9AA3L). Flipping MI and WI to Clinton makes that still a 280-258 Trump win. To get PA and/or FL to flip, you’re going to need about 68,000 ¶ or 120,000 (FL) more Clinton votes/fewer Trump votes. Seems like a tall order. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2016, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-hillary-clinton/771189/76 "2016-11-09T18:51:10Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > No, you don’t disagree. 😃 > > Because I agree with you - her campaign was well run. That’s what is so unsettling about all this - she should have won. > Maybe it is unfair. Heck, not even “maybe” - it _is_ unfair to just look at the results. But the results are that we have Donald Fucking Trump as President. > > Most of us have had the experience of being on a major project that goes down in flames, and then there is a post-mortem to figure it out. A good project manager tries to find out what happened and fix it. A bad one just wants to assign blame. > > I’m a bad manager. Because I don’t have a fricking clue what went wrong. So all I can do is point fingers and blow off steam. > > Regards, > Shodan Ramira is right. Charisma is huge. But charisma only takes you so far. Anti-globalist sentiment is predictably growing yet is inexplicably dismissed by the elite. As I’ve said in other threads, not everyone is cut out for STEM and the jobs that China now does that the US does aren’t going to be satisfactorily replaced with Wal-Mart greeter jobs. Wait til automation and AI start making a huge impact. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2016, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-hillary-clinton/771189/77 "2016-11-09T18:53:44Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > I’m not sure what your point was with all of this. Yeah, partisans tend to downplay or overlook the faults of their own people and focus on and play up those of the other guy. OK. Now what? Bottom line is that Trump’s faults were a lot harder to overlook and downplay than Clinton’s were, and no rational person would have predicted going in to the campaign that if you stacked up a candidate with Trump’s baggage against a candidate with Clinton’s that it would be an advantage for the Trump guy. > > I agree with you that Trump had an edge in being a non-party guy (and speculated along those lines in an [earlier thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=792759)). No… I realize that each side will downplay their candidate’s faults, and play up the competition’s. What I’m saying is that for a huge chunk of the population, they felt like the Clintons’ reputation for being above the law, perceived dishonesty and shady character was a far worse thing than Trump’s faults, and harder to overlook. Everyone on here keeps saying that Trump’s baggage was worse than Clinton’s, but it wasn’t perceived that way by the general public. Trump did one thing that was interesting- he made the election about the candidates’s character and not about the parties’ platforms, which is something of a departure from the usual presidential election where the candidates are usually leading the party charge w.r.t. the policies they propose. It came down to what people found more odious- arrogant dishonesty (how Clinton is perceived) or being obnoxious, narcissistic and mercurial (how Trump is perceived), and people found Trump to be at worst, more acceptable than Clinton in this regard. ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2016, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-hillary-clinton/771189/78 "2016-11-09T19:02:38Z")
I would consider pitting Hillary Clinton for losing to Donald Trump, but not before I pitted those who made it happen. I’m looking at you, god damn hypocritical Bible thumping “Christian” conservatives. Looks like you got your Christian Jesus guy now, huh? Hypocrite bastards. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2016, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-hillary-clinton/771189/79 "2016-11-09T19:04:51Z")
> [@marshmallow](#): > > Republicans control all three branches of government, the majority of states, and the most popular media channels. But sure, they’re going to collapse. Any day now. > > The progressive movement is dead for a generation, if not more. It hasn’t been the party of Lincoln for the last 75 years, and is no longer the party of Reagan. Whatever values those two had were left behind when the Tea Party got a toehold, and as of now, decency and integrity are officially dead in the GOP. Their following has become a rabble consisting of hate and ignorance, and while thinking Republicans haven’t quite reached the tipping point yet, it’s coming. It wasn’t just the Dems who thought Clinton had it in a walk, you know. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2016, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-hillary-clinton/771189/80 "2016-11-09T19:05:14Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > Ramira is right. Charisma is huge. But charisma only takes you so far. True enough. Hillary isn’t very charismatic. But Trump has the charisma of Grandma’s used Depends, and he won. > [@](#): > > Anti-globalist sentiment is predictably growing yet is inexplicably dismissed by the elite. As I’ve said in other threads, not everyone is cut out for STEM and the jobs that China now does that the US does aren’t going to be satisfactorily replaced with Wal-Mart greeter jobs. > > Wait til automation and AI start making a huge impact. Yes. And Trump isn’t going to fix that any more than Hillary could. I grant you, I have almost no trust in anything Trump says about the issues, but I don’t see much difference between what Trump says about trade and globalization and what Hillary did. What happens when Trump can’t fix anything? I suspect the voters who elected him will abandon him, but they aren’t going to flock to the Democrats. They’ll stay home. Trump isn’t guaranteed 90+% of the white working class votes like Obama was the black vote. Obama was re-elected because the incumbent President is usually re-elected, absent any catastrophe. Bush 41 ran up against the most canny political animal in recent memory, and he lost. The Dems better come up with a charismatic politician like Bill, and I don’t see any in the offing. Trump is going to run his Presidency the way he ran his campaign - ignoring all the media and left-wing outrage and playing to the crowd. Will it work in 2020? God alone knows - I still can’t believe it worked last night. Regards, Shodan [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-hillary-clinton/771189.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-hillary-clinton/771189.md?page=5)