# The case for Hillary Clinton 2020
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-for-hillary-clinton-2020/802607
**Category:** Politics & Elections
**Created:** [November 24, 2017, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-for-hillary-clinton-2020/802607 "2017-11-24T17:43:07Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2017, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-for-hillary-clinton-2020/802607/41 "2017-11-25T03:02:07Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#):
>
> That’s a hard case to make, even for her most zealous supporters. Hillary Clinton is guilty of the most unpardonable sin of all. By her inept campaigning she cost the Democrats a Presidency that was theirs for the taking. She lost to Donald fucking Trump! And she may well be the only Democrat in the entire country that is capable of losing to him again. I think people could be forgiven for being extremely reluctant to give her the 2020 candidacy. She had her chance and she blew it. Time to move on.
I think too much is made of how Hillary lost the election to Trump. The fact is it’s an election and not a game. She didn’t lose a contest; people helped her lose. Ordinary people decided that Donald Trump was more qualified to lead the country than Hillary Clinton. They also decided he was more qualified than 16 other Republicans. 2016 was the year that voters took their frustration out on the politics of normal. A year later, they’re still angry. They’re angry at Trump. Angry at Congress. Voting against anyone who’s an incumbent. I understand the anger and frustration, but the fact is the people we’re voting for are less and less qualified. In short, voters are the problem.
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### Author:  [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2017, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-for-hillary-clinton-2020/802607/42 "2017-11-25T03:52:29Z")
> [@asahi](#):
>
> I think too much is made of how Hillary lost the election to Trump. The fact is it’s an election and not a game. She didn’t lose a contest; people helped her lose. Ordinary people decided that Donald Trump was more qualified to lead the country than Hillary Clinton. They also decided he was more qualified than 16 other Republicans. 2016 was the year that voters took their frustration out on the politics of normal. A year later, they’re still angry. They’re angry at Trump. Angry at Congress. Voting against anyone who’s an incumbent. I understand the anger and frustration, but the fact is the people we’re voting for are less and less qualified. In short, voters are the problem.
It does seem to be sort of an odd feedback loop. As I’ve said before, people were dissatisfied with who they voted for when they were mad, so they voted for someone when they furious and expect him to be better.
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### Author:  [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2017, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-for-hillary-clinton-2020/802607/43 "2017-11-25T04:53:28Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#):
>
> After 2016, I don’t know if a candidate’s negatives are that important.
They destroyed Hillary, the lies, half-lies, propaganda and innuendo. Many Dems stayed home or voted third party due to the lies.
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### Author:  [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2017, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-for-hillary-clinton-2020/802607/44 "2017-11-25T04:54:14Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#):
>
> [Clinton] is one of the most blatantly crooked and lying politicians ever…second perhaps only to her husband (yeah, yeah, Trump. :rolleyes: What about the last thirty years?).
This is the kind of thing trump supporters say where I actually wonder if we’re in some “invasion of the body snatchers” scenario.
You **really** think either of the Clintons (or heck, both put together) has made more demonstrably outright false statements in public than Trump?
Or is it that you’re counting Lewinsky as worth 20,000 regular lies, or something?
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### Author:  [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2017, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-for-hillary-clinton-2020/802607/45 "2017-11-25T05:08:17Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#):
>
> She has shown time and time again that she has terrible judgement and lousy instincts, is mistake and gaffe prone, is an unknown quantity by being quick to jump on whatever bandwagon she thinks is politically expedient at the moment, and is one of the most blatantly crooked and lying politicians ever…
You’re traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination.
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### Author:  [@pool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pool)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2017, 6:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-for-hillary-clinton-2020/802607/46 "2017-11-25T06:33:12Z")
Honestly I think any Dem candidate would have lost the 2016 election to Trump. It was a backlash against Obama more than anything, it was the political climate, the planets aligned and it was just Trump in the right time and place, saying what his voters wanted the hear. The lone exception I think may have been Biden if he had run, but I think it was a long-shot for anyone given Trump won the electoral college. Anyway Clinton’s time has come and gone and politically she is a non-entity now.
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### Author:  [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2017, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-for-hillary-clinton-2020/802607/47 "2017-11-25T06:57:30Z")
> [@Clothahump](#):
>
> There’s a reason she’s not President now - she would be a total fucking disaster. But if you guys want to trot her out in 2020 and guarantee Trump’s re-election, by all means, please do so.
She couldn’t possibly be a bigger fucking disaster than the dumbass in there now.
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### Author:  [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2017, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-for-hillary-clinton-2020/802607/48 "2017-11-25T08:11:15Z")
> [@Ludovic](#):
>
> I’m sick of how much influence foreigners had over this election ☹
Foreigners voted in the election? At the end of the day it’s the American people who did this, not foreigners. You can’t shuck this off by saying, well, they told me to.
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### Author:  [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2017, 10:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-for-hillary-clinton-2020/802607/49 "2017-11-25T10:02:43Z")
> [@pool](#):
>
> Honestly I think any Dem candidate would have lost the 2016 election to Trump. It was a backlash against Obama more than anything, it was the political climate, the planets aligned and it was just Trump in the right time and place, saying what his voters wanted the hear. The lone exception I think may have been Biden if he had run, but I think it was a long-shot for anyone given Trump won the electoral college. Anyway Clinton’s time has come and gone and politically she is a non-entity now.
I don’t know how anyone could say that. Trump’s campaign was embarrassing, second only to the actual presidency. And someone with even 1% charisma would have sunk him in the presidential debates. I still hope to see a day where trump and obama have a debate, on any topic. He would have got served by Sanders too.
And backlash against obama? As I recall, he had some of the highest approval ratings of any president at that late point in a presidency. Yeah there were racist nuts calling him the antichrist but not enough to imply there was some popular backlash.
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### Author:  [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2017, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-for-hillary-clinton-2020/802607/50 "2017-11-25T12:43:01Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#):
>
> Foreigners voted in the election? At the end of the day it’s the American people who did this, not foreigners. You can’t shuck this off by saying, well, they told me to.
You done been whooshed. Read the post he was quotng.
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### Author:  [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2017, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-for-hillary-clinton-2020/802607/51 "2017-11-25T12:58:37Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#):
>
> thirty years of propaganda have made her a very polarizing figure.
You say that either as if it’s \*her \*fault, or that it is acceptable to you as a citizen of a democracy to let propagandists win. Kinda curious which one you mean.
> [@Biffster](#):
>
> Sanders would have been a better candidate than Clinton was
Said propagandists would have had to scramble to play catch-up, but there’s no reason to doubt they’d succeed.
> [@](#):
>
> and he would have made a better president too.
Well, he’d probably have been as effective as a President as he was as a Senator, we can give him that much.
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### Author:  [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2017, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-for-hillary-clinton-2020/802607/52 "2017-11-25T13:22:01Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#):
>
> You say that either as if it’s \*her \*fault, or that it is acceptable to you as a citizen of a democracy to let propagandists win. Kinda curious which one you mean.
She isn’t to blame for the propaganda against her— only for the faults, mistakes and poor choices that made their job easier.
In this case, the propagandists _did_ win. Acknowledging that fact is not an endorsement that it was deserved, nor does complaining about the unfairness of it all make Hillary Clinton any more viable as a candidate.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2017, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-for-hillary-clinton-2020/802607/53 "2017-11-25T13:29:39Z")
It is fair to point out that Sanders wasn’t subject to the constant attacks from the lie machine, like Clinton was. But I honestly believe that he would have been less vulnerable to such attacks. What could they say about him that he wasn’t already saying about himself? That he’s a socialist? Well, yeah, and he’s proud of it.
And yes, Sanders was de facto eliminated after Super Tuesday. But he still did a heck of a lot better than you’d expect from an insurgent who doesn’t even label himself as a member of the party. Prior to 2016, can you think of any such campaign that had comparable success? The closest I can think of is Perot.
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### Author:  [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2017, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-for-hillary-clinton-2020/802607/54 "2017-11-25T14:15:49Z")
> [@Mijin](#):
>
> I don’t know how anyone could say that. Trump’s campaign was embarrassing, second only to the actual presidency. And someone with even 1% charisma would have sunk him in the presidential debates. I still hope to see a day where trump and obama have a debate, on any topic. He would have got served by Sanders too.
Trump succeeded into making these “debates” into entertainment, an amusing populist spectacle. I don’t see how anyone can look at a campaign cycle that lasted for 15 months and involved 17 competitors and conclude that the result would have been different if only Bernie Sanders had won more Democratic primaries.
I think someone like Biden might have been more successful than Clinton, but what would they leave us with? A barely elected Democratic president facing a united republican, obstructionist congress, which is what voters keep giving us. Until we recognize that voter ignorance is the problem, the problem will get only worse.
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### Author:  [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2017, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-for-hillary-clinton-2020/802607/55 "2017-11-25T14:17:50Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> It is fair to point out that Sanders wasn’t subject to the constant attacks from the lie machine, like Clinton was. But I honestly believe that he would have been less vulnerable to such attacks. What could they say about him that he wasn’t already saying about himself? That he’s a socialist? Well, yeah, and he’s proud of it.
>
> And yes, Sanders was de facto eliminated after Super Tuesday. But he still did a heck of a lot better than you’d expect from an insurgent who doesn’t even label himself as a member of the party. Prior to 2016, can you think of any such campaign that had comparable success? The closest I can think of is Perot.
Sanders and Trump are both the result of voter outrage, but this is still a country that is more conservative than progressive.
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### Author:  [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2017, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-for-hillary-clinton-2020/802607/56 "2017-11-25T14:36:13Z")
> [@VinylTurnip](#):
>
> She isn’t to blame for the propaganda against her— only for the faults, mistakes and poor choices that made their job easier.
There are very few humans who would have done any better in that environment, and still have been able to be effective in office. There is still an effort to put all the blame on her instead on the defamers, yes, but that can only reflect deeper and more uncomfortable motives.
> [@](#):
>
> In this case, the propagandists _did_ win. Acknowledging that fact is not an endorsement that it was deserved, nor does complaining about the unfairness of it all make Hillary Clinton any more viable as a candidate.
Yes, they won. Is that acceptable to you? Do you want to live in an environment where elections are won by the most effective propagandists? The only way to keep them from winning, now or in the future, is \*not \*to accept it.
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> It is fair to point out that Sanders wasn’t subject to the constant attacks from the lie machine, like Clinton was.
He was never plausibly the Democratic nominee, like Clinton was. Or he certainly _would_ have been subject to it.
> [@](#):
>
> But I honestly believe that he would have been less vulnerable to such attacks. What could they say about him that he wasn’t already saying about himself? That he’s a socialist? Well, yeah, and he’s proud of it.
Just pump up something else about his character, something that makes just enough voters comfortable with going with Trump instead. His wife’s college funding story would have worked, along with dog-whistling “Jew” and “New York”. You must know how the game works.
> [@](#):
>
> Prior to 2016, can you think of any such campaign that had comparable success? The closest I can think of is Perot.
Nader. Anderson. Wallace. There’s one every few cycles. It’s part of the system. And they typically give us Republican wins.
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### Author:  [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2017, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-for-hillary-clinton-2020/802607/57 "2017-11-25T15:00:09Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#):
>
> There are very few humans who would have done any better in that environment, and still have been able to be effective in office. There is still an effort to put all the blame on her instead on the defamers, yes, but that can only reflect deeper and more uncomfortable motives.
>
> Yes, they won. Is that acceptable to you? Do you want to live in an environment where elections are won by the most effective propagandists? The only way to keep them from winning, now or in the future, is \*not \*to accept it.
In your mind, does HRC bear any responsibility at all for failing to win an election against the least qualified, most intellectually challenged and morally corrupt opponent in the past 100 years?
And if so, to what extent?
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### Author:  [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2017, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-for-hillary-clinton-2020/802607/58 "2017-11-25T15:11:36Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#):
>
> In your mind, does HRC bear any responsibility at all for failing to win an election against the least qualified, most intellectually challenged and morally corrupt opponent in the past 100 years?
>
> And if so, to what extent?
The blame for Trump belongs to Trump and the people who supported him and voted for him. When someone fucks up, the blame belongs to those who fucked up, not to those who didn’t do enough to stop the fuck-up.
And is that a SwimmingRiddles patron saint designation? That goes back a ways.
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### Author:  [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2017, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-for-hillary-clinton-2020/802607/59 "2017-11-25T15:24:10Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#):
>
> The blame for Trump belongs to Trump and the people who supported him and voted for him. When someone fucks up, the blame belongs to those who fucked up, not to those who didn’t do enough to stop the fuck-up.
Trump managed to rile up his mobs. I don’t believe he flipped significant votes from former Obama voters.
HRC failed to motivate the Dems to show up for her in key districts that voted Obama in the past.
> [@Robot\_Arm](#):
>
> And is that a SwimmingRiddles patron saint designation? That goes back a ways.
Yep. 🙂 It got switched on again with the last update and I’ve been loath to turn it off again.
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### Author:  [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2017, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-for-hillary-clinton-2020/802607/60 "2017-11-25T16:03:10Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#):
>
> Trump managed to rile up his mobs. I don’t believe he flipped significant votes from former Obama voters.
>
> HRC failed to motivate the Dems to show up for her in key districts that voted Obama in the past.
In a conflict, people like to portray their own actions as inevitable reactions to the choices made by the other side. The IS fighters who attacked the mosque in Egypt would probably say that if Sufis didn’t choose to be heretics they wouldn’t have been forced to kill them. That way, all the blame for the conflict falls on the other side.
I see the same thing in the efforts to blame Hillary for losing to Trump. Republicans want to portray themselves as some unstoppable, unquestionable machine. They weren’t acting, just reacting to economic uncertainty, or challenges to the established order, or lack of respect from the coastal elites, or whatever. That way, nothing can ever be their fault.
I won’t buy into that. People have choices in what they do, even Republicans. They chose to put Trump forward as their nominee. They voted for him. If he accomplishes anything positive they’ll take the credit. If he fucks up, they’re the ones who deserve the blame.
Now, I hope Democrats will learn what lessons they can from the last election. But the blame for Trump (if, indeed, you think blame is deserved) belongs to Trump and those who voted for him.
> [@](#):
>
> Yep. 🙂 It got switched on again with the last update and I’ve been loath to turn it off again.
I was Patron Saint of Mix Tapes, which tells you how long ago it was.
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