Worst thing she ever did was the “deplorables” line. Ridiculous misjudgement and appalling politics.
She was campaigning to lead a nation, right?
Well, what Americans consider likable in a woman is quite a bit different than wheat they’d consider likable in a man, I’ve observed, so it’s not just a matter of generic likability.
SOmeone upthread says such venom is used on both sides towards various figures. I can’t think of another political figure I’ve heard called a cunt, or consistently called a bitch - by folk who do not generally strike me as extremists. And what male politicians are regularly called assholes or dicks - rather than incompetent, dishonest, etc.
And - I know Hillary has a political history, but she is not someone in power - any more than any other ex-candidate/office-holder/celebrity. I don’t hear - I don’t know - Condoleza(sp?) Rice, Madeline Albright, Oprah, Meryl Streep, whomever called such names. I guess in my mind, calling Trump - the winner/incumbent - vile names makes far more sense (tho not particularly useful or desireable.)
But take Little Nemo’s point from upthread; strip out the psychology, and make it more general: folks who voted for Trump get asked why they voted for Trump, and whether they regret it. And if they voted for him because, back then, they thought he was less bad than Hillary Clinton – well, then, what can they say in reply now, other than Well, Let Me Tell You What’s So Bad About Her, Okay?
And they presumably do this a lot. Like, a lot. No, more than that.
While the Clintons don’t have a lot to recommend them, you do your side no favours by repeating ignorant conspiracy theory lies with respect to sales of uranium to Russia.
She was only the second most corrupt and despicable candidate running in 2016.
Good point. I guess I shy away from that, as it fosters “they ARE that dumb” thinking.
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about what truly are America’s shared values. Not seeing as much shared support for such platitudes as equality, rule of law, economic/social opportunity …, as I am for selfishness, intolerance … Not saying all Americans of any particular stripe share such negative values, but I’m finding it hard to say that more favorable values predominate.
I don’t understand “liking” or “disliking” a politician.
I understand not agreeing with their policies and positions and disliking their consequences. I even understand not enjoying their mannerisms, speaking style and aspects of their personal lives. But I just don’t get reaching a level of personal dislike for someone you (in most cases) don’t know personally.
To me, GWB was boorish and by all accounts personally incurious. But that’s not why I didn’t vote for him. I voted for his opponents because the policies he favored seemed ill advised. Not to say I agreed with everything his opponents put forward, but on balance I felt what they were likely to do in office would be better for us.
I have no doubt I’d find Donald Trump an asshole in person, but that’s not why I didn’t vote for him. It’s OK to be an asshole if you put forth good polices, but he didn’t. We’ve had plenty of politicians who were complete assholes who put forth some good policies - my mind turns immediately to LBJ.
Sometimes I feel like I have some form of disability, that I’m unable to process something that everyone else can see. But I’ve felt this way since my very first election - the one for first grade student representative. I remember being puzzled that everyone seemed to vote for the popular kid rather than the one who actually knew what he was talking about, and nothing has changed ever since.
The president isn’t there to have a beer with me. I don’t need to like or dislike the president. I don’t expect the president to be a role model. They could be as crazy as Gohmert, as unfeeling as Gingrich or as sleazy as Weiner. I’ll vote for the one who puts forth ideas I think are good for us. I’m an atheist, but I’ll gladly vote for a religious person if they have good ideas for governance. I personally dislike people who seek power, but will gladly put up with that in a politician if they have good ideas. Hell, I’d have voted for a Trump if his ideas weren’t foolish.
I DO understand having animus for someone who you think has harmed you through their policies. So if you’re a person who was wounded in the Iraq war I get being angry with GWB, for example. But I don’t think the great majority of hate for Hillary Clinton or any other politician is based on experiencing actual harm from their policies.
And that’s a very bad place to be. If you’re the most corrupt and despicable candidate, then you have the low-road open to you. If you’re the least, then you have the high-road open to you. When, like Clinton, you try to ride the middle, then you’re shit out of roads.
Hillary hate on the right long preceded Trump’s 2016 run, so that’s not a very satisfying explanation. The main difference today is that many on the left are joining in on the hate, if for different reasons.
We sort of trust a crook who’s out for herself. We know what to make of her.
When a crook proclaims less selfish motives, we think her capable of all kinds of awful things.
But the OP referred to something “folk of the conservative persuasion” said “lately”, specifying that it was after she didn’t win – adding that, as I understand it, such venom wasn’t something he was expecting from them at this point.
I really have no idea why Hillary-hate is still a thing, but in a weird way, I’m kind of glad it is. Some people are really addicted to rage, even in victory, and I’d rather have their Designated Boogey(wo)man be an elderly, rich private citizen who is unlikely to run for office again than someone who IS likely to be the nominee in 2020. And I’d MUCH rather it be an individual political figure than everyone who has the temerity to oppose Trump, which was the direction I very much feared things were going in during the first few months after the election.
I think the reasons add up to:
We trusted you, HRC, not to fuck this up, but you fucked this up. You embarrassed us and yourself. You continue to embarrass us with your “sorry, not sorry” book bullshit. Not only that, you did some shady shit in the past, which we all agreed to overlook, but just when we think we can finally move on new shady shit comes out. Even the people who ostensibly supported you actually hate you. And you’re still doing damage control by sending out statements through your defunct campaign surrogates.
Just shut the fuck up and let us all heal and move on, goddamn you. You’re never going to be the popular girl at the party, HRC. In fact, the party has been over for hours and everybody has left. The only person left is you, the drunk needy girl at the bar annoying the staff who are just trying to close up and carry you to the cab waiting at the curb.
Bye Felicia!
Nice cinematic depiction of a sordid reality.
We don’t hate Hillary, i don’t know where you got that from. During the primary tensions got high, but tensions got high in the 2008 primary too, but all was pretty much forgiven after the convention.
Do a small minority of Bernie and Stein supporters hate her? Yes, but that is less than 5% of democrats. The vast majority of people who voted for Sanders (myself included) voted for her.
We weren’t ‘excited’ about her but she would’ve made a fine president, and it would have been nice to not have to follow politics everyday because we are worried about what the monkey with a machine gun who currently occupies the office is going to do next. Having a responsible adult like Hillary in charge would make it easier to rest easy.
You are kind of what I was referring to in my post. You may claim the reason you hate her is because she avoids personal responsibility, but Trump does that way, way, way, way worse than even the fabricated strawmen of Hillary that the right has created do.
many of the reasons the right gives for hating Hillary, the right could care less when Trump & Co. actually do those things.
[ul]
[li]Abuse his charity to steal money[/li][li]Live in a sham marriage[/li][li]Use insecure communications for government business[/li][li]Form illegal alliances with foreign nations[/li][li]Blame everyone but themselves when something goes wrong[/li][li]Be an out of touch northeastern elitist[/li][li]Have health problems that make it hard for them to handle the responsibilities of president[/li][li]Under investigation by the FBI[/li][/ul]
Etc. All the reasons you guys give for ‘why’ you hated Clinton (or Obama for that matter), Trump actually embodies and does those things, and you guys could care less.
Because of that, it is hard to parse the ‘this is the reason I give for why I hate Clinton’ from the real reason. If the reasons you guys give were valid, you’d be upset when Trump does the same thing. But you aren’t.
I don’t particularly care for Hillary because ever since I became aware of politics (back in the early 1990s) I feel as though people were trying to shove her down my throat starting with putting her in change of the health care task force a position she really wasn’t prepared for. And we disagree on some other topics.
But I never hated her and even though I think she rode her husband’s coattails to her political career she’s proved herself to be competent. I actually voted for her in the last election because I believed Trump would be far more destructive than she could ever be. Hell, my dyed in the wool anti-Hillary Evangelical Christian voted for her in the last election because he couldn’t stand Trump.
Did you have a point, here? Women are not the Borg. They have lots of differing opinions.
That a number of women voted for Trump does not negate the fact that a large number of people on the Right are either fearful of or denigrating of a woman’s ability to govern. I noted that such an attitude was a possible reason for the campaigns against Ms. Clinton.
Your remark actually supports that idea: that many women (possibly fearing a woman in power) chose Trump. And, of course, it was Ann Coulter who has noted on several occasions that women should not have the right to vote. 
I am not American. My politics are a little bit left of center on a Dutch scale (that is positively communist on the US spectrum). I have always disliked Hillary, her voice, mannerisms, demeanor just always been nails on a chalkboard.
I have nothing against women in politics. I always vote for women in elections.(every election since 1993) Hillary just annoys me.
It is completely irrational. It is also not a product of american right wing propaganda (we don’t get much of that here). She just rubs me the wrong way.
I could almost imagine voting for Trump to piss “pokemon-go-to-the-polls” off. Her smile when she delivered the line contains everything whats wrong with her.
There is no inconsistency there: it’s perfectly possible for women as well as men to support right-wing politics. In fact, it’s probably a pretty safe bet that a large percentage of the white women who voted for Trump do support right-wing politics.
Again, there’s absolutely no inconsistency between that fact and right-wing anti-Clinton sentiments. Older white female voters, like older white male voters, are more likely to be right-wing.
The only way that interpretation makes any sense at all is if you assume that feminism is somehow a constant across the entire female population, so if a particular subset of women are influenced by sexism in their views about something, that must imply a sudden collapse of the whole concept of feminism.
But that’s ridiculous, since, as has been noted, women have a wide range of views on many issues, including feminism, and it is just as possible for women as for men to hold sexist beliefs.