I think you're misreading Yglesias a little but HRC's candidacy should have disgusted feminists because she garnered her spot via nepotism. Like either Bush son. Unearned.
I think you’re dead right about Hillary, which is why me and my friends all thought she was the wrong candidate. Kamala is exactly like her which is why Biden doesn’t dare step down.
Did sexism hurt Hillary? Probably. But also... did women who might have voted against her had she been a man with more or less the same political profile vote for her, simply because she was a woman? No women did that? Their numbers weren't significant? Hard to believe. Hard to measure too, at this late date.
But as Freddie says, what hurt Hillary most, what hurt her fatally, is that too many people of both sexes really don't like or trust her. And it wasn't a secret. Somebody needs to write one of those alternate-history novels, one where the Democratic party isn't run by morons.
It reminds me of the great joke about the dog food. Board meeting of a dog food company: the CEO says, "Gentlemen, we make the finest dog food money can buy. We use the best ingredients, we have the most innovative marketing, we have the most attractive packaging. And yet we're still losing market share. Why?" Silence... until, from down at the end of the conference table, a squeaky, junior executive voice says, "Dogs don't like it."
The Acela Corridor Punditocracy is every bit as willfully clueless about all this as Clinton herself. "We're the best and brightest, and it's our turn! It wasn't our fault! It was the voters! The Russians! TeH SeXiSm!" etc. etc. Trump didn't win because of MuH RaCiSm or Vladimir Putin or any of that nonsense, it was Hillary's negatives, and the fact that only Trump and Bernie even put issues that resonated with working class voters into their platforms in the first place.
I highly recommend "Shattered" by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes for the fascinating story of just how bad the Clinton campaign actually was, and how the interests of the party's elite have erased even the pretense of pretending to care about actual issues.
I dunno, man. I feel like I read a different Yglesias piece than you did. The whole point of his article is that H. Clinton lost because her unique personal characteristics made her unpopular to the electorate and the Democrats ignored that to their (and the country's) peril. You get pretty hung up on his cheeky comment about O'Malley, but my reading of his piece is that he actually thinks Bernie would have won because H. Clinton was a poor candidate across multiple dimensions. I think you have legitimate gripes with "the media" and how they covered H. Clinton as a candidate, but Yglesias is a strange target at which to direct those legitimate gripes. Really, the only dispute between the two of you on this issue--you BOTH think the democrats chose the wrong nominee in '16--is that your preferred counterfactual involves a socialist getting elected president and his involves a centrist democrat. Either could have happened. You have no dispute with Yglesisas here other than that you like socialism and he doesn't. But you and Yglesias (and the rest of us who know how to read) are right that Dave Roberts is a buffoon whose writing is embarrassing when it strays away from climate issues.
Well said, especially the part about trust issues. I remember watching Inside the NBA one night after Trump won, and one of the hosts (Ernie Johnson) said he had both "trust issues" with Hillary and also found Trump reprehensible. So he wrote in John Kasich.
My best friend, who had voted mostly Republican until that point, did the exact same thing with a Kasich write-in. This friend registered as a Democrat in 2018 and hasn't looked back.
So yeah, the "ugh, Giant Meteor 2016" effect was very real among many, many normal people who aren't hyperpartisans. Hillary was very polarizing among them, and they hated both choices available.
And her "If we break up the banks, will that end racism and sexism?" moment might still, even today, be the most cynical ploy of identity politics I've ever seen in my life.
HRC had pretty much all the institutional advantages that it is possible to have in an election not conducted in a full-on banana republic.
Still, she lost. To Donald Trump, a twice divorced glorified carnival barker.
I have read that in Michigan, enough voters voted a straight Team D ticket but either.voted Trump as president or left president blank as to be greater than Trump’s margin of victory.
People went out of their way not to vote for her, she is that unlikeable.
Of course, like most politicians, HRC exhibits behaviors indistinguishable from those of a sociopath. However, unlike most politicians, her detestable husband for instance, HRC either isn't good at hiding this, or can't be bothered to try.
I think this is an uncharitable read of Yglesias's piece, which by the way was published a couple of years ago -- he republished it for no particular reason, I surmise.
I think he could agree with you about most things you say here, particularly how Clinton ran a bad campaign and how flawed she was as a candidate, but the piece was not about that. Insofar it was about alternative candidates, he very clearly points out that his bit about O'Malley is more about a what-if for Biden running in 2016. You could say one of the reasons Biden didn't run was the notion it was Clinton's turn, and I would agree with that, but again, he is clearly not saying O'Malley was a better candidate than Bernie Sanders!
After Obama, I *knew* the Dems were going to nominate Hilary Clinton and it felt like a gut-punch. I struggled with my immediate reaction for a while. I thought I was probably just being a little sexist or something. I couldn't explain why I just didn't like here. I re-read the apologias -- she was accomplished, smart, all that good stuff. I thought maybe I was over-weighing her campaign vs Barack. I thought maybe I was over-weighing her "my turn" stuff. Would I say similarly about a guy?
I asked my mom about her. "Ugh. Hate her". I gave her the same speeches. "Yeah, I still hate her." I was unsurprised. I cast my ballot for Clinton in 2016, but whether it was people not turning out to vote for her, or voting for someone else, or simply voting for Trump -- I was not nearly surprised in the aftermath.
It always rings hollow when people explain what is in someone else’s head, and what their motivations are. Freddie cannot read Yglesia’s mind, and it’s lazy writing to pretend that he does.
(Mr. Peanutbutter voice) “What is this, a crossover episode?” The fact that these are my two Substack subscribees might mean I’m an out of touch weirdo. Being absolutely shell shocked HRC lost in 2016 confirms it. Can’t wait for me and my friends to augur 2024.
I remember John Kerry saying something to the effect of nominating Bernie Sanders in 2020 would be a disaster for Democrats and guarantee a Trump reelection. I've never understood the angst of Bernie vs Trump. Sanders neutralizes Trump's appeal in the rust belt where elections are decided.
I used to think older Democratic leaders were simply stuck in the past and feared a return of the bad old politics of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Maybe it's true and those leaders are simply too dense to look at rising voter attitudes towards neoliberalism, and this really is a problem of being out of touch. But I can't shake the thought that Democratic leadership don't like Bernie because they don't want the neoliberal consensus that benefits them to end.
I interviewed Obama-Trump voters ahead of 2020. Every single one of them voted for Trump because they despised Clinton. Also fuck Matt Y, the most important election of our lifetimes was 2000. We wouldn't have Trump without W. Literally W admin caused all of the refugee crises that put fascists in office in the US and Europe.
I 100% agree with you that Hillary lost primarily because of Hillary, but I think you're handwaving away the clear issues with a Bernie general election campaign. Just as there's years and years to demonstrate that Hillary is unpopular, there's years and years of evidence that socialism is still an unpopular word to the median voter, that persuasion works a lot better than turning out the base, and that spoiler candidates that poll well in a primary generally see their poll numbers drop once they become the main target of the opposition.
Something that I think is not brought up nearly enough is that 2016 voters thought Trump was more moderate than Hillary. I think that goes a long ways towards explaining part of his win over her. The idea that Bernie would be seen as more moderate than Trump is to me unlikely. None of this is to shit on Bernie (who I generally like even if he's to my left on a lot of issues) or to excuse Hillary (who ran an incompetent campaign, which would be obvious to anyone who'd ever seen her do anything for about 30 years). I think the Martin O'Mally argument is basically what you said above- Obama is popular, the economy wasn't in recession, things seemed mildly normal. All democrats needed to do was nominate someone who wouldn't give voters an excuse to vote for Trump.
Again, you don't have to like it you just have to play the game as it is and I'm not convinced Bernie would have resulted in anything different than Hillary.
I think you're misreading Yglesias a little but HRC's candidacy should have disgusted feminists because she garnered her spot via nepotism. Like either Bush son. Unearned.
I think you’re dead right about Hillary, which is why me and my friends all thought she was the wrong candidate. Kamala is exactly like her which is why Biden doesn’t dare step down.
Did sexism hurt Hillary? Probably. But also... did women who might have voted against her had she been a man with more or less the same political profile vote for her, simply because she was a woman? No women did that? Their numbers weren't significant? Hard to believe. Hard to measure too, at this late date.
But as Freddie says, what hurt Hillary most, what hurt her fatally, is that too many people of both sexes really don't like or trust her. And it wasn't a secret. Somebody needs to write one of those alternate-history novels, one where the Democratic party isn't run by morons.
It reminds me of the great joke about the dog food. Board meeting of a dog food company: the CEO says, "Gentlemen, we make the finest dog food money can buy. We use the best ingredients, we have the most innovative marketing, we have the most attractive packaging. And yet we're still losing market share. Why?" Silence... until, from down at the end of the conference table, a squeaky, junior executive voice says, "Dogs don't like it."
The Acela Corridor Punditocracy is every bit as willfully clueless about all this as Clinton herself. "We're the best and brightest, and it's our turn! It wasn't our fault! It was the voters! The Russians! TeH SeXiSm!" etc. etc. Trump didn't win because of MuH RaCiSm or Vladimir Putin or any of that nonsense, it was Hillary's negatives, and the fact that only Trump and Bernie even put issues that resonated with working class voters into their platforms in the first place.
I highly recommend "Shattered" by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes for the fascinating story of just how bad the Clinton campaign actually was, and how the interests of the party's elite have erased even the pretense of pretending to care about actual issues.
I dunno, man. I feel like I read a different Yglesias piece than you did. The whole point of his article is that H. Clinton lost because her unique personal characteristics made her unpopular to the electorate and the Democrats ignored that to their (and the country's) peril. You get pretty hung up on his cheeky comment about O'Malley, but my reading of his piece is that he actually thinks Bernie would have won because H. Clinton was a poor candidate across multiple dimensions. I think you have legitimate gripes with "the media" and how they covered H. Clinton as a candidate, but Yglesias is a strange target at which to direct those legitimate gripes. Really, the only dispute between the two of you on this issue--you BOTH think the democrats chose the wrong nominee in '16--is that your preferred counterfactual involves a socialist getting elected president and his involves a centrist democrat. Either could have happened. You have no dispute with Yglesisas here other than that you like socialism and he doesn't. But you and Yglesias (and the rest of us who know how to read) are right that Dave Roberts is a buffoon whose writing is embarrassing when it strays away from climate issues.
Well said, especially the part about trust issues. I remember watching Inside the NBA one night after Trump won, and one of the hosts (Ernie Johnson) said he had both "trust issues" with Hillary and also found Trump reprehensible. So he wrote in John Kasich.
My best friend, who had voted mostly Republican until that point, did the exact same thing with a Kasich write-in. This friend registered as a Democrat in 2018 and hasn't looked back.
So yeah, the "ugh, Giant Meteor 2016" effect was very real among many, many normal people who aren't hyperpartisans. Hillary was very polarizing among them, and they hated both choices available.
And her "If we break up the banks, will that end racism and sexism?" moment might still, even today, be the most cynical ploy of identity politics I've ever seen in my life.
HRC had pretty much all the institutional advantages that it is possible to have in an election not conducted in a full-on banana republic.
Still, she lost. To Donald Trump, a twice divorced glorified carnival barker.
I have read that in Michigan, enough voters voted a straight Team D ticket but either.voted Trump as president or left president blank as to be greater than Trump’s margin of victory.
People went out of their way not to vote for her, she is that unlikeable.
Of course, like most politicians, HRC exhibits behaviors indistinguishable from those of a sociopath. However, unlike most politicians, her detestable husband for instance, HRC either isn't good at hiding this, or can't be bothered to try.
I think this is an uncharitable read of Yglesias's piece, which by the way was published a couple of years ago -- he republished it for no particular reason, I surmise.
I think he could agree with you about most things you say here, particularly how Clinton ran a bad campaign and how flawed she was as a candidate, but the piece was not about that. Insofar it was about alternative candidates, he very clearly points out that his bit about O'Malley is more about a what-if for Biden running in 2016. You could say one of the reasons Biden didn't run was the notion it was Clinton's turn, and I would agree with that, but again, he is clearly not saying O'Malley was a better candidate than Bernie Sanders!
After Obama, I *knew* the Dems were going to nominate Hilary Clinton and it felt like a gut-punch. I struggled with my immediate reaction for a while. I thought I was probably just being a little sexist or something. I couldn't explain why I just didn't like here. I re-read the apologias -- she was accomplished, smart, all that good stuff. I thought maybe I was over-weighing her campaign vs Barack. I thought maybe I was over-weighing her "my turn" stuff. Would I say similarly about a guy?
I asked my mom about her. "Ugh. Hate her". I gave her the same speeches. "Yeah, I still hate her." I was unsurprised. I cast my ballot for Clinton in 2016, but whether it was people not turning out to vote for her, or voting for someone else, or simply voting for Trump -- I was not nearly surprised in the aftermath.
It always rings hollow when people explain what is in someone else’s head, and what their motivations are. Freddie cannot read Yglesia’s mind, and it’s lazy writing to pretend that he does.
Other than that, I agree about HRC
(Mr. Peanutbutter voice) “What is this, a crossover episode?” The fact that these are my two Substack subscribees might mean I’m an out of touch weirdo. Being absolutely shell shocked HRC lost in 2016 confirms it. Can’t wait for me and my friends to augur 2024.
I remember John Kerry saying something to the effect of nominating Bernie Sanders in 2020 would be a disaster for Democrats and guarantee a Trump reelection. I've never understood the angst of Bernie vs Trump. Sanders neutralizes Trump's appeal in the rust belt where elections are decided.
I used to think older Democratic leaders were simply stuck in the past and feared a return of the bad old politics of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Maybe it's true and those leaders are simply too dense to look at rising voter attitudes towards neoliberalism, and this really is a problem of being out of touch. But I can't shake the thought that Democratic leadership don't like Bernie because they don't want the neoliberal consensus that benefits them to end.
The 2016 election is significant because it settled the question of who would be the populist working class party in America.
The answer has been Trump and the Republicans and the country is going to be living with that for decades.
I interviewed Obama-Trump voters ahead of 2020. Every single one of them voted for Trump because they despised Clinton. Also fuck Matt Y, the most important election of our lifetimes was 2000. We wouldn't have Trump without W. Literally W admin caused all of the refugee crises that put fascists in office in the US and Europe.
I 100% agree with you that Hillary lost primarily because of Hillary, but I think you're handwaving away the clear issues with a Bernie general election campaign. Just as there's years and years to demonstrate that Hillary is unpopular, there's years and years of evidence that socialism is still an unpopular word to the median voter, that persuasion works a lot better than turning out the base, and that spoiler candidates that poll well in a primary generally see their poll numbers drop once they become the main target of the opposition.
Something that I think is not brought up nearly enough is that 2016 voters thought Trump was more moderate than Hillary. I think that goes a long ways towards explaining part of his win over her. The idea that Bernie would be seen as more moderate than Trump is to me unlikely. None of this is to shit on Bernie (who I generally like even if he's to my left on a lot of issues) or to excuse Hillary (who ran an incompetent campaign, which would be obvious to anyone who'd ever seen her do anything for about 30 years). I think the Martin O'Mally argument is basically what you said above- Obama is popular, the economy wasn't in recession, things seemed mildly normal. All democrats needed to do was nominate someone who wouldn't give voters an excuse to vote for Trump.
Again, you don't have to like it you just have to play the game as it is and I'm not convinced Bernie would have resulted in anything different than Hillary.