2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumIf you are disinclined to support Hillary, what are your reasons? Here are my Top Ten:
1. She is pushing establishment status quo when the people desperately want change.
2. Her domestic policy is wishy-washy Third Way compromise when people want a leader to push for more government action on minimum wage, single payer health care, free public education, family leave and child care.
3. Her foreign policy is hawkish neocon when people want a less interventionist foreign policy than Obama's and not more forced regime change followed by nation building where we interfered.
4. Her economic policy favors neoliberal trade agreements when the people see that these agreements have been unfairly detrimental to US labor and encourage job flight.
5. Her private email server may not be criminal but it is an unrepentant and deliberate disregard of the FOIA which is a key progressive guarantee of governmental transparency and accountability.
6. Her friendly attitude toward drilling, fracking, and pipelines values the fossil fuel industry over the environment when the people's values put the environment and climate change over industry.
7. She is mistrusted on Wall Street and banking regulation because of her history, her sponsorship, and her hiding of the speech transcripts where she blamed consumers for the financial collapse caused by financial sector greed.
8. People who love democracy don't like dynasties, regardless of whether they are Bush dynasties or Clinton dynasties.
9. She stands with private prisons, the death penalty, and marijuana criminalization when people want reform and decriminalization.
10. Her inability to unite the party, her history of flip flopping and being caught in lies, her FBI investigation and stonewalling, her weak-as-dishwater campaign, the widely held perception that the supposedly neutral DNC bent over backwards to crown her, and her extreme unpopularity with independents and young Democrats all come together to make her a historically weak candidate against Trump.
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demwing
(16,916 posts)I mean, she's a liar.
Even if we agree with her words, how can anyone trust her to do the things that she has promised?
saltpoint
(50,986 posts)Vote2016
(1,198 posts)saltpoint
(50,986 posts)give any progressive voter immediate pause.
Thank you for that.
StayFrosty
(237 posts)Hate her
Everyone else wants a politician that is willing to unite both sides and move this country forward.
She supports LGBT rights
Immigrants rights and won't build a wall
She won't ban Muslim refugees and will appoint a Liberal supreme Court justice
12$ minimum wage
senz
(11,945 posts)Forward to what? To more jobs shipped overseas? To greater income inequality and more unnecessary wars? She's widely disliked and not trusted.
She's a newcomer to LGBT rights. She's on record and on video opposing marriage equality. She didn't start "favoring" LGBT rights until it began to look politically advantageous to do so.
She wanted children to be turned away at the border. She's already talked about building a fence at the border.
She encouraged "Obama is a Muslim" rumors in 2008. Her campaign circulated a photo of Obama in Muslim dress.
She'll appoint a Goldman Sachs friendly candidate to the Court.
She didn't want a minimum wage until long after Bernie had been talking about it. She's not interested in the lower classes.
Vote2016
(1,198 posts)
Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel
(3,273 posts)I know a few people that needs this list.
BootinUp
(51,035 posts)You would have been attacking FDR back in the day.
senz
(11,945 posts)with Bill Clinton and Al From -- the birth of The Third Way, the DLC, the "new Democrats" as they sometimes called themselves. Do a search on "Bill Clinton" and "Al From." Educate yourself.
Bernie comes from the old FDR Democratic Party that put people over profits. By the way, I've voted straight Democratic ticket since I reached voting age -- decades ago.
BootinUp
(51,035 posts)libdem4life
(13,877 posts)Or just regurgitated talking points? I'm serious. The poster put time and thought into the post. The least you can do is refute it intelligently...as opposed to your post.
zentrum
(9,870 posts)And in response the New Democrat moved to the entire party to the right and didn't put up a fight as FDR would have.
"The Economic Royalists hate me. And I welcome their hatred".
Can't imagine a New Democrat ever having the courage of their convictions or political chops to say that.
zentrum
(9,870 posts).....of the DLC was the Kochs.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)Silver_Witch
(1,820 posts)She absolutely did NOT support LGBT righ,marriage or allowing same sex couples to be parents.
She is truly a Hawk
And she say $12 then $15 but the truth is she can just shrug her shoulders and say she tried but alas it was a mo go!!
jfern
(5,204 posts)1. Wants a no fly zone where Russian planes are flying. That's straight out of Dr. Strangelove.
2. Supported sending Honduran children refugees back to their deaths because they were treated poorly there
3. Repeatedly attacked Bernie with right-wing lies
4. Clinton Foundation pay to play
5. DLC to the core. The Clinton Foundation got the DLC records.
6. Used race against Obama 8 years ago. And used it against Bernie, even though her white supporters are more racist than Bernie's
7. David Brock, who slimed Anita Hill and claimed Michelle Obama said whitey has been running a year long campaign demonizing Bernie supporters. She directly coordinates with David Brock's SuperPAC. I haven't heard of any other candidate doing that.
8. Hillary doesn't even pretend to give a rat's ass about liberals
9. She has nothing to offer if you aren't into wars, 3rd way, or identity politics. No, being a woman doesn't make you an outsider.
10. Her husband has a terrible record of NAFTA, lots of deregulation, DOMA, DATA, DMCA, and other garbage. He was planning on privatizing SS until Monica distracted him.
11. Her support of NAFTA and TPP before claiming she never supported them.
12. She doesn't answer questions and just spews triangulating bullshit
13. Her disregard for protecting classified information because she doesn't know how to use a computer
14. Taking $353,000 donations and money laundering them through the DNC and 33 state parties to spend against Bernie in a primary.
Vote2016
(1,198 posts)No Fly Zone over Syria?
Pure Brinkmanship. All testicle no cerebellum.
jfern
(5,204 posts)But Hillary said it, and warmongering is OK if she does it.
Vote2016
(1,198 posts)wonder what other issues she will actually come to Trump's right.
TheFarseer
(9,761 posts)It's hard to say we need to be strong and attack everything but then say Iraq was a mistake and we need to get out.
ancianita
(43,162 posts)argument to Hillary's foreign policy speech. Your claim of brinksmanship is wrong.
As other world leaders do, HRC is fully capable of learning from her mistakes. Sure, Pentagon brass will probably push/pull her to test how much she feels she has to prove, but I don't believe she'll be a warmonger and here's why.
According to Tom Englehardt of Tom's Dispatch, military plans entail moving all drone operations offshore and beefing up special operations as the monger of choice, along with cybersecurity and cyberwar.
MisterP
(23,730 posts)farleftlib
(2,125 posts)Consider the OP's list combined with yours and the compilation is devastating.
No more Clintons, especially HRC.
K & R
JudyM
(29,668 posts)favors (even promoting the Iraq war) in exchange for political favors, power connections or Foundation "donations"...
RobertEarl
(13,685 posts)How can anyone think she'd be uniting us? She plays to the right so much it just leads us backward.
LibDemAlways
(15,139 posts)Last edited Fri Jun 3, 2016, 02:41 AM - Edit history (1)
It boggles the mind in an election year in which voters are so turned off by the status quo that they're willing to take a chance on a racist, sexist gasbag, that the Democratic Party establishment is hell bent on nominating the ultimate insider -- and not just any insider but a polarizing figure with more baggage than the Duggar family on a world tour.
I will add one more,reason. She has been endorsed by Robert Kagan of PNAC fame, the most evil blood thirsty gang of neocons ever -- the fuckers behind the Iraq War. That should be enough to make any thinking person wary of a Hillary Presidency. As my mother always reminded me, "You are known by the company you keep. Choose wisely."
Raster
(21,010 posts)
The_Casual_Observer
(27,742 posts)Sanders talking points before? Like this is new stuff that just had to be shared?
immoderate
(20,885 posts)
--imm
Silver_Witch
(1,820 posts)
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)14 more days.
Marr
(20,317 posts)Hillary fans don't like to talk about policy very much. They prefer simple slogans and empty minded phrases they can repeat over and over, like '14 more days'.
840high
(17,196 posts)
tandem5
(2,078 posts)She's a mistrusted Wall Street lovin' gold encrusted liar and I tire from the fight. Her inability to unite the party, her stonewallin' makes me wonder will she be torn asunder by the F. B. I. or is that just pie in sky?
Point two. Point two is you. Point two is me and being free in this country 'tis of thee, but too free for me is the death penalty so I'll sit quietly in private prison and another life, gettin' high off free education I'll envision.
Three is the Third Way compromise, and no surprise the status quo, a friendly attitude toward frackin' drilling and watching oil flow.
Point four is that I've heard this all before and so it's easy to ignore, but before you reply with double, double toil and trouble just know that while your fire burns I've already filled my bubble. On my ballot. For her.
Betty Karlson
(7,231 posts)Silent activism, in Clinton's world, is when you let people die by deadpanning the conversation they are desperate to have.
VulgarPoet
(2,872 posts)"I'll leave you with four words: I'm glad Reagan dead."
Scuba
(53,475 posts)
Recursion
(56,582 posts)Or rather, she always appears to be working too hard, and seems to think that is what voters want (it's not -- c.f. Obama, W, WJC). Presidents need to make things look effortless, and effortless just is not in her repertoire.
This is related: she's unlucky. Her husband isn't; quite the opposite. "Luck" exudes from every pore of his body at all times (if you've ever seen him in person it's even more profound than on TV; though I've heard she does better in person than on TV). That may seem highly unfair and philosophically dubious, but in our day to day experience we do know some people are "lucky" and some aren't, and just bluntly being lucky is probably the most important quality a President can have. As Cenk said, if Bill is Teflon then Hillary is Velcro; it's a good point, even bullshit non-issues get blown up by her instinctive stonewalling and defensiveness (whereas her husband would just laugh them off).
Continuing the above idea: she simply cannot seem to do anything other than dig in when confronted, so her sense of optics can get horrible (though if she's not being confronted her sense of optics is great). The speeches were a bad idea if she was going to run again. Having made them, digging in about not releasing what she said turned a bad idea into a disaster waiting to happen. Similarly her stonewalling about the email system, both to State employees and the public, turned what could have been a minor administrative SNAFU (Bill would have laughed and drawled "Ah don't understayund these computer thingies, Ah ask mah freeyund Elon Musk to help me when Ah cayun't git to the Google" and it would have been over) into the kind of slow burn that seems to hound her wherever she goes.
She's older than my retired parents. As a corollary, she represents and even embodies fights that the party and the country need to get over rather than re-litigate for another four to eight years; she shares with Sanders the dubious distinction of being essentially tailor-made not to hold the coalition together, for that reason.
I generally applaud politicians who are willing to change their view on an issue as information and public opinion changes. This is something we should in general reward rather than punish. But. She seems temperamentally incapable of saying "I was wrong before but I'm right now", which is what you have to say to do that. Nobody likes to do it, but she seems seriously incapable of it, and I had enough of that with W. (I'd seriously love for any mainstream Democrat to say "I was for gay marriage 15 years ago but I also wanted to be elected, which would have been impossible if I had said that so I mostly avoided the issue when possible and spoke in vapid bromides when cornered".)
All of these may be unfair. All of these may be gendered, particularly the things based on public and media reaction, but those reactions are real things right now and are baggage I personally don't want to have to drag across the finish line to 270 electoral votes in November. The fact that many of these complaints also apply to Sanders should be an indication of why I'm so pessimistic about this primary season.
Logical
(22,457 posts)Recursion
(56,582 posts)The question was what my complaints about Clinton as a candidate are, and those are they.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)but Hillary has a number of things that tell me not everyone who is old has wisdom: using a private unsecured system to protect sensitive material, her actions on welfare reform and other safety net issues, her actions as SOS such as Irag, Haiti, and Libya.
Bernie may be older but he has the stamina and shows that he has a lot of wisdom. I will take him any day.
beachbum bob
(10,437 posts)pengu
(462 posts)Iraq
Libya
Syria
Honduras
2001 Bankruptcy Bill
Free Trade
Patriot Act
Pushing Fracking as SoS
Pushing welfare reform as first lady
Supports Death Penalty
Crooked Primary
Lies frequently
Corrupted by Money
Directly coordinates with PAC that ruins discussion via paid trolls
Supports encryption backdoors
This is just off the top of my head. Give me an hour and I could make this list 10 times the size. She's basically the embodiment of everything that's wrong with modern Democrats.
YouDig
(2,280 posts)Vote2016
(1,198 posts)FDR's legacy by voting for a Third Way neoliberal.
The country's much more polarized than when likeable Bill was able to triangulate a centrist coalition in a 3-way race, and so if Hillary wants votes, that is not a viable path.
The current polarization takes more than 45 states out of play in anything other than a landslide scenario (in which all states are marginalized). No one outside of Ohio or Florida is going to be boogiemanned into violating their conscience by voting for someone who mocks our most deeply held values in order to "stop Trump" in the overwhelming majority of states where his win is either inevitable (like Texas) or inconceivable (like California).
If she wants progressive votes, she has to become voteworthy to progressive voters.
YouDig
(2,280 posts)Vote2016
(1,198 posts)so I have insufficient grounds to violate my conscience by voting for a candidate who mocks my values.
I'll make my mind up when I see the platform, the party rules, the convention, and the running mate, but Hillary's running out of time to unite the party with real leadership. I'm dubious she has the leadership to unite the party or to win in November, and her failure in the first task will assure her failure in the second task.
Response to YouDig (Reply #31)
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YouDig
(2,280 posts)geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)13 more days of people excreting this kind of filth here.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)
PufPuf23
(9,724 posts)You are better than that.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)of "betraying FDR's legacy."
13 more days of people trying to undermine the Democratic nominee in the general election, then we'll have unity as everyone will be on the same team with a common goal.
Bye, and happy trails.
TwilightZone
(28,836 posts)Though, the OP has made that pretty clear already.
lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)The rest of the list are just examples.
bigwillq
(72,790 posts) 
Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)If everyone in the Democratic party agreed with you on these issues, Bernie Sanders would have a commanding lead in delegates at this point and would already have clinched the nomination. But obviously that is not the case. I am confident, however, that in November you will make the right choice when deciding who to vote for.
PufPuf23
(9,724 posts)Hillary Clinton is unsuited to be POTUS.
Hillary Clinton is a mistake for the Democratic party and nation.
A majority of people in the USA and over 40% of Democrats have a strong negative opinion of Clinton.
All you have is fear, intimidation, identity politics (of which Clinton has a history of being fluid and opportunistic), inertia, lies, and corruption.
Clinton's foreign policy is atrocious, the worst I can recall of any potential POTUS.
When folks mention Libya, Syria, Iraq, and Honduras, Ukraine and Colombia / Plan Colombia should also be mentioned.
Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)But she has won millions more votes in the primaries than anybody else, so your viewpoint is a minority one. I do hope you will agree at least that Hillary would be a better president than Donald Trump.
Yavin4
(37,182 posts)Vote2016
(1,198 posts)
CharlotteVale
(2,717 posts)Response to Vote2016 (Original post)
Gomez163 This message was self-deleted by its author.
One Black Sheep
(458 posts)candidates that could be nominated by the Democrats in recent history.
1. Hillary's a symbol of the broken political system. A totally corrupt system, where politicians no longer answer to the people, but to their corporate masters. At the same time, they lie to the people, and pretend that they are serving the people, and claim to be "progressive", when their policies are nothing of the kind, but rather, the opposite. Most people are waking up, and no longer buying this act. Hillary is the last gasp of a broken and rotten establishment.
2. Hillary's health. I know this is kind of an uncomfortable topic, but it is important, and a practical concern. There has been several rumors and also mainstream press reports about Hillary, in that she has had persistent and bad coughing fits on the campaign trail, several are on youtube as well, where she has fits where she can't stop coughing, and she sounds very sick in those clips too. And she has taken several long and mysterious "absences", where you don't see or hear from her for many days at a time, as if she is in hiding, or perhaps, tending to health issues. Plus, Hillary just does not look well. She looks like she is in bad health, frankly.
This is extremely important, that Hillary is straight with the American people, if she is ill, or has a health-related issue, because then, that places that much more importance on her vice president. If something happens to Hillary, and she is unable to perform her presidential duties should she become president, then whomever she picks as her VP becomes critically important. Since Hillary seems to be not forthcoming about this, this also leads to my next issue...
3. I don't trust Hillary. I think she is way too "political", in that, she wants to say what she thinks you want to hear. Then when in office as president, she could do the exact opposite, without even blinking. I just do not think she is trustworthy, and I would be very uneasy to put any faith into what she says she will do. This also goes along with a serious lack of good judgement, as Bernie pointed out, she seems to keep wanting to do military interventions, even after she got burned for voting for the Iraq war. In short, she does not seem to learn from her mistakes!
4. I agree with most of your points as well!
Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)
Separation
(1,975 posts)The fact that she and her husband are in favor of these is a a huge turn off for me.
elleng
(141,926 posts)azmom
(5,208 posts)need is a leader with a bold vision for a new America.
DrewFlorida
(1,096 posts)I am as much a Bernie supporter as anyone, but, if Hilary becomes our nominee, I will support her aggressively. I will not sit by in apathy while a hate-mongering moron such as Trump destroys our country and our world. I feel sorry for those who are too shortsighted and have a temper-tantrum over not getting everything you want!
Attorney in Texas
(3,373 posts)never could.
The Republicans will have a normal-to-high turnout for a presidential year and we will have a turnout model that is not like a midterm election which will spell disaster from the Trump presidency to the Republican congress to lost races in state elections.
Hillary is begging progressives to vote Green, millennials to stay home, independents who already dislike and distrust her and feel left out of the economic "recovery" to vote for change over Hillary's plan of more status quo, and Republicans to show up with enthusiasm if for no reason other than to vote against Hillary.
Enthusiasm affects turnout, and we are looking at a nominee who is shockingly incapable of inspiring enthusiasm in her own party and yet fans the flames of enthusiasm for the other party. That's fatal.
zentrum
(9,870 posts)Last edited Sat Jun 4, 2016, 10:23 AM - Edit history (1)
...equality until it was politically safe to do so.
Vote2016
(1,198 posts)the party on $15 minimum wage, late to the party on TPP and NAFTA, late to the party on immigration, etc.
Supporters of someone who's been late to the party so often shouldn't be the ones to issue threats about party unity.