Has Hillary Clinton abased herself sufficiently to satisfy her critics?

[DonViejo]

By Paul Waldman August 23 at 1:50 PM

Hillary Clinton’s book about the 2016 campaign, “What Happened,” won’t be out for a few weeks, but this morning a few brief excerpts from the audiobook were played on “Morning Joe.” And as usual, a great deal of the focus is on whether Clinton is taking sufficient responsibility for her defeat.

So we need to ask ourselves: Why is it so important to so many people that Clinton perform a ritual of self-abasement?

If you don’t recall a chorus of angry calls for Mitt Romney or John McCain or John Kerry or Al Gore to get down on their knees and beg forgiveness for their failures every time they appeared in public after losing their presidential elections, that’s because it didn’t happen. Only Hillary Clinton is subject to this demand.

And when she takes responsibility, as she has before, her words are carefully scrutinized to see if she’s being self-critical enough. When she said in May that she took responsibility for her loss but also pointed out that she would have won had James B. Comey not made that dramatic email announcement 11 days before the election — which is almost certainly true — the comments were greeted by a round of scolding from reporters who obviously felt that she was not sufficiently humbled.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2017/08/23/has-hillary-clinton-abased-herself-sufficiently-to-satisfy-her-critics/?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-b%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.36ac5dd34fc2

[niyad]

1. women MUST be put in their place!!

[Dulcinea]

84. People who hate Hillary Clinton will NEVER be satisfied.

They can't burn her at the stake, so they trash her every chance they get.

She should tell them all to go fuck themselves!

[niyad]

85. in a very ladylike and subservient manner, of course!!

[Fresh_Start]

2. I think as women we train the people around us to expect us to apologize profusely

even if we didn't make any mistake.

So if a woman doesn't do so...or even if she does, its always scrutinized differently than men's actions or inactions.

[Pacifist Patriot]

10. I don't think we do the training.

We're the ones trained at an early age to apologize at the drop of a hat. The expectation is that we get properly indoctrinated and do it when it's asked of us. Better yet if we do it without even realizing that's what we're doing.

[Fresh_Start]

14. I agree that we are trained from birth...and then we train the people around us to expect it

my children aren't responsible for what they have come to expect as normal for me.
Its my actions during their upbringing that set their expectations.

[bettyellen]

43. People try and get you to be apologetic and also unsure- there is nothing like the reaction you get

If you don't take all the damned blame or express certainty. People tried to train me to do both, and I didn't even pick up at first what I was "doing wrong".
One boss hated me because "I was always right" and "never fucked up"... he actually complained to his business partner about that. We were both confused! LOL.
Then I realized he was much more of a fuck up than I and despite me never showing him up in any way, and minimizing his mistakes, it didn't matter. I was an affront to human nature.

[Gothmog]

3. I never thought that Hillary Clinton needed to abase herself in the first place

[whathehell]

58. Me either, and, frankly, I'm not sure that's what's she's doing in her book

[onit2day]

72. She's not abasing herself. Reader is thin skinned

Stop listening to what a few people, republicans, say about Clinton. The more you make these accusations the more attention it gets. I don't see any abasement. I see (as usual) pundits offering opinions on the election and the party's candidate. All candidates have faults and make mistakes and there are always going to be those who focus and harp on them but acting insulted only adds flames to the fire when so few are buying into these self abasing theories.
Clinton is fine and is expressing what she learned but she will never completely derail the Clinton propaganda train. She can laugh at it however having already been thoroughly scrutinized and found innocent. Never forget the most important lesson: You can both support and criticize at the same time. No abasement necessary.

[whathehell]

78. Agreed...Well said.

[Scoopster]

4. Doubtful

People who hate her never do so for who she actually is. They hate her for who her husband was & what he did while in office, policies that she's never supported, and because she's a flagbearer for the Democratic Party. Hell the GOP has consistently been making up BS about her since 1991, and over the years they did the same thing to Nancy Pelosi and are doing the same thing now to Liz Warren & Kamala Harris. And because of that, the well of leadership has been poisoned even among the party's base.

[unblock]

5. if only she were more perfect, the right-wing wouldn't have smeared her with lies for 25 years!

it's all her fault that the right-wing smeared her for every non-scandal under the sun, from travelgate to emails!

it's all her fault that her media coverage was massively negative!

it's all her fault that donnie's coverage was mostly about his pet issues!

[Iliyah]

6. No

[LonePirate]

7. Forget apologizing. I want HRC to issue a big "Fuck you!" to the idiots who elected 45.

I would much prefer to see her rub their noses in their idiocy and Constitution-shaming choice for President.

[Lifelong Protester]

12. I wish I could rec your post

[paleotn]

30. This!!!

[Ilsa]

33. Agreed. Personally, I've had to

refrain from telling some dear friends and relatives, "I told you so."

[mnhtnbb]

53. Actually, the segment played on Morning Joe did just that. Showed Trump up to be a creep

and we all know he's turned out to be a creep--and worse--so the first round of the reveal of Hillary's book confirms
that she was right all along.

[comradebillyboy]

8. Her critics will never be satisfied...nt

[LenaBaby61]

17. Her critics will never be satisfied...

NEVER.

[FuzzyRabbit]

26. Needs to be repeated: Her critics will never be satisfied!

NEVER.

[Beartracks]

28. To underscore: Her critics will never be satisfied.

NEVER.

=============

[nolabear]

46. Never, ever, ever

will her critics be satisfied.

[Rhiannon12866]

9. I did hear part of this and it took me back too

The part about the debates - when she was creeped out by his lurking and pacing behind her - creeped me out too. This was so blatantly unacceptable coming from any candidate and it was just her terrible luck that she inexplicably faced the most insane opponent in history. If it was tough for us to watch, I can't imagine how it was for her on that stage. Yet she not only held it together, she won.

[Ilsa]

37. I remember when it happened and

figured we would hear about it in ten years. Trump couldn't stand not being in the picture and he had to try and intimidate her.

[Vetteguy]

11. When the old white guys and their supporters

that she ran against never have to apologize or abase themselves for what they said and did nothing is surprising.

[Croney]

13. I did what I consider my most effective action:

I pre-ordered her book. She should be President right now. She earned it and she won it. The slug stole it and left a slimy putrid trail of insanity as proof. Why he's still allowed to keep it is the mystery of the century.

[Docreed2003]

15. The only people calling for her to self-abase are people who were always critical of her

It is her critics who seem to be looking for self-abasement from Clinton, almost with glee. Personally, I don't think any feelings that she has regarding disappointment in the campaign are directed to them, I think she wrote this for us, her supporters. Like any of us, she has to have second guesses and regrets and I think she wants us to hear her story. I hope she goes into even greater detail into the details regarding Russian interference and Cambridge Analytica, as she did at a tech conference a few months ago. I'm looking forward to this book, but make me words, her critics will be lining up to tear it down, and I bet we'll see some of that crap here as well.

[lunamagica]

16. Please Hillary, don't apologize! Those of us who support you don't need it, and your detractos

will never be satisfied!

I will always be proud of supporting your candidacy, and I will always think that not having you as president is a tragedy for this country.

HRC, my president

[BigmanPigman]

18. Don't forget...SHE WON!

She won the popular vote and would be president right now if it hadn't been for Comey. Period.

She also lost due to Russia, misogynist voters (men and women), the MSM, etc. but Comey is what did it.

This country should apologize to her! Shit, now I am really pissed off!

[Beartracks]

34. I guess it's her fault she didn't have a big enough lead...

... to withstand the voter suppression, the Comey debacle, the biased media landscape, AND the Russian interference...?



===============

[Progressive dog]

20. She can never say mea culpa loud enough or often

enough. It must be her fault, because if it's not, the fault would lie with the scum who supported and colluded with the psychopath Trump.

[hurple]

21. Did she commit suicide?

If not, then no.

[heaven05]

49. WTF

WHAT DO YOU MEAN????

[caraher]

52. I think they just mean the press will never be satisfied

Just an extreme way of saying it

[sheshe2]

73. No.

[hurple]

83. I mean

Unless she goes that far, they will not think she's abased herself enough.

I'm saying the right-wing are deplorable animals.

[dbackjon]

22. Does she have to do the walk of atonement?

[tiredtoo]

23. How about we all quit talking bout Hillary

She did great with all the decks stacked against her but her time is past.

[emulatorloo]

32. Take it up with the admins. Maybe you can convince them to make it a TOS violation

[JHan]

48. Lol

[lapucelle]

42. You can talk about whatever you'd like, but kindly...

[leftofcool]

55. How about we talk about the woman we love all we want to?

[narnian60]

61. +100

[Ken Burch]

24. It's not about anybody "abasing themselves"

It's simply about having a honest conversation about what needs to be done differently next time.

Does anybody really think we should do everything exactly the same way in 2020?

HRC would have been a good president. Fine.

It's possible to accept that AND at the same time acknowledge that mistakes were made and that lessons need to be learned.

Whoever we nominate, we will be just as antiracist and anti-social oppression as we were this year.

Whatever platform we run on, we will defend the party's core constituencies just as solidly as we did this year.

[George II]

44. This isn't a matter of the "next time", it's a matter of whether or not she has done enough yet....

....to satisfy her critics regarding THIS time.

For some of those critics, I doubt they'll ever be satisfied.

[Ken Burch]

62. What I'm saying is that she, for bad or for good, is simply no longer the point.

It shouldn't be about her as a person at all.

The conversation we need to have about 2016 is about what did and didn't work on a strategic and tactical level-not on the bad or good points about HRC as a nominee or a human being.

What I've argued is that, with her as nominee, with her sticking to her PRIMARY position on TPP, we could have won, even with whatever people felt about her, if these choices had been made;

1) Making the dominant theme of the campaign, including the campaign ads, about what we as a party would do if we kept the White House and took even one house of Congress, rather than on calling out Trump as a misogynist scumbag(he IS a misogynist scumbag, but we'd known for months that the majority of voters simply didn't care) ;

2) Treating the fall campaign as a partnership between the Clinton and Sanders wings of the party-by which I don't mean making HRC kowtow to Bernie or the handful of idiots known as the 'bros, but an acknowledgement that Bernie's economic vision is popular, probably has majority support in the party, and that the ideas and the supporters of those ideas, especially the young people brought into political involvement by those ideas, and in some cases through their involvement in Occupy, had accomplished something amazing in winning the support demonstrated in the primaries for those ideas and in the public declaration of support for those ideas even among many Clinton supporters-rather than acting as though the Sanders campaign was a categoric failure and that everything it stood for had been rejected by the party. We NEEDED those young people to believe that what they had done was not for nothing, that this party was a place where they would be welcome, AS A GROUP, to keep working for what they support, and that HRC, as president, would listen to what they had to say. Why did anybody think doing something like that was somehow an insult to the nominee or disrespect to the party's core constituencies? Had we done that, the younger Sanders people who sat it out-and I say this as someone who spent a lot of the fall begging those voters to support the ticket-would have turned out for the ticket, and we'd have lost no one and betrayed no one in engaging those voters in the way we needed to.

What Comey and the Russians and the vote suppressors did mattered...a lot...but they weren't the only things that mattered. And while we do need to keep speaking out on those matters, we can't win next time by focusing solely or even primarily about speaking about them.

We need to these things as part of a winning strategy next time:

1) Heal the artificially-created divide beween "social justice" and "economic justice" activists and movements-they are distinct sets of issues, but they are related, and they are NOT in conflict. There are always plenty of economic justice activists in anti-social oppression activism, and there are always plenty of antiracist, anti homo- and transphobia activists, anti-misogyny activists, immigration rights and reproductive rights activists in any movement involving economic justice. Also, it should finally be admitted that support for Bernie was never an indication that a person didn't care about social oppression, any more than support for Hillary meant a person didn't care about corporate influence in politics.

2) Involve more people from both wings and from those not associated with either wing with voter registration, re-registration, and re-credentialing activism, as so many are already.

3) Make sure that the next platform is controlled mainly from below, by party activists and others involved in grassroots work. Don't let the nominee, whoever that nominee might be, water the proposals down and limit them.

4) Run the fall campaign, for once, on the basis of asking the electorate to vote FOR us, rather than simply against the other ticket. The voters have made it clear, over and over again, that they are not impressed by lesser-evils campaigning. They want to vote positively, and they will vote for ideas that are radical, as long as we can present them as the best and most achievable options.

[George II]

63. But that's not the point of the OP or this discussion.

[Ken Burch]

66. From what I can see, the point of the OP is to equate any critical comments on the '16 campaign...

...with demands that our nominee beg forgiveness...

I get it that HRC just put out this book that couches it all in personal terms, but that's her choice.

Calls for personal repentance, if anybody is actually making them, are not what most of the conversation is about.

Nor should they be.

I don't want her to apologize or abase herself.

I don't know of anyone who does.

What most people are actually saying is that the party needs to change.

[sheshe2]

67. Hillary will always be a point for me.

It is not up to you to direct out conversations.

[Ken Burch]

69. I wasn't saying you should stop admiring or defending HRC.

I know better than to say anything remotely like that to you or to anyone else who backed her from the start, even if that was what I felt, which it truly wasn't.

I simply meant that discussions of our future should not be based on how people view her, whether for good or bad. I assume you basically agree with that.

If I had it in for HRC, I wouldn't keep saying she should be put on the Supreme Court by the next Dem president.

Look, we supported different people in the primaries. That happens. It's just part of life. I campaigned hard for the ticket all fall. It's not my fault Trump carried the EC and I grieved over that result as deeply as you did. Why can't you move on from that and accept that we're on the same side?

All I'm doing now is trying to help bring the progressive majority together for the future.

[sheshe2]

70. Well

I know better than to say anything remotely like that to you or to anyone else who backed her from the start, even if that was what I felt, which it truly wasn't.

I simply meant that discussions of our future should not be based on how people view her, whether for good or bad. I assume you basically agree with that.

"discussions of our future
should not be based on how people view her, whether for good or bad."

How they view her....you mean the Hill hate sponsored by Fox, the right and Russia? Those views that some swallowed whole.

Her ideas should be discussed just like everyone else's...on her merits and life long caring service to our country and all Americans. I love how she has evolved over many years. She had huge support of women and especially women of color in the GE and over 3M on the popular vote. To ignore why and how she brought them in will be like shooting ourselves in the foot.

Trust me on this, you do NOT want to lose the women's vote and you sure as hell don't want to lose the black vote. These are our largest voting base and they have always been just that. Expand our true base and do not pander to white males that cry poor me.

[Ken Burch]

74. I didn't mean the "Hill hate" from Fox. i wasn't talking about that at all.

Nor was I saying she shouldn't ever be discussed or treated with the respect to which she is due.

Obviously she had the support she had...I wasn't in any way dismissing that.

She had that for a variety of reasons, in order of descending importance, in my view;

1)She was seem as the most-qualified candidate;
2)She was perceived as being more committed to fighting social oppression than other candidates;
3)She had established more connections with communities of color-and, obviously, with women-than any other Dem candidate;
4)She was believed to be more electable than anybody else we could nominate.

All of which I accept as valid and legitimate reasons for those constituencies to make the choice they made-the primaries are settled and you know fully well I accept the result with good grace.

Not sure what you're saying we need to do to hold onto that support.

I don't think I'm advocating anything that would cost us that support.

What I'd call for-and I think this is what everybody who critiqued the fall campaign from the Left would call for-would be keeping the message her campaign helped(but did nor originate)on the need to fight social oppression and to oppose institutional bigotry-ALL of us agree on that part of her message-combined with(not replaced by, combined with) with an economic message that challenges excessive concentration of wealth and the loss of high-paying union jobs among people of ALL races, genders, identities and immigration statuses all over the country-combined with the need to speak out on Comey and the Russians and voter suppression. I'd also call for a less-militarist foreign policy, since war isn't going to be beneficial for anyone but rich white men at any point for the rest of eternity, but I realize that may not happen yet.

There's nothing in what I wrote in that paragraph that should drive POC or women(groups that are not against a stronger economic justice message and less-corporate party).

There's nothing in any of what I wrote there that would challenge HRC's presense as an elder statewoman in the party.

There's nothing there that would call on people not to defend her when she's under attack.

For that matter, I've never said she shouldn't present ideas if she has them. She has as much right to do that as anyone else.

She's said she won't run again, and I don't think Bernie will or SHOULD run again. I don't WANT him to run again.

So if you are still working on the assumption that every OP I've posted since November is some sort of coded "Sanders in '20" pitch, that is simply not true. I don't have a candidate for '20 and I don't think anybody should have a candidate for that year yet, or be speaking out any possible candidates yet.

All I've said is that we need to make some changes for '20-and none of the changes I've supported would betray or abandon anybody in the base. We never ever had to choose BETWEEN backing "social justice" or "economic justice", and we don't need to now.

What would you need to hear from me, or from those with similar views to mine, to let go of this reflexive "oh no you don't! response"?

[NastyRiffraff]

50. Oh FFS!

Do you ever quit with this crap? She hasn't apologized enough for you? Or maybe she hasn't apologized to you PERSONALLY, who knows?

[Ken Burch]

65. I just said I didn't want her to apologize. It's not about her at all

It's about the way the fall campaign was run-and, since I doubt that you made the major decisions in that campaign, it makes no sense that you are taking this as a personal attack.

HRC would have been a fine president.

I would still like to see the next Democratic president appoint her to the Supreme Court.

I have nothing against her as a person or a candidate at all.

And it's not as though we'd run a "stay the course" campaign in '20 anyway, so what is the harm in admitting we need to do some things differently?

[sheshe2]

71. We did not run "stay the course" in 2016.

[Ken Burch]

75. That's not what I meant.

We had a great platform in '16-the key problem was the decision to not make the platform the centerpiece of the campaign.

The fall campaign made the mistake of making us look far more centrist than we were-which is the classic failing of fall Dem presidential campaigns; the belief that we can't ever win the presidency by winning the argument on the issues. This goes back decades and it has always led to defeat. The Obama campaign won by running FOR, rather than just against.

I only meant we can't just run the exact same campaign in '20 in terms of how we present ourselves that we ran in '16.

[sheshe2]

76. Your words.

[Ken Burch]

79. The platform was progressive; the fall campaign strategy that largely ignored the platform wasn't

What was "stay the course" was the insistence on running the fall campaign we usually run: saying little and focusing on attacking te other ticket.

Our campaign should have been almost entirely positive and transformational and could have been if it were platform-based. Unfortunately, the choice instead was what always fails: presenting our candidate as "safe", while trying to badger progressives into supporting it by going negative on Trump. This approach was used without deviation throughout the fall, even though we knew from the outset that it wasn't shifting votes to HRC-and actual shifts to HRC from Trump were always going to be the only evidence that such an approach worked.

Given that the tactics used in the fall destroyed HRC's chances, why on Earth would you defend them?

[BlueMTexpat]

25. I have completely run out

of F*cks to give about critics of Hillary Clinton.

F*ck them ALL for eternity!

[samnsara]

27. i dont give a shit about her critics as they obviously....

...didn't give a shit about her! I cant wait to get her book....on audio. I find her spoken words to be comforting.

[procon]

29. Only if she did something like Cersei Lannister's naked "walk of shame".

"A sinner comes before you, Cersei of House Lannister. Mother to His Grace, King Tommen, widow of His Grace, King Robert. She has committed the acts of falsehood and fornication. She has confessed her sins, and begged for forgiveness. To demonstrate her repentance, she will cast aside all pride, all artifice, and present herself as the gods made her... to you, the good people of this city. She comes before you with a solemn heart, shorn of secrets, naked before the eyes of gods and men, to make her walk of atonement."

―The High Sparrow to the people of King's Landing.



Maybe a local chapter of Trump's neo-Nazis klan could accompany her, repeatedly crying out "Shame!" and ringing a bell to attract people's attention.

[Beartracks]

31. Has Trump DEBASED himself sufficiently to alarm his fans?

=============

[AtheistCrusader]

36. They LIKE it when he debases himself, and he excels at it.

But the correct analogy would be either or both McCain and Romney.

[AtheistCrusader]

35. Dunno. I see people on the far right dump on Romney now and then.

Whenever he makes the news, I see grumbling. McCain was largely forgotten, but again, a large number of people on the right crap on Palin when she hits the news.

None of it is universal on either side, by any means.


Any lingering bitterness on my part is entirely aimed at the DNC/primary process, and the shitstorm that caused. We can't afford that kind of division again. We still have some work to do to unpack what all went wrong there. Hillary herself is in no way culpable for that mess.

[Gamecock Lefty]

38. 3,000,000 more votes - Hillary can hold her head high!

[Nitram]

39. Her critics get off on hating Clinton. It's not about logic or facts anymore.

[Pris]

40. Hatred for women will

Hatred for women will continue to hurt our democracy until we take active steps to change it. We must have gender equality in the congress and in the Oval Office. It is imperative. And, men need to stand with us. We can't do it alone.

If you think Norway and Finland and Iceland are so progressive you have to understand that they have gender equality in parliament and they have had female presidents.

Women count.

[sheshe2]

47. Excellent post.

Welcome to DU, Pris.

[lapucelle]

60. I have a decoder ring...

"flawed" candidate = female candidate

Only one candidate was held to a standard of perfection.

Welcome to DU!

[ProudProgressiveNow]

41. K&R nt

[StevieM]

45. Even this article is actually somewhat unfairly critical of Clinton.

"Did she make mistakes? Of course she did. She was too complacent about states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin that Democrats hadn’t lost in many presidential campaigns. Her criticisms of Trump were too focused on what a repugnant human being he is and not enough on his agenda to help the wealthy and powerful. She didn’t do enough to turn out black and Hispanic voters. You could make a long list."

The talking points about Michigan and (to a lesser extent) Wisconsin are often inaccurate. Pennsylvania is just made up out of thin air, and often thrown in for good measure. And she tried very hard to turn out Black and Hispanic voters. Actually, the exit polls on Latinos from Election Day have been completely debunked--she outperformed Barack Obama among Latino voters.

[lapucelle]

56. I worked in PA.

The loss was surprising and heartbreaking.

[leftofcool]

57. Uh, no.

[SethH]

59. I consider that a rude response

fwiw

[lapucelle]

64. Your concern is duly noted, but

Hillary or her supporters hurting the the party is a non-starter. We're not the danger. We're Democrats.

[Bladewire]

54. Abase herself for winning by 3 million votes?

Yeah right!

"Oh but you did win by getting the special voters in the special key states" fuck that bullshit

[apkhgp]

77. This is all messed up

I never felt that she did anything wrong. The Right wing is still calling her "Crooked Hillary". I would like them to shut up already.

[Blue_Tires]

80. No, because

her critics on the right and especially the left are batshit insane and the only thing that will please them is Hillary's obituary... Which just means they'd divert all their rage to Chelsea instead.

[geek tragedy]

81. As long as she stays far away from the spotlight in 2018

I think her critics will be ok.

[Zorro]

82. New Clinton Memoir: We All Made Mistakes But You Made Most Of Them

NEW YORK—In candid excerpts released Wednesday from her forthcoming memoir What Happened, Hillary Clinton reflects on her unsuccessful 2016 presidential bid, revealing to readers, “We all made mistakes, but you made most of them.”

“I’m not suggesting it’s entirely your fault, but, let’s be frank, 99 percent of it is,” read one passage from the chapter entitled “Seriously, What Were You Thinking?” in which the former candidate conceded missteps she had made over the course of her campaign while also clarifying that none of them should have produced the final election outcome, which she characterized as “squarely on you fucking people.”

“Indeed, fake news and Russian meddling played a part, and I’ve acknowledged I wasn’t the perfect candidate, but let’s not lose sight of the fact that the majority of the blame—all but the tiniest sliver—lies with you, the idiot voters. You really blew it, dumbasses. Bravo!”

Sources later confirmed that Clinton devotes the final chapter of her memoir to how she has moved on from the election, begging her readers to not fuck that up for her too.

http://www.theonion.com/article/new-clinton-memoir-we-all-made-mistakes-you-made-m-56743

[ehrnst]

86. This:

So let's say this really slowly: It's possible to simultaneously acknowledge that 1) Clinton made plenty of mistakes, and 2) there were egregious problems with the way the campaign was covered, problems that contributed to the outcome. Calling attention to the latter doesn't negate the former.