Trump Slams Allies in favor of Putin (again)...

[Dill]

(07-17-2018, 10:31 AM)jj22 Wrote: Exactly. The Clinton "baggage" was fake Russian propaganda that was pushed and believed by American voters... That's how they effected the outcome of the election. Ok Hillary lost, but people slamming her for not being able to defeat Trump and Russia is asking an awful lot wouldn't you say? That's why I won't slam her as a candidate. She shouldn't have had to defeat a foreign power and Americans shouldn't keep slamming her for not being able to.

(07-17-2018, 10:09 AM)GMDino Wrote: The further we get away from 2016 the less I buy the "Clinton Baggage" excuse.

Most of her baggage was false stories from her opponents:  Uranium deal, child trafficking, "Clinton body count", Benghazi.

I'll buy people didn't want another Clinton in...but the excuse that she had "baggage" rings a little more hollow every day.  It's not like Trump didn't have plenty of baggage.

I tend to agree with you guys. Clinton's "baggage" was largely manufactured, and it was also a strength in the sense it was a measure the Right's opposition to her.  Only Obama was "weaker" and had more "scandals."

The big puzzle is still why Clinton's mostly faux baggage seems to have had more negative effect than Trump's real baggage. Why the incessant equivocation of Trump's bad behavior and incompetence from "independents" and the like, but such a ready willingness to believe Hillary killed Vince Foster and Seth Rich, not to mention gave 20% or Uranium to the Russians. Tacking back towards the center, as she tried to do, made her dependent on votes most susceptible to Comey and Russian interventions.

I don't get the impulse to blame Hillary, given the kind of opposition she was up against. She was not the politician Obama and Bill were, but she was certainly competent. That was central to her message and enough voters rejected that in favor of "shake things up". Today most of American is embarrassed and the world is embarrassed for us--except Russia, Israel, Syria, and North Korea. Were she elected we would not be experiencing the current foreign policy embarassments and unforced errors, not to mention the incremental dismantling of a world order set in place after WWII.