Don’t blame me. I held my nose and voted for her. That was hard. I travelled to a neighboring state to canvass door to door for Bernie’s first campaign. I swore long ago that I would never vote for anyone who authorized the Iraq war, as she voted to do. And I happen to be LGBT, and she has never been much of an ally to us.
I set all that aside and voted for her.
There’s no feeling quite like giving up your dignity for absolutely nothing.
My friends and I are all huge Bernie supporters. We still voted for Hillary. We weren't happy about it, but we voted. All the blame against Bernie supporters bothers me. It wasn't us... And to use Bernie as the scapegoat is hiding the real problems in the system and the idiotic choices the democratic party makes. She still won the popular vote. We voted. Gerrymandering sucks.
It's hilarious because the amount of Hillary 08 supporters who voted McCain instead of Obama is much than Bernie supporters who voted Trump.
The whole "Bernie bro" thing was 90% astroturfing. I'm sure a few individuals hopped onto that artificial bandwagon, but I don't expect it was too many.
You vote your conscience in the primary and you do your duty in the main. Simple as that.
I agree. As a Bernie supporter, though, I got a heck of a lot of pressure to “do my duty” even in the primary, because “we have to nominate the candidate who has the best chance of winning.” The shitshow is doing everything it can to move upstream.
This drives me bonkers. The candidate who has the best chance of winning is the one that gets people talking and actually interested in voting. It’s not like there’s a cage match between the candidates and it’s not like the debates actually matter in terms of who wins. Votes are what wins. Votes are caused by interest. Interest is caused by lots of things but it’s not by making sure the milquetoast center right “progressive” candidate is the one who makes it to the main event.
The other side isn’t going to vote for “our” candidate no matter what. We need to get “our” side actually interested in voting. The number of people who vote in this country is pathetic to begin with. It completely defeats the legitimacy of our elections from the off.
yeah, my state consistently goes red within minutes after polls closing [obama aside]. it's fucking draining and depressing to even think about
I can't say in the right words what a terrible choice Clinton was, and the party that let that nomination race play out as it did should be blamed for the result.
I'd greatly, greatly prefer an actually progressive candidate over Clinton. But I still disagree that Clinton ass a terrible choice from an objective viewpoint. The main way I can see her being terrible is largely simply in the "meta" for US elections, since she had been attacked so hard by Republicans and generally wasn't very charismatic (not that Biden is either).
In terms of experience, she was undeniably unbeatable and I'm convinced she would have simply been Obama v1.1 in terms of policy.
IMO the strong, strong opposition to her was heavily influenced by sexism and people drinking the GOP's propaganda. She was held to different standards than a male candidate with the same experience.
And the whole complaints about the party favouring her? So what? Of course they favoured the strongest candidate. I personally love Sanders (and if I were American, he'd have my vote), but I know he'd have an even harder time winning the general. Nor do I think it makes sense to hate Clinton herself because her party favoured her so strongly. Some "Bernie bros" were utterly bizarre in their behavior and I can only assume were trolls, as no well informed person would vote for Trump or not vote at all simply because Sanders wasn't on the general ballot. I mean, there's a reason he endorsed Clinton at the end.
I think a lot of opposition to her was that she was a war hawk. She was openly calling for the US to bomb Syria and establish no fly zones there, which would have also escalated a potential conflict with Russia. I don't know a single person in my life who wanted the US to get involved in another useless war.
Not american either, but I followed it. During the nomination race, Trump had already been confirmed as the Republican nominee. There was various polling done while the Democrat race was still up, and Sanders polled quite a bit more likely to defeat Trump than Hillary. Which obviously turned out to be the case. So I don't know how certain your "strongest candidate" statement is. Polls are not facts, but it seemed to indicate something there that the leadership of the Dems ignored.
I agree. I voted for Hillary, but we were all sick of the dynastic candidates back then. Two Bushes followed by two Clinton's rubbed people the wrong way.
Plus, the right had been demonizing Hillary for so long, people on both sides were tired of it.
That's all before actual policy issues.
She was a poor candidate choice.
Thank you! Other platforms are so astroturfed that this fact is often covered up with accusations of sexism. The fact is that ever poll at the time said that everyone could beat Trump except for her. She was political poison and her and the DNC cheated to make her the candidate which scared off even more voters. She is the reason we suffered as a country, not the supposed savior!
I want the timeline where West Palm Beach used a normal ballot and Gore won 2000. Much better point of diversion.
The candidate who made such a big deal out of climate change South Park devoted an episode to making fun of him. Aaaand then they took it back, apologized, and the educated public has begun accepting climate change.
USA could've been world leaders in green tech in 2001, and instead they're just now catching up in 2023.
Neither major candidate got more than 50% of the popular vote even in my very red state. It's not a problem with people going out and voting, the voting public just didn't like either candidate. 2016 was the first election I supported a third party, and it was the first time my parents supported an independent.
Both candidates really sucked. Trump was bad enough that I voted for Biden, despite really not liking Biden. He had almost no chance to win by state, but I still voted for him anyway just to send a message.
We need to fix our electoral system. Instead of voting for the lesser of two evils, I should be able to vote for everyone I am comfortable with. We should adopt either an approval system, range/ranked voting, or some other system other than FPTP. If you want more people to vote, that's how you get it. Make it so people can vote their conscience without feeling like they're throwing their vote away and maybe people will care more.
Always vote 3rd party or independent at the local level (after researching) because it's the only way to change things over time.
Absolutely. I rarely vote for the majority party candidate, and I'll often rotate between the minority (Dem in my case) and third parties/independents depending on the candidate.
I'm not in a swing state, so I have the benefit of always feeling like I can always vote my conscience instead of picking the lesser of two evils. However, that should ideally be the case everywhere, so we really need voting reform so you can always vote your conscience without worrying about "a vote for X is a vote for Y" nonsense.
What’s even more upsetting is the republicans held a Supreme Court nominee hostage for a year.
Don't forget that they then went and did the exact thing that they used as an excuse for holding up the Obama nomination - voted in Coney Barret in an election year.
They are truly disgusting, self-serving garbage with no regard for any of the consequences they are bringing down on the public. Essentially, a complete and utter lack of empathy. Which is a trait I tend to find in the people in my life that still vote for Trump/Republicans.
Why's the alternative timeline still have to be total garbage lol. You're making up a completely fictional timeline, have some respect for yourself man, jesus
Right? Hillary wins, Democrats still have less than 60 in the Senate, and no Supreme Court justices get appointed, including RBG's seat after she passes. Next Republican president wins, Kennedy retires, and Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barret still get appointed. The end.
In another timeline RGB just retired early enough Obama put a different justice in lol. In another timeline they chose a better frontrunner who could actually win with people across the aisle (Bernie was viewed differently in 2016 imo). I can't shit on the Merrick Garland incident too much, but kind of a case where the Dems didn't hold up enough of their end of the bargain to retain seats.
Pretty fragile political system you got there
It was designed for gridlock. The excess pressure has to vent somewhere. This is it
?
In an alternate timeline, Bernie wins the nomination and cleans up the general.
Problem is democrats are just looking out for different rich people.
I understand the sentiment, but this gives off major “TOLD YOU SO” vibes. The better message is to get people to vote based on recent accomplishments rather than “tHiNgS wOuLd HaVe BeEn BeTteR iF hIlArY wOn”
it was not just one election, the democrats have done nothing but bend over backwards and fold every time the Republicans do some shit. Im over it, we cant trust the Democrats to ever organize or do shit, and we can always trust the Republicans to cheat and lie.
These are the consequences of taking Wisconsin and Michigan for granted, and talking crap about coal in Pennsylvania.
We DID go out and vote, but the candidates HAVE to run a 50 state strategy for it to make a difference.
Clinton lost Wisconsin by 22,748 votes.
Michigan by 10,704 votes.
Pennsylvania by 44,292 votes.
Those three states threw the election to Trump. Clinton wins would have made the electoral vote 273 to 258 Clinton.
Biden won all three.
It's worth noting, despite the terrible campaign, Clinton still won the popular vote.
That is a 50 state strategy. The electoral college is a problem, too.
We don't have national elections. Carrying California by 4,269,978 votes doesn't matter when you only need 50%+1 for a state.
The national vote count was 65,853,514 for Clinton and 62,984,828 for Trump, a difference of 2,868,686.
As noted, California had a 4.2 million overvote.
I have seen 11/22/63. I’m not sure where that alternative timeline will take us.
So have I and I’m 100% willing to chance it.
We needed candidates that inspire people like Obama did (even though Obama threw the organizational infrastructure in the trash after his win). Hillary... did not.
This should be the rallying cry before the next election. It should be splashed across billboards, made into a commercial by Meidas Touch and shown in prime time, and be an ad on Facebook plating as often as the atrocious "HeGetsUs" ads.
Don't just vote, organize as well. Electoralism without orginization accomplishes little at best.