The Rift on the Left: Some Hard Truths About Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton is also a lightning rod of emotion, both good and bad. How fair is that and how much can be attributed to her?

Hillary Clinton is also a lightning rod of emotion, both good and bad. How fair is that and how much can be attributed to her?

In the previous post in this series, I talked about Bernie Sanders, what I thought of his candidacy, and why the Democratic Party establishment (and a portion of the voting public) detests him. That is part of the puzzle of what ails the left. Another part of the puzzle is the mixed reaction to Hillary Clinton.

If you are still a supporter of Hillary Clinton this post will be tough for you to read (but please read this post in full before commenting). And to be honest, this isn’t an easy post for me to write. It has not been easy to criticize Barack Obama, either, but there are valid criticisms of him, too.

If any part of those post angers those who read it and I lose followers because of what I have to say, so be it. That can’t be helped, because we all need to be honest about HRC’s candidacy regardless. And we need to do an honest evaluation before we can even begin to talk about unity on the left.

If you manage to read everything I have laid out here, you might think I am being mean-spirited or that this post is one-sided, but that’s not what I want to do. If anything, this is tough love. Because Clinton was the Democratic nominee, we need to get to the heart of her campaign’s flaws and understand the anger surrounding her loss.

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The Rift on the Left: The Bernie Sanders Effect

Sen. Bernie Sanders is a source of hope and disdain, depending on whom you ask (on the left). Why is that so? There are a least a few obvious reasons.

How did Bernie Sanders become a factor in the 2016 election and what were the long-term effects of his candidacy?

To be quite honest, I never really heard of Bernie Sanders until a few years ago. That should tell you how little I paid attention to politics.

Yet from 2010-2012, I could only find one person who consistently praised Sanders. I thought, “What makes this Senator so special?” without bothering to do much research on him. At the time I was preoccupied with life in general and trying to finish up school.

By the time 2016 rolled around, I began to know more about this independent Senator from Vermont. And it became clear why he had a growing following. But he was running as a Democrat and going up against the eventual Democratic nominee. The odds were stacked against him and I never really expected him to win.

However:

As the primary went on, Sanders was closing the initial gap between him and Clinton. At the same time, the race on the Democratic side was getting more contentious. Naturally, there was bickering as the Clinton and Sanders factions were getting louder.

The acrimony between the factions increased as Sanders supporters accused the DNC of collusion and vote-rigging and they were being chided for various reasons. I will get into these accusations in subsequent posts, but I address part of the anger here.

The Rift on the Left: We Have to Revisit the 2016 Presidential Election

Finally! After months of research, I can now present my in-depth breakdown of the 2016 presidential election. In keeping with the overall theme of this series, this post will cover a lot of the narratives an immediate fallout.

Originally, I wanted to take a look at the highlights I can remember from the past election, beginning in the spring of 2015. However, I thought about it and realized that I needed to simplify things for myself by separating the overall themes and making a timeline later, for my own purposes. I still ended up putting some extra work in.

Unfortunately, it’s hard for me to summarize the election without going through all the important highlights (and there are so many to mention). Therefore, I am skipping to the end and pointing out some things I feel are important.

That said I cannot get into the aftermath without first looking at the important issues leading up to the 2016 presidential race and discussing the three most important players in the race. And after that, I want to discuss the following narratives that came out of this election.

About Hillary Clinton’s New [Burn] Book

You’re not alone, Hillary. I couldn’t believe what happened on Election Night. Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr. Some rights reserved.

This is a couple of days late, but I wanted to weigh in on What Happened, a new book that dropped on September 12. Well, after looking at a number of reviews and find a buttload of quotes, I would call this a burn book because it contains a series of essays where Hillary Clinton unloads on a bunch of people including James Comey, Jill Stein, Vladimir Putin, The Bohemian Professor, and The Sad Bambino.

The Reception of this book was mixed (even before the official release), which is to be expected of the offering of such a polarizing figure.

The have been a number of memes where Twitter users shared photoshopped images of the book.

pic.twitter.com/o1x6X2qQdM

— Trumpism 9.0™ (@Team_Trump45) September 3, 2017

There was even a controversy with Amazon reviews.

But the book tour has been selling out in blue states and sales of the book itself have already set 2017 records.

Now what do I think of the book? Well, I haven’t read it. However, I have found some in-depth reviews and I have found quite a few quotes from the book to boot.

Based on the limited information I have, this is a non-review. But it looks like the book is covering everything Clinton has already said about this past election ad I do have thoughts on those areas.

Here goes.

Are Third-Party Voters to Blame When Democrats Lose?

Gary Johnson (Libertarian Party) and Jill Stein (Green Party) are often blamed for taking votes away from Hillary Clinton in 2016. Why are third-party voters often blamed for Democratic defeats?

In April, CalicoJack posted a meme based on last year’s presidential election. In short, the meme equated a vote for third-party candidates to being a vote for Trump. Third-party voters were being blamed in advance throughout 2016 and with all due respect, I disagree with that notion.

Basically, a vote for Trump was a vote for Trump. Of course, there are plenty of people throwing shade at Trump voters. Others have decided to retract their claws when dealing with those voters and instead go after other liberals, third-party voters, and nonvoters.

Just today, I got an angry post from an ignorant person because I questioned the efficacy of liberals biting each other’s heads off because of what happened in November 2016. That person also proved all my points, though.

You wanna know why this person was ignorant? In 2016, I told others that voting for Clinton (at least in the states where she needed the electoral votes) gave them a better chance getting some of their progressive platform items passed. I just wanted Clinton to each out more to disaffected voters (instead of Republicans who hated her guts). So I don’t know why this … individual was getting mad at me.

Speaking of third parties, though: A vote for a third-party candidate was more complicated then it looked on the surface. Don’t believe me? Well, let’s look at why people may have voted third-party. Let’s take a look at the numbers while we’re at it.

The Rift on the Left: An Overview

The 2016 U.S. Presidential Election started in earnest, but things soon became heated between two factions: The Hillary Clinton wing of the party and the “insurgent” Bernie Sanders Wing of the Party. This is an overview. Image via Disney | ABC Television Group/Flickr (Some rights reserved).

Just like I did for my Sexism in Naruto series, I’m going to give an overview for this one. It’s been awhile since I made the introduction for this series, so I want to leave my readers with something.

Now, I have already started writing a couple of posts in this series, but I cannot move forward until I write the 2016 Presidential Election Recap. That will be the hardest post for me to write but only due to the sheer volume of research and writing I still need to do.

We Need to Talk About the Rift on the Left

The rift on the left was made more apparent during the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election. Photograph by A. Shaker/VOA [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

The 2016 election was one of the ugliest in recent memory. I know many will agree with me on that, but for different reasons. Regardless, one thing that cannot be ignored is how this past election — and the primary alone — exposed the chasms that already existed within the Democratic Party and deepened the rift on the left overall.

The Benefits of a New American Order

By Suze

Shmaltz and Menudo’s Note: Today, we will change up things for a bit. Instead of my long-winded Write Anything Wednesday Post, I will let Suze share her thoughts on this 2016 Presidential Election (U.S.).

I know we are all completely sick to death of hearing about the election, but I just want to take a few moments to assure all of us that there may indeed be blessings to be found in Mr. Trump becoming our 45th President. I am calling it the New American Order.

My Thoughts on Hillary Clinton’s Leaked Audio

This past week, many of us may have heard about the leaked audio from one of Hillary Clinton’s fundraisers. The fundraiser in question took place on February 16, 2016 and the speech lasted close to 50 minutes.

The Washington Free Beacon obtained the leaked audio and shared it on SoundCloud. Now, while the accompanying article from the news outlet focused on Clinton’s Nuclear concerns, many people could not ignore the comments Clinton made about her opponents in the race and specifically, the comments Clinton Bernie Sanders’ supporters.

Hillary Clinton’s Problems with Young Voters

We all know that Hillary Clinton has problems with young voters.

I have been working on a series of posts on another site, and I have been talking about the 2016 Presidential Election. So far, I have looked at the two major candidates, as well as the two candidates from the Libertarian and Green Parties, Gary Johnson and Jill Stein, respectively.