2016 was an incredible year of political upsets. Brexit, Italy and, the whopper of them all,
the historic defeat of Hillary Clinton.
Immediately following her loss President Barack Obama, the Democratic
Party and media allies, who were all repudiated, have been on witch hunt to
blame everything other than failed people and polices. Their bogymen have been fake news, Russian
hackers, James Comey, and voters who practice bigotry and intolerance.
The Clinton loss was based on the collision of political rhetoric and
reality. For the past eight years the
public was told all is getting better, unemployment is low, the economy is
growing, Americans have racism in their DNA, ISIS is jayvee, Syria best not
cross the red-line, and the government can give everybody healthcare with low
to no premiums. However, reality was
different. The average wage went down in
an economy with anemic growth. Many
people had to work two part-time jobs because employers cut-back on full time
workers. Global foreign policy
collapsed. Health insurance premiums
became more expensive. And voters who
were not for Clinton saw themselves not as sexists and racists, but decent Americans
who simply gave-up on the policies of the past eight years. So people in 30 of the 50 states cast their
popular vote for a change.
*****
If Clinton never had an email server and conflicts with her Clinton
Foundation then, odds are, she would have been president. But she, and she alone, chose her path to
conceal communications during her entire tenure as Secretary and create the
pay-for-play scenario. Then, when caught,
she lied as to why she did it, how she did it, and actively worked to cover-up
the affair. This has been her history of
concealment, disregard to rules she believes don’t apply to her, and just bad
judgment.
It was not Comey, as he was pursuing her emails – her fault. It was not the Russians, as they exposed
factual communications of the DNC, CNN, and Clinton campaign. This was not fake news, but embarrassing news
that exposed media bias and bigotry in and around the Clinton
organization. It is no concern that
Russians had nothing to say about Trump, as that was left to the U.S. media who
put Trump’s taxes, tapes, talk back, and a litany of other items front and
center for the public.
Now Democrats are “shocked” that the Russians would attempt to interfere,
as if that had anything to do with Clinton’s defeat. Or that the Russians or any number of foreign
governments had not been pursuing hacking for years – and the U.S. to them as
well. Mind you, we are not advocating
for the Russians, but simply pointing out that this was not the cause of
Clinton’s loss.
Hillary Clinton and the far left are now calling for legislation to
protect people from the “harmful” effects of false news and investigations into
Russian hacking. It appears, once again,
that people need protection from themselves, and high minded liberals are there
to protect the irresponsible. To give
the “truth” as such truth is determined by liberal interpreters.
But let’s recall some of those high-minded liberals who sought to
influence presidential elections without the help of Russians. There was Senator Harry Reid who, in 2012,
said that Mitt Romney hadn’t paid taxes for 10 years. After Barack Obama won and Reid was
confronted with his statement Reid admitted it was a lie and crowed: It worked,
didn’t it?! In another presidential
election, Dan Rather on the CBS TV show, 60 Minutes, published a story with
fake evidence on George W. Bush. When
Rather was caught with false evidence he did a follow-up story only to say he
got the facts wrong but the story right.
Rather was fired shortly thereafter by CBS.
*****
Beyond these issues was Hillary’s own contradictions. Claiming she was for the common man just did
not ring true with Hillary as an elite.
She roiled against Wall Street but accepted lavish payments from same
for her speeches to them. Her slogan was
“Stronger Together” but pronounced she would put coal mines and coal workers
out business and out of jobs. So which
was the real Hillary?
Hillary touted her experience to be President and Commander In Chief but
her experience was more like a participation trophy. She was First Lady, as if that made her
qualified to be president. And during her
time as FLOTUS she was embroiled in Travelgate, dead Vince Foster, the Rose Law
firm missing billing records, a dubious commodity trade, and the failure what
was HillaryCare. Then, as Senator from
NY she had no major legislation to her credit.
And as Secretary of State her crowning achievement was traveling a lot.
Nowhere in her resume was a list of noteworthy accomplishments, but there
was a list of failure and bad judgment.
Secretary Clinton oversaw the failed Russian reset, failed Syria policy,
Benghazi debacle that lead to the deaths of four Americans, and her email
server that, at the worst, exposed secret information to unfriendly foreign
nations and, at its best, was “extreme carelessness” (as categorized by
Comey). While the Left touts there were
no criminal charges, they fail to note the Inspector General report that her
email server was not authorized and against policy.
*****
With the election over, it is sheer hypocrisy that Clinton and the
Democrats now, after deriding Trump for having the audacity to say he would
questions the results of the election, want to change the results of the
election. After beating the drum for the
peaceful transition of power, these people, who thought the election was in the
bag, called for the electors to “vote their conscience” and not vote for
Trump. They demanded 37 electors change
their vote, even if that meant violating state laws that bind the electors to
the popular vote. However, what has to
be the greatest irony of all, was only two electors switched their vote from
Trump, but eight attempted to switch from Clinton!
Hillary Clinton lost because she was a bad candidate, with an ineffective
message, an ignorant Electoral-College strategy, a legacy of lies, and an
inability to excite women, minorities and millennials that she depended upon to
vote in large numbers. She lost because
of inadequate economic growth caused by the Obama and Democratic policies she
supports. She lost because she had a
trail of failure and bad judgment. She
lost because she took the election for granted by thinking it was now “her turn”. Fake news, Comey and Russian hackers are
nothing more than a ruse.
For 2017, Democrats and the liberal media are better to take stock of the
last eight years. Instead of crowing
that Hillary won the popular vote and, therefore, the country is really behind
Democrats, it would be wise for them to understand the larger reality. Democrats have been turned-out of the
majority of elected state and federal legislative and executive offices, and
the liberal media has essentially been ignored in the bulk of the country. Trying to blame something or someone other
than liberal people and policies may bolster self-esteem but not acceptance.
