// essays //
Fall 2016
A Post-Election Autopsy
Why Hillary Clinton Lost
Robert Godfried
I am still coming to terms with our new orange overlord: Donald Trump. He is a singularity, nearly unique in all of American politics for being outright racist and sexist, yet still managing to win a major political campaign. But in order to fully understand how Donald Trump came to be our 45th President, we must first try to comprehend why Hillary Clinton lost.
Most obviously, she generally failed to inspire her base. I watched many fellow Columbia students volunteer for Bernie Sanders, insist that their friends register to vote for him, and even go so far as to even match with people on Tinder in order to solicit support for the candidate. However, Hillary Clinton did not receive such adamant support from the youth. In fact, she received nearly the opposite: lack of enthusiasm all together. During the primary, “Sanders won more votes among those under age 30 than the two presumptive major-party presidential nominees combined,” the Washington Post reported in June.
When I went to Ohio to canvass for her, I was one of the only young people to show up to volunteer. The most common type of volunteer was a retiree, usually over the age of 60. After a few days of knocking on doors, I was left with a sense of confusion and a question: where are my fellow college students? Will they even show up and vote? My fears were confirmed on Election Day: not only did college students not show up to volunteer for Clinton, they didn’t even go out in droves to vote for her. According to Bloomberg News, only 55 percent of young voters chose Clinton, down from the 60 percent that backed Obama in 2012.
From these facts the next question logically unfurls: why did Clinton fail to inspire? The answer to this question is incredibly nuanced and infinitely less self-evident. Perhaps it was that she appeared to be almost too diplomatic––too willing to negotiate on core issues. Rather than demanding drastic, potentially impossible, changes, like Bernie Sanders’ call for free public colleges, she championed smaller (but nonetheless significant) causes such as lessening the burden of student debt. Although her reforms would have, arguably, been more passable in Congress, they failed to inspire the same fervor of support from young people. Clinton campaigned as much more of a pragmatist than as an idealist, and this cost her the youth vote. Part of the reason that Barack Obama inspired such hope and passion in young people is because he offered a romanticized version of the American Dream: one in which all could achieve success if they simply worked hard enough. Bernie Sanders’ vision, though often unrealistic and lacking in details, was also rooted in this same idealism. For this reason, he was able to inspire voters, whereas Clinton—the pragmatist—was not.
Clinton also seemed to forget that the Democratic Party is primarily the Party of the Working Man. It has long fought for organized labor, social welfare programs, and the minimum wage. Yet all of these issues seemed to get little attention from the Clinton campaign. This resonated with and alienated working class voters. On the other hand, Trump’s campaign rhetoric centered on the promise to the working class in middle America that he would ensure the return of manufacturing jobs and a revival of their former way of life. That offer proved hard to pass up: as a result, many historically blue districts, inhabited by blue-collar workers who usually vote Democrat, turned red. It appears that the working class did not see a brighter future under the Clinton administration.
In lieu of serious discussions on real issues and policies such as the affordability of higher education and labor reform, the end of the election season consisted of only ad hominem attacks, spewed vitriolically by both sides. The only thing we seemed to hear from the Clinton camp was how unfit Donald Trump was to be president. But ultimately, the argument that your opponent is unfit to govern is not a compelling argument for why I should vote for you. Debasing the election into merely a battle of personal character ensured that this the campaign season was completely detached from the issues, a fact that struck a chord with many voters who were fed up and looking for change.
There are also several other issues that plagued Clinton even before she declared her candidacy. As a former First Lady, senator, and Secretary of State, she was a seasoned political insider seeking the highest public office in the land. This meant that no matter what she did, it would prove very difficult to break from the narrative that an elite Washington politician who seeks office merely does so from deep selfish ambition, rather than a desire to serve and represent the average American. In fact, nearly all of the recent winning presidential campaigns have possessed the desirable “outsider” status on some level, which helped propel the candidates to victory (whether or not they were truly “outsiders”). We can look back to Ronald Reagan as the political outsider who shook up the establishment, Bill Clinton as the rugged, everyman from Arkansas who spoke for and like the common man, and Barack Obama, the political newcomer—too young to be entrenched—who came from an atypical background and overcame everything to become president. Even George W. Bush, whose father was a former President of the United States—thus making him the ultimate insider—portrayed himself as the antithesis of a Washington elitist, the president you could grab a beer with. In each of these cases, the candidate mobilized an underdog narrative in his campaign, which certainly helped propel him to victory. Clinton should have had no trouble tapping into this narrative; as a woman, she is the ultimate underdog. For some reason, though, she couldn’t shed this image of Washington insider and become the underdog we all root for on Election Day.
In addition, Clinton was portrayed as “untrustworthy” by the media. This characterization resulted from the scandals involving her use of a private email server while Secretary of State and the criticism she received for her handling of the attack on the American Embassy in Benghazi. Personally, I failed to understand how using a private email server, a practice performed by numerous Secretaries of State before her, made her untrustworthy. I also do not fully understand how a mistake she made while serving as Secretary of State somehow translated into theories that she was conspiring to kill Americans. Perhaps, though, the most legitimate inquiries into her trustworthiness were the numerous conflicts of interest regarding the Clinton Foundation. On the other hand, even these claims seem relatively minor considering the organization's mission is to fight global poverty.
In addition, such claims seem to pale in comparison to the massive conflict of interest that arises from Trump's refusal to place his business in a blind trust when he assumes the Office of the President. The Clinton campaign attributed the preponderance of claims about Clinton’s untrustworthiness to the “attack machines” of the right, and in truth, there is a fair amount of evidence that a media apparatus functioned throughout much of her career in public service with the singular aim of discrediting her. Nonetheless, there is some legitimacy to the outrage created by these scandals, though it is hard not to view coverage of these scandals as rooted in sexism, particularly since Donald Trump said and did far worse yet was not discredited for these actions.
The charges of untrustworthiness were deeply amplified by sexism, as there exists the pervasive perception that an ambitious woman in the workplace is somehow nebulous: working for herself, attempting to undermine others, participating in unsavory business practices. Indeed, much of this perception might derive from masculine anxiety. Fear that a powerful woman just might beat a man at a man’s game in a man’s world. Regardless of how this stereotype came into the collective consciousness, it stuck and was unfairly applied to Clinton as one of the chief critiques against her.
Despite all of these shortcomings, Clinton won the popular vote by more than 2 million votes. It is essential to remember that she did not lose the Electoral College by that large a margin. In fact, in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, she lost by a razor thin margin. All in all, though Clinton failed to resonate with many voters, the election was still tight, suggesting that Democrats still having a fighting chance in years to come. However, this election also has implications for the Democratic Party after Hillary and Bernie. Democrats must decide where they want their party to head, how it must change. And if they hope to be successful in the next election, Democrats must look for a new leader who can effectively inspire through the promise of a brighter future for working class Americans in the Rust Belt, invigorate young voters to engage politically, and serve the needs of minority constituents, whose status became especially tenuous on November 8, 2016. However, most of all, we must remain unified, Democrats must refuse to become too disheartened by this election and not allow ourselves to be torn apart by political infighting. At the end of the day, we are stronger together.
Most obviously, she generally failed to inspire her base. I watched many fellow Columbia students volunteer for Bernie Sanders, insist that their friends register to vote for him, and even go so far as to even match with people on Tinder in order to solicit support for the candidate. However, Hillary Clinton did not receive such adamant support from the youth. In fact, she received nearly the opposite: lack of enthusiasm all together. During the primary, “Sanders won more votes among those under age 30 than the two presumptive major-party presidential nominees combined,” the Washington Post reported in June.
When I went to Ohio to canvass for her, I was one of the only young people to show up to volunteer. The most common type of volunteer was a retiree, usually over the age of 60. After a few days of knocking on doors, I was left with a sense of confusion and a question: where are my fellow college students? Will they even show up and vote? My fears were confirmed on Election Day: not only did college students not show up to volunteer for Clinton, they didn’t even go out in droves to vote for her. According to Bloomberg News, only 55 percent of young voters chose Clinton, down from the 60 percent that backed Obama in 2012.
From these facts the next question logically unfurls: why did Clinton fail to inspire? The answer to this question is incredibly nuanced and infinitely less self-evident. Perhaps it was that she appeared to be almost too diplomatic––too willing to negotiate on core issues. Rather than demanding drastic, potentially impossible, changes, like Bernie Sanders’ call for free public colleges, she championed smaller (but nonetheless significant) causes such as lessening the burden of student debt. Although her reforms would have, arguably, been more passable in Congress, they failed to inspire the same fervor of support from young people. Clinton campaigned as much more of a pragmatist than as an idealist, and this cost her the youth vote. Part of the reason that Barack Obama inspired such hope and passion in young people is because he offered a romanticized version of the American Dream: one in which all could achieve success if they simply worked hard enough. Bernie Sanders’ vision, though often unrealistic and lacking in details, was also rooted in this same idealism. For this reason, he was able to inspire voters, whereas Clinton—the pragmatist—was not.
Clinton also seemed to forget that the Democratic Party is primarily the Party of the Working Man. It has long fought for organized labor, social welfare programs, and the minimum wage. Yet all of these issues seemed to get little attention from the Clinton campaign. This resonated with and alienated working class voters. On the other hand, Trump’s campaign rhetoric centered on the promise to the working class in middle America that he would ensure the return of manufacturing jobs and a revival of their former way of life. That offer proved hard to pass up: as a result, many historically blue districts, inhabited by blue-collar workers who usually vote Democrat, turned red. It appears that the working class did not see a brighter future under the Clinton administration.
In lieu of serious discussions on real issues and policies such as the affordability of higher education and labor reform, the end of the election season consisted of only ad hominem attacks, spewed vitriolically by both sides. The only thing we seemed to hear from the Clinton camp was how unfit Donald Trump was to be president. But ultimately, the argument that your opponent is unfit to govern is not a compelling argument for why I should vote for you. Debasing the election into merely a battle of personal character ensured that this the campaign season was completely detached from the issues, a fact that struck a chord with many voters who were fed up and looking for change.
There are also several other issues that plagued Clinton even before she declared her candidacy. As a former First Lady, senator, and Secretary of State, she was a seasoned political insider seeking the highest public office in the land. This meant that no matter what she did, it would prove very difficult to break from the narrative that an elite Washington politician who seeks office merely does so from deep selfish ambition, rather than a desire to serve and represent the average American. In fact, nearly all of the recent winning presidential campaigns have possessed the desirable “outsider” status on some level, which helped propel the candidates to victory (whether or not they were truly “outsiders”). We can look back to Ronald Reagan as the political outsider who shook up the establishment, Bill Clinton as the rugged, everyman from Arkansas who spoke for and like the common man, and Barack Obama, the political newcomer—too young to be entrenched—who came from an atypical background and overcame everything to become president. Even George W. Bush, whose father was a former President of the United States—thus making him the ultimate insider—portrayed himself as the antithesis of a Washington elitist, the president you could grab a beer with. In each of these cases, the candidate mobilized an underdog narrative in his campaign, which certainly helped propel him to victory. Clinton should have had no trouble tapping into this narrative; as a woman, she is the ultimate underdog. For some reason, though, she couldn’t shed this image of Washington insider and become the underdog we all root for on Election Day.
In addition, Clinton was portrayed as “untrustworthy” by the media. This characterization resulted from the scandals involving her use of a private email server while Secretary of State and the criticism she received for her handling of the attack on the American Embassy in Benghazi. Personally, I failed to understand how using a private email server, a practice performed by numerous Secretaries of State before her, made her untrustworthy. I also do not fully understand how a mistake she made while serving as Secretary of State somehow translated into theories that she was conspiring to kill Americans. Perhaps, though, the most legitimate inquiries into her trustworthiness were the numerous conflicts of interest regarding the Clinton Foundation. On the other hand, even these claims seem relatively minor considering the organization's mission is to fight global poverty.
In addition, such claims seem to pale in comparison to the massive conflict of interest that arises from Trump's refusal to place his business in a blind trust when he assumes the Office of the President. The Clinton campaign attributed the preponderance of claims about Clinton’s untrustworthiness to the “attack machines” of the right, and in truth, there is a fair amount of evidence that a media apparatus functioned throughout much of her career in public service with the singular aim of discrediting her. Nonetheless, there is some legitimacy to the outrage created by these scandals, though it is hard not to view coverage of these scandals as rooted in sexism, particularly since Donald Trump said and did far worse yet was not discredited for these actions.
The charges of untrustworthiness were deeply amplified by sexism, as there exists the pervasive perception that an ambitious woman in the workplace is somehow nebulous: working for herself, attempting to undermine others, participating in unsavory business practices. Indeed, much of this perception might derive from masculine anxiety. Fear that a powerful woman just might beat a man at a man’s game in a man’s world. Regardless of how this stereotype came into the collective consciousness, it stuck and was unfairly applied to Clinton as one of the chief critiques against her.
Despite all of these shortcomings, Clinton won the popular vote by more than 2 million votes. It is essential to remember that she did not lose the Electoral College by that large a margin. In fact, in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, she lost by a razor thin margin. All in all, though Clinton failed to resonate with many voters, the election was still tight, suggesting that Democrats still having a fighting chance in years to come. However, this election also has implications for the Democratic Party after Hillary and Bernie. Democrats must decide where they want their party to head, how it must change. And if they hope to be successful in the next election, Democrats must look for a new leader who can effectively inspire through the promise of a brighter future for working class Americans in the Rust Belt, invigorate young voters to engage politically, and serve the needs of minority constituents, whose status became especially tenuous on November 8, 2016. However, most of all, we must remain unified, Democrats must refuse to become too disheartened by this election and not allow ourselves to be torn apart by political infighting. At the end of the day, we are stronger together.
// ROBERT GODFRIED is a junior in Columbia College and former volunteer and intern for Hillary Clinton. He can be reached at [email protected]. Photo courtesy of Avi Schwarzchild.