In the past month, political commentators have done their best to pinpoint why Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump. With both candidates so massively unpopular, the general consensus has become that Clinton failed to achieve victory in large part because she could not energize the progressive base.
Just as she lost to massive underdog Barack Obama in 2008 and ran an unexpectedly close race with Bernie Sanders in the 2016 primaries, Clinton failed to win a race she was expected to win comfortably. In the end, for all her follies, she still came within 200,000 votes (in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan) of victory. However, every one of her missteps is glaring in retrospect. These are ten Clinton quotes which helped her lose the election.
1. September 10, 2016: “Basket of deplorables”
Perhaps one of the most ill-advised statements in presidential history, Clinton remarked that half of Trump’s supporters are “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic…you name it.” In the aftermath, many Trump supporters on social media began proudly using “Deplorable” as a first name. While Clinton stated that the other half of Trump supporters are “people who feel that government has let them down,” her initial comment stuck and allowed Republicans to easily label her out of touch.
2. September 26, 2016: “Woo…okay.”
Two small words, but speaking volumes, Clinton responded this way to Trump during the first presidential debate. In an election against a populist claiming to represent the “average” working American, she came off as quite elitist, only adding to Trump’s message that she was an insider. Her two words represented the “talking down to” that many rural voters have felt from Washington elites over the past decade. Combined with her statements about the “basket of deplorables,” this subtle expression did her no favors with working-class voters.
3. August 18, 2015: “Like, with a cloth?”
Easily the scandal which most harmed Clinton during her campaign was her use of a private email server to handle confidential matters while Secretary of State. Her actions followed her all the way up to election day, and may have been the largest factor preventing Americans from being able to trust her. Because of many voters’ concerns, the press asked Clinton about the private email server throughout the campaign. At one stop, she was asked if she “wiped” the server, to which she jokingly asked “like, with a cloth?” This only solidified to many voters that she did not take seriously her mistakes.
4. August 14, 2015: “Those messages disappear all by themselves.”
Perhaps exacerbating the previous entry was that only a few days prior to her “cloth” statement, Clinton made another joke in an attempt to make light of her scandal. Speaking to a Democratic crowd in Iowa, she discussed the creation of her new Snapchat account, which she said she loved because “those messages disappear all by themselves.” Not only was this again showing herself to be a bit too comfortable joking about her scandal, it also hinted at Clinton’s seemingly artificial attempts to connect with younger voters by engaging on social media.
5. April 18, 2016: “Hot sauce…Is it working?”
One of the biggest election day issues Clinton found herself experiencing is that she was not able to turn out black voters at anywhere near the rate which President Obama had. While of course, some of this can be attributed to the fact that Obama was the first black President, Clinton’s failures were in spite of being married to the man often jokingly known as the “first black President.” Nonetheless, Mrs. Clinton found herself seeking out black voters throughout 2016 in many ways seen as disingenuous.
This was no more on display than during an interview with some black radio DJs wherein they asked an item which Clinton always has in her purse. She responded with “hot sauce,” a condiment glamorized in Beyonce’s hit song “Formation” and stereotypically enjoyed by black Americans. When one host stated that she would be accused of pandering to black people with this answer, Clinton jokingly asked, “Is it working?” Though after the fact, some attempted to justify that Clinton’s answer was both truthful and authentic, both comments were at the very least not well-thought-out.
6. January 28, 1996: “Superpredators”
Of course, Clinton’s tenuous relations with the black community did not begin in 2016. Decades ago, the “tough on crime” mantra was one carried by all political persuasions. During that time, while serving as First Lady, Clinton used some very poignant words, after applauding her husband for putting more police on the streets. She said:
We need to take these people on. They are often connected to big drug cartels, they are not just gangs of kids anymore. They are often the kinds of kids that are called superpredators — no conscience, no empathy. We can talk about why they ended up that way, but first, we have to bring them to heel.
Every element of this speech is filled with what would likely be labeled by progressives as “racial dog-whistles” if spoken by conservatives. Her phrasing was brought up by Republicans and Black Lives Matter groups throughout the election, and undoubtedly hurt her with those Americans (including most notably black citizens) seeking reform of the criminal justice system.
7. March 13, 2016: “Put A Lot Of Coal Miners Out Of Business”
During a Democratic primary in which she found herself trying to “out-left” socialist Bernie Sanders, Clinton said at a town hall in Columbus, Ohio that “We are going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.” While her message was actually one of care in which she enunciated that those who lost their jobs would be taken care of, that soundbite resonated throughout the primary, allowing Sanders to carry rural, white voters. Of course, in the general election, quotes like these may have been a deciding factor in states in the so-called “Rust Belt.”
8. January 23, 2013: “What difference does it make?”
During hearings about the attacks on Americans in Benghazi which occurred under Clinton’s leadership as Secretary of State, she became very perturbed as a result of incessant questioning about the cause of the attacks. Senator Ron Johnson asked about the rumor that an incendiary video tape was what had caused the killings, and Clinton stated as to the cause, “what difference at this point does it make?” While she was attempting to point out that the Americans were dead nonetheless, this clip served as fodder for conservatives to suggest that Clinton thought herself above the law or responsibility for the attacks.
9. March 11, 2016: “We started a national conversation”
During the funeral of former First Lady Nancy Reagan, Clinton chose to compliment Mrs. Reagan’s advocacy against HIV/AIDS, stating “Nobody wanted to do anything about it. And, you know, that too is something that I really appreciate with her very effective low-key advocacy, but it penetrated the public conscience and people began to say, hey, we have to do something about this, too.” The only problem was that the Reagan family was notorious for ignoring the HIV/AIDS crisis in the 1980s.
Accordingly, progressives and gay Americans who were already lukewarm toward Clinton because of her relative lateness in supporting gay rights were only further inflamed. Clinton had to issue multiple apologies and stated that she had misspoken, instead meaning to praise Mrs. Reagan’s support of stem cell research. Nonetheless, this increased grassroots progressive skepticism toward Clinton’s candidacy.
10. March 14, 2016: “We didn’t lose a single person.”
In a Democratic town hall, Clinton attempted to justify the invasion of Libya, stating “Libya was a different kind of calculation. And we didn’t lose a single person. We didn’t have a problem in supporting our European and Arab allies in working with NATO.” While she and her team claimed that this was in reference strictly to the overthrow of Muammar Qaddafi in 2011, this ignored the Benghazi attacks in 2012, which was arguably the biggest stain on Clinton’s record as Secretary of State. This comment reaffirmed Clinton’s hawkishness on foreign policy, showed her to be seemingly dismissive of her errors, and at the same time highlighted some levels of dishonesty. In other words, it showed off some of her very worst and most infamous characteristics.