Despite what all the polls were saying, Hillary Rodham Clinton lost to Donald J. Trump in the presidential election of 2016. Every pollster in town was saying that Hillary would clobber Trump with a wide margin. An overwhelming number never thought that the reality TV star could win the US presidency, but they were all proven wrong. In fact, Hillary got 2.87 million more votes than Trump did but Hillary lost in the Electoral College. It was the fifth time in US history in which the winning president lost the popular vote. Trump got 304 electoral votes while Hillary received 227. A winner needs at least 270 electoral votes to win.
The 2016 election was a divisive and negative contest—the type of political combat best suited for Trump. The campaign was characterized by Trump’s inflammatory and reckless statements, and a battery of lies issued to create controversy and capture media coverage and the public imagination. It was a battle between one who had practically spent all her adult life in politics and public service and an opponent who had not run for any public office nor served in any government post, appointive or elective. The result was the triumph of a promise to make America great again over a prodigious talent and experience offered by the loser. Trump’s victory in 2016 was the greatest upset since Harry Truman defeated Thomas Dewey in 1947. And this makes us wonder if the strategy quoted from the former First Lady while campaigning for Hillary in 2016 paid off: “When they go low, we go high.”
“What Happened?” This was the title of the book written by Hillary in 2017, which serves as her personal memoir of her ill-fated 2016 campaign. Hillary was an extraordinary woman who had broken the highest ceiling in American politics by becoming the first female candidate for president nominated by a major political party. She has outstanding credentials having served as the First Lady for 8 years, Secretary of State under President Barack Obama and a US Senator of New York. And she was the frontrunner by any measure favored by every pollster to clinch the presidency.
Hillary attended Wellesley although she passed the admission tests in all other elitist schools where she applied for like Vassar and Radcliffe. Compare this with Trump’s school record who according to his own niece, Mary L. Trump, in her explosive book entitled “Too Much and Never Enough,” Trump cheated on his SAT to get into college. During Hillary’s time, the Ivy League colleges such as Yale, Dartmouth, Princeton and others did not accept women so she enrolled in Wellesley. She was a star student at Wellesley whose motto, “Non ministrari sed ministrare,” Hillary had wholeheartedly embraced. This means that Wellesley students should not be passive and be ministered unto, they were to minister. All her life was guided by this principle. While in college, her true interest was political science, aside from getting straight A’s in all her subjects. She was active in politics both in and out of the campus. In her senior year, she was elected as the President of the student government. She campaigned for Barry Goldwater for President in 1964—yes, she was a Republican in her younger days. A contemporary, Eleanor Dean Acheson, the granddaughter of former Secretary of State Dean Acheson and a member of a clan whose family members are staunched Democrats, was astonished when she found out about Hillary’s political leanings. Acheson incredibly exclaimed, “How could somebody that intelligent and “with it” be a Republican? Maybe it would have been prudent had she remained a Republican. Bill Clinton, after meeting and knowing Hillary in Yale where they both took up law had exclaimed: “She’s the greatest thing on two legs.” Even then, Clinton has a wrong appreciation of women.
Trump was a populist outsider when he first ran for the presidency and his pledge to drain the Washington swamp strongly appealed to the voters. But after almost one term in office, Trump cannot use the same ploy. He is now the incumbent and he cannot distance himself from the mess in Washington. Either he has created them or he was nowhere to provide his leadership that a nation in crisis acutely needs. Now, as a reelectionist, Trump cannot disown what’s wrong with America, and grab credit for what’s right. Joe Biden is a Washington veteran who has served the US Congress and the White House for over half a century. Biden knows every trick of the political game. Foreign interference in the election just what the Russian had done in 2016, which favored the Trump campaign, would be duly flagged, and hopefully plugged, under Biden. And there would be no FBI reopening of the damned e-mail investigation barely 11 days before the election, which had eventually caused Hillary the election. In short, there are lessons learned from 2016 and the Biden campaign is not that stupid to ignore them.
After her defeat in 2016, Hillary was invited by her Alma Mater, Wellesley, to give the commencement address for the 2017 graduates. Her simple advice to the graduates was: “Don’t let the bastards get you down. Stay true to yourself and your values. Most of all, keep going.” The Americans have been bastardized these last 4 years. Now they have the chance to oust the bastards from office. Don’t let it happen again.