First, some stuff that sounds almost reasonable (if a bit histrionic). From Hillary’s Twitter stream on Oct. 24, 2016:
Donald Trump refused to say that he’d respect the results of this election. That’s a direct threat to our democracy.
Per the Daily Caller link above, she went on to say:
That’s not the way our democracy works. We’ve been around 240 years. We’ve had free and fair elections and we’ve accepted the outcomes when we may not have liked them and that is what must be expected of anyone standing on a debate stage [ed: like herself]…
[Trump is] denigrating—he’s talking down our democracy. I for one am appalled that somebody who is the nominee of one of our major two parties would take that kind of position.
And this is from Hillary’s concession speech on Nov 9, 2016:
Last night, I congratulated Donald Trump and offered to work with him on behalf of our country. I hope that he will be a successful president for all Americans…
We have seen that our nation is more deeply divided than we thought. But I still believe in America and I always will. And if you do, then we must accept this result and then look to the future. Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead…
…if we stand together and work together with respect for our differences, strength in our convictions and love for this nation, our best days are still ahead of us.
So far so good, right? But now from the new book “Shattered”:
That strategy [of blaming Russia, thus de-legitimizing the election – or trying to] had been set within twenty-four hours of her concession speech. Mook and Podesta assembled her communications team at the Brooklyn headquarters to engineer the case that the election wasn’t entirely on the up-and-up. For a couple of hours, with Shake Shack containers littering the room, they went over the script they would pitch to the press and the public. Already, Russian hacking was the centerpiece of the argument.
I added the emphasis – so that those who have eyes, may see.
And literally within hours of Democrats handing them the script, CNN, the New York Times, the Washington Post, NBC News and all the rest of the Democrat-Media Complex were promoting the “Russians hacked the election” narrative. Without the least amount of skepticism or reservation.
And without a shred of evidence.
Fake New.
No…worse than fake news. A deliberate LIE!! Fake News could simply be getting the facts wrong in the rush to scoop the competition. With was an out and out deliberate LIE!!
Assuming that the details in Shattered are correct, here’s my theories for why “The Russians Are Coming!!” was the hastily enacted post-election response.
1) Self-preservation. Robby The Mook and Risotto Podesta knew that the anger they saw from the candidate in the first 24 hours would be nothing like the slow, simmering boil they would experience for months on end if there wasn’t a scapegoat to be found. As noted below, the candidate not being one for self-awareness, there is no way she could be allowed to take any blame for her outcome. And the powers that be sure as heck weren’t going to allow themselves to be blamed for the loss. So what to do? Ah, yes…create a bogeyman in the guise of a foreign hostile power to be the Hollywood-style villain.
2) Face-saving (ie, dissonance reduction). This thing was in the bag. She had the opponent she wanted and the favorable circumstances she wanted (another open seat, Dem candidate field manipulated to favor her, etc). She had the support of all the usual suspects which control the narrative: Hollywierd, the mainstream press, urban America—and still she lost. Introspection and personal responsibility aren’t The William J. Clinton family’s strong suit. There’s no way she could be responsible for her loss. And she sure couldn’t be blamed for hiring campaign professionals who were so clueless that they sent the candidate to campaign in Arizona (reddish-purple state) right before the election and yet never once in Wisconsin (bluish-purple state). But the overwhelming influence of a foreign government would deflect from any other possible reasons for her loss.
3) Self-pity. Hillary Clinton has played the victim card for years, and it’s worked out well for her. She’s been the long-suffering wife to a philandering husband; and during the White House years she was the victim of a Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. Then in 2008 she was the long-standing, deserving-of-a-little-more-attention Baby Ruth candy bar passed over for the freshly-minted new-to-the-market milk chocolate bar with tons of empty calories and little nutritional value but yet a bright shiny appearance and a velvety-smooth taste. So now comes 2016 and the voter declaration of “We’re Just Not That Into You” was made and their choice of someone more like her husband than her. Ouch. So out comes the supply of victim cards again. Russia! Russia! Russia! and to a lesser extent, misogyny, the Evil FBI Director, and “But she won the Popular Vote!” If any of those doesn’t engender sympathy from the desired masses, another one or several put together will. Poor Hillary!
So all of these enabled her to play the recluse-in-the-woods (literally and figuratively) for a requisite period of time and then come out and present herself to her fan club in various venues and pretend that the rumors and stories and e-mail leaks were all “fake news”. (And that she really does like gay people and fears for their well-being under a Trump Administration.) The narrative of foreign influence in an ultimately unfair and unjust election is carried on by her supporters and she can continue to be the woman scorned. In Hillary’s World, this is the old familiar playbook modified to fit the current scenario. It works for her.
Exactly. The blame for Clinton’s loss should fall on Clinton, her staff, and the Democrats in general for having chosen to run such a baggage-laden, unappealing candidate. To deflect that blame and prevent introspection, they scapegoated “Trump and the Russians”.
In effect, they scapegoated the winning candidate – for his having won. And they planned it all the same day they wrote and delivered Hillary’s supposedly “gracious” speech.
At the time she gave it, i said to myself “It sounds kinda good. Which means it should turn out to be fake, given my understanding of how the world works and my estimate of her character.” And here we are.