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Comment by sysk | Hacker News Reader

As a non American who would probably vote for neither of them, Hillary definitely ranks way higher on my internal psychopath detector. The constant fake smiling, cold and calculated question answering, passive aggressiveness, etc. In short, the traits of a great manipulator. Trump is guilty of some of that too but he is somewhat redeemed by the fact that he seems dumb/naive enough to believe whatever he preaches.

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> The constant fake smiling, cold and calculated question answering, passive aggressiveness, etc. In short, the traits of a great manipulator.

Aren't those, pretty much by definition, the traits of a poor manipulator? A great manipulator wouldn't seem so false.

Let me put it this way: How natural do you think you would seem if you were spending hours of every day in front of dozens of cameras, knowing that the slightest misstatement or weird facial expression is going to spread across social media to the entire country and be analyzed and picked apart and turned into memes and used against you by your opponents? I think anyone who seems like a "normal person" in that situation is anything but.

> Aren't those, pretty much by definition, the traits of a poor manipulator? A great manipulator wouldn't seem so false.

This is a good point and it baffles me to be honest. I said "great" manipulator because it seems to be working so far. Great manipulators don't necessarily need to be great with everyone all the time. Or maybe she intentionally wants us to think she's a poor manipulator so that we trust her more? But that surely fails Occam's razor.

To answer other comments, I didn't get this impression solely by watching her on TV, it is corroborated by her history as a politician and recently leaked emails.

It could be that people support Clinton for reasons unrelated to her personal skills at manipulation.

I mean, even leaving aside all issues of substance, campaigns spend a lot of money hiring people specifically for their manipulation skills; even if it's all about manipulation, the candidate's skill isn't the only weapon in the campaign's arsenal.

Or she's gotten to where she is because she's effective at her job and the people working with her see this. It kinda reminds me of myself; I have zero charisma, but I impress the people I work with and I advance.

I've been thinking about what bothers me about Clinton and here's an example:

In 2008, Clinton declares she's opposed to gay marriage. Now it's 2016, and the majority of the American people are in favor of gay marriage. And guess what, Clinton is in favor of gay marriage. The battle has been won and now Mrs. Clinton proudly jumps on the barricade.

Now you may say this is just the reality of politics, but at some point you wonder what she really stands for except saying whatever it takes to maximize her vote count.

Hillary's team states that she is still very opposed to gay marriage. She is simply lying now.

No she doesn't. The chain of emails you're referring to makes it clear that Hillary still believes her support of DOMA was justified to prevent a constitutional amendment, not that she still believes gay marriage is wrong.

There is no evidence to suggest she opposes it now, and a little evidence to suggest she was lying in 2008.

Well that's a fantastic way of interpreting the email thread and flipping my comments.

During a debate in 2008, she said marriage was between a man and a woman. So no, she wasn't lying in 2008 -- nor did I ever imply such a thing -- that was likely her true sentiment.

https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/2631#efmAdFAfY

At this point, you literally don't know who is putting what into her mouth, or what she will really do once in office. That's an absolutely scary thing.

Psychopath is one particular slur that I've started ignoring. We've been taught it is equivalent to evil, or something like that, and it's used as a thought-terminating cliche. But, the basic traits of clinical psychopathy aren't really inherently evil.

The characteristics that define clinical psychopathy are many of the same that make effective leaders

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/07/the-startl...

(I certainly don't want a psychopathic criminal in charge, but psychopath != criminal)

Indeed - if all the voters were psychopaths then they would at least elect a candidate that served their interests instead of being totally persuaded by show.

I think most people who gain such a high office are much more psychopathic than average anyway.

There are a lot of good reasons to not vote for Hillary, but this has to be one of the dumbest. She's awkward and uncharismatic, so she must be a psychopath? How many actual psychopaths have you met, to compare her to? Have you ever seen her off camera? Do you not have any friends or family who aren't good at faking enthusiasm? Is disliking campaigning really the sign of a psychopath? Is "cold and calculated" not a good quality in a president? Aren't great manipulators usually extremely charismatic? Even supporters agree that Hillary is not very likeable or charismatic, is that really the sign of a great manipulator? How many years of psychological study have you spent calibrating your "internal psychopath detector"?

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