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Comment by nostrademons | Hacker News Reader

TBH I don't think there was anything Clinton could've done to alter this election result, other than not being female and (possibly) not getting involved in so many scandals beforehand. This was a widespread popular-vote miss: Clinton lost across a large number of states (PA, WI, MI, FL, NC) that she had polled ahead in, and even in ones she carried (like NH, ME, or MN) the margin of victory was much less than expected. It seems like a large number of Americans just don't like the vision of America that Hillary Clinton represents.

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For the sake of you, me, and all other women out in the world, please don't let Clinton being a woman let the first thing that comes to mind. Your reasoning after that is much more sound and argued. But reinforcing the separation of sexes can only help men. Look at Western Europe: our gender is not even considered, so please don't let people consider it. It can only turn negative. Keep strong, friend.

I'm confused by this response (not the OP). Do you think that they were saying Clinton's being a woman would make her a worse president?

I took it to mean that there are a decent-sized group of Americans who do believe that (probably not including the OP), and as a result nothing she could have done would have won her those votes.

I don't know how many people voted against Clinton because she's a woman, but I guarantee you it's not 0. As a result, it needs to be talked about. While it'd be a better world if people didn't focus on such irrelevancies, the fact that some do means we can't act like it's non-existant.

It's a great point you make. Because we're not allowed to think like that, we can't talk about it. However, we do base our decisions on it. So here we are. Still not allowed to mention the elephant in the room. PC gone mad.

On the other hand I wonder how many people voted for Clinton because she was a woman, I would wager that's not 0 as well.

Of course, I don't know whether the yea-woman outweighed the nay-woman.

She could have won it if her platform offered hope and excitement for the future of a regular person.

She offered free college education... that doesn't work very well if you quit high school to work in a factory or if you are like me and horrible at math (I can do everything else but that).

Job retraining doesn't work very well because many people train for the same thing. One great NPR story had a person who retrained in HVAC but he said that around 100 other people in the plant trained for the same thing unless if people move they need some sort of manual labor job.

People who worked in a factory are unlikely to start building websites, apps, manage databases, go into business management etc... they need another factory job or a basic income.

> (possibly) not getting involved in so many scandals beforehand

I don't think there's any "possibly" involved here.

While I'm no fan of Sanders, I honestly feel like he could have swept the floor with Trump solely based on the fact that he has an impeccable background and seems like a genuinely nice guy. Instead, the DNC shut out Sanders and used dirty tactics to ensure that Clinton got the nomination. That galvanized a non-negligble number of the young people in my social circle against her.

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