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Comment by ardit33 | Hacker News Reader

Dream on. I am liberal/democratic and I think this election was lost because the dems had the wrong candidate and didn't offer any thing different. It was an election of "pick the least worse choice" for many people. Period.

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Very early on the Republican (and later, Trump) strategy was to discredit and bring suspicion to Clinton - enough so that people who would normally vote for her wouldn't show up. Remember that when Clinton was Secretary of State her approval ratings were above 60% and peaked at 66%. When it was rumored that she was going to be the only candidate fielded by the Democrats, the long discredit campaign began. You can see it in the gradual decrease of her likability from 2013 onward.

Also: remember that Bill Clinton, when he left office, was one of the most liked presidents in history [1]. And, that was even after the impeachment hearings. The mid-late 90s were a very positive period. So, considering those two things together, the Republicans were extremely successful.

[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_image_of_Bill_Clinton

> Very early on the Republican (and later, Trump) strategy was to discredit and bring suspicion to Clinton - enough so that people who would normally vote for her wouldn't show up. Remember that when Clinton was Secretary of State her approval ratings were above 60% and peaked at 66%. When it was rumored that she was going to be the only candidate fielded by the Democrats, the long discredit campaign began. You can see it in the gradual decrease of her likability from 2013 onward.

Which that is the standard strategy for running for office. Discredit your opponent. It goes both ways. Clinton tried many approaches (even some shady ones) to try to discredit Trump. She did a number on Bernie with the DNC's help.

Speaking of the discrediting, even Obama did a fantastic job discrediting Hillary. (Despite turning around and endorsing in this last election.)

True, but when you have hundreds of millions of dollars directed at one person over several years, approval can slide from 66% to less than 40%, even with the best defenses.

Take me, for example. I was a big supporter of Clinton in 2012. I even donated to her campaign. But, several times during the 2016 campaign I actually caught myself thinking that I didn't trust her. And, I had to remind myself why I liked her.

So, whatever they did, it was very, very effective. It really sapped a lot of supporters motivation, at the very least.

George Lakoff has written some interesting books on the topic of reframing. I recommend reading some of his work. I'm sure that the science has evolved considerably since 2004, when I first read him.

https://www.amazon.com/George-Lakoff/e/B000APCCII

> when you have hundreds of millions of dollars directed at one person over several years, approval can slide from 66% to less than 40%

Yes. This is SOP.

> But, several times during the 2016 campaign I actually caught myself thinking that I didn't trust her. And, I had to remind myself why I liked her.

Don't take this the wrong way, but to me that sounds like cognitive dissonance. If you believe that it was actually unfactual information, I would suggest researching what influenced you badly and try to identify that next time.

Most of this stuff has remained the same since Robert Caldini wrote about it in his book Influence. It's just the tactics and strategies on how to apply them.

I had to look up cognitive dissonance, but I suppose that fits. I had an emotional response and a logical response, and they were in conflict. I had to actually physically list out all of the things that I liked about Clinton vs. what I didn't like to make a rational decision. By far, my list was in favor of Clinton. So, that my emotions said otherwise was odd.

>Take me, for example. I was a big supporter of Clinton in 2012. I even donated to her campaign.

a little unusual since she didn't run for office in 2012

I meant 2008. Sorry. I'm sure you knew what I meant.

> the long discredit campaign began

You think too little of Hillary. She broke the glass ceiling on that one and did it nearly all be herself.

I'm not looking to fight. The election is over.

My point is that Hillary wasn't discredited because of some mass disinformation campaign like the new york times recently admitted to (http://nypost.com/2016/11/11/new-york-times-we-blew-it-on-tr...), it was done by whistleblowers. Who cares who called 911 to report the crime? The issue is the criminal.

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