I am so SICK AND FUCKING TIRED of everyone armchair quarterbacking Hillary!!!!

[karynnj]

54. Every year, the time between Christmas and New Years is filled with analysis on the past year

Every election year, there is a look at the election. It is ALWAYS done almost as if the goal is to agree on a narrative that ends with the winner winning. In these summaries, any comments of voter suppression or irregularities are never included. That defeats the goal of creating a narrative.

Any close election is especially painful, because NO campaign is completely flawless. For the winner, even glaring errors or revelations are treated as something the President elect overcame - almost making his ascension to power a better story. The difference this year is that, unlike any Democrat or Republican nominee, Trump is really really outside what is mainstream. His use of the alt right and the far right - retweeting them personally is exceptional. This makes the tradition, "let's recap the election, clean up the nastiness and create a narrative that in America, the right person always wins."

For the loser, if the election is a blowout -- very little has to be said. The media can focus almost entirely on the winner. Very little was said about how bad the McCain campaign was -- and it was terrible. It was all Obama and how much the country had turned against the war and the Republicans. Even without a big blow out, but where the winner was obvious for a few months, the story is not campaign mistakes. Consider that Begala and Carville turned a very bumpy path to election for Bill Clinton into a story of a stunning victory won because they had a "war machine" to kill negative stories. Clearly a better story than pointing out GHWB, who was at 39% in approval ran a very weak campaign. Perrot was likely more significant during the months before Clinton even became the nominee when he absolutely battered GHWB -- later to seem nearly crazy accusing GHWB of wanting to ruin his daughter's wedding and dropping out.

Here is my advice as someone who had become ever more aware in 2004 that John Kerry was an exceptional man. That is just as I should not have tortured myself watching TV this time of year 12 years ago is that it might be good to TURN OFF THE TV. There will be good analyses done later that examine what we need to do in the future - looking back at this election and other recent elections, plus whatever is happening in that future present time. These are NOT that and they are puff pieces for the victor. What they year end summaries do is show every misstep of the loser, even if that involves mischaracterizing them, and edit out any negatives of the victor.