Hillary Says She Was Held to an “Impossibly High Standard” in 2016

Hillary Clinton isn’t done complaining about the 2016 election just yet. Taking her cues from former First Lady Michelle Obama, who said last week that there was something wrong with American women that they “allowed” Trump to become president, Clinton told a New Zealand audience that she agreed with Obama 100%.

Because of course she does.

“The more professionally successful we are, the less people like us,” Clinton said of herself and her fellow women. “Historically, people like me when I’m serving a supporting role. But the minute a woman, at least in our country, stands up and says ‘I’d like a chance to lead,’ everything changes.”

Hillary uses this anecdotal evidence of her supposed “supporting player” popularity a lot; has she ever considered that her popularity in those times has more to do with the fact that she’s out of the spotlight? Maybe it’s not her ambition that people dislike; maybe it’s that they had to listen to her squawk into a microphone for fifteen months.

What’s her approval rating these days, incidentally? She isn’t doing anything, so by her own logic, she should be more popular than ever. Let’s see, it looks like Gallup asked Americans how they felt about Hillary back in December. Turns out, she’s got an approval rating of 36% – the lowest it’s ever been. How about that.

Oh right, but Hillary was letting us know that all of her failures can be blamed on sexism, so let’s get back to that.

“A few days ago Michelle Obama pointed out the consequences of holding women to impossibly high standards,” Clinton said. “I think she’s so right. This is something we have to explore, understand and change.”

Yes, let us explore the “impossibly high standards” that Clinton failed to live up to in her campaign for president. Is she talking about the high standard of not breaking the law? Of not sharing classified information over an unsecured channel? The high standards of actually showing charisma on the campaign trail? Was she frustrated that she didn’t get more credit for being partially responsible for starting the worst refugee crisis in history? Was she upset that people remembered how she left Americans to die in a terrorist attack before fudging the truth of that attack to the public? Gosh, what extraordinary standards!

Ah, Hillary, you’re such an easy target, but we’ll let you off the hook. At the time, you seemed like a singularly terrible candidate for the Democrats to nominate, but the more distance we get from the election, the more it seems that 2016 was simply The Year of Trump, and anyone opposing him would have met the same fate you did.

If you need another item for your blame list, skip the sexism rhetoric and just blame your loss on plain old bad timing.