"He's not just unprepared -- he's temperamentally unfit to hold an office that requires knowledge, stability and immense responsibility."

- @HillaryClinton, 2016

Four years ago this country failed itself, bigly.

We got everything wrong.

All of it.

1/

We are where we are today because of the mistakes we made then. Period.

It could have and would have- gone so very differently.

This is true whether you believe Trump actually won fairly, or, that he and Russia stole the election in 2016.

We fucked up either way.

2/

"We cannot put the safety of our children and grandchildren in Donald Trump's hands. We cannot let him roll the dice with America."

- @HillaryClinton, 2016.

She sounds like a prophet now. She told us out loud every single day of that campaign who Donald Trump was.

3/

Many of us were screaming with her from the sidelines, but out front it was pretty much just Hillary.

Everyone else was too busy trying to tear her apart to hold him accountable for anything.

Even the left.

The fucking left

It was shit storm and it rained everyday.

4/

.

All kinds of fun stuff happened during that time. Things that should have made everyone sit up straight and pay attention.

In Dec 2015 Jill Stein ate dinner in Russia with her, ahem, good friends Michael Flynn and Vladimir Putin.

Then...

5/ https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/russians-launched-pro-jill-stein-social-media-blitz-help-trump-n951166

Michael Flynn has notoriously since been pardoned for his crimes,by the man he committed many of them for, but Stein has never had to answer for hers.

But they will always have Russia....

6/

"Making Donald Trump our commander-in-chief would be a historic mistake."

- @HillaryClinton, 2016.

Everyone had played their own parts in tearing Clinton down and it became more convenient for them to treat quotes like this as polemic.

7/

She called it as she saw it and was exactly right.

She was (and continues to be) exactly right quite often actually. Way more than most of the people she served with or those who critique her from either side.

And that is, I think, what pisses people off most.

8/

Because nothing pisses people off more, particularly men in power, than when a woman is right.

Worse when one beats them.

Even worse when one beats them at their own game.

Hillary Clinton does that often and well

And they hate her for it; truly, madly, deeply.

9/

They say a picture is worth more than a thousand words, and they are not wrong. I think you can understand the hatred so many have for Clinton by studying just a handful of stills.

Here she is with @TGowdySC after her grueling 15 hours of BenServerEmailGhazi testimony.

They were supposed to destroy her. They'd practically promised they would.

Smoking gun and what not.

After 15 hours Gowdy was not only sweating, he was nearly in tears. He had begun to understand about midway in that she was beating him.

By the end, he was all puddle.

11/

By every logical metric Clinton decimated Trump all three times they debated. But the final debate was the most conclusive. It was the most everything.

Here they are at the end of that debate.

His face hides nothing here.
He knew she had beaten him. So did everyone else.

12/

Following the moment captured above Trump stood on the stage fuming and alone, while Clinton, smiling, circulated amongst the crowd of debate watchers. The contrast was striking.

Trump's family stood by awkwardly and looking grim.

Even they could not pretend.

13/

A woman being right is too often thought, at best, a social or professional faux pas and can be considered evidence enough that she is flawed in some deep, unfixable way.

But a woman who is right and who is unwilling to remain silent, or worse will publicly correct a man?

14/

Go ask Hillary Clinton what happens to a woman who refuses to be polite to men who bend thec facts and lie at will.

Ask her what happens when you won't submit to a man's ego.

Ask her what happens to a woman who will not bake cookies. Or wear skirts. Or smile constantly.

15/

More importantly, go ask Hillary Clinton what happens to a respected woman of achievement, who possesses a daunting intellect and resume, finds herself challenging a demonstrably racist and sexist man with no curiosity, intellect or moral compass.

Yeah, ask her.

16/

But this is not unique to Republicans, conservatives, or even men. This thing called misogyny sits at the core of why 2016 happened, or even was allowed to happen.

Clinton was crucified, and allowed to be, for other people's sins, choices, and policies.

17/

In 2016 Hillary Clinton was held accountable for a crime bill that was passed when her husband had been President, that she never voted for (and could not vote on) but her opponent had, and that had been written by a male colleague who was often applauded for his efforts.

18/

The author of that bill was Sen. Joseph Biden and her opponent was Sen. Bernie Sanders.

You can't make this shit up.

People were ready to burn Clinton at the stake for every word of that bill.

Sanders was rarely even asked to explain his real support of the legislation.

19/

And in 2020 it didn't even register as a blip on the author of the bills radar.

All of us silently accept obvious sexism and blatant misogyny almost everyday. Sadly it is because we are so inundated with it that we've become inured.

20/

"I don't know. There's just something about her..."

I made over 25,000 phone calls for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and I heard that phrase dozens of times a week, often dozens of times a day. I heard it from women. I heard it from men.

... just something about her.

21/

No, I wanted to scream everytime, there's something about YOU. It's not Hillary's laugh. It's not her smile or lack of it. It's not her hair. And it's certainly not her accomplishments or her demeanor, all of which you either ignore or celebrate in men.

It's you.

22/

"Donald Trump's ideas aren't just different -- they are dangerously incoherent. They're not even really ideas, just a series of bizarre rants, personal feuds and outright lies."

- @HillaryClinton, 2016

But her emails.
But Benghazi.
But Bill.

Actually, but her vagina.

23/

We got it all wrong in 2016.

And by "we" I mean the cultural, national, collective we, and not we as individuals. God knows few fought or worked as hard as I did for Clinton, but I am still part of the "we" that let her fight alone. Who let them tear her down.

24/

The we who let them hoodwink us for the probably 40th time into believing that Clinton was guilty of this or that and it was the greatest of crimes and always claiming to have the evidence,, when, in the end, none of that was true.

Vince Foster.
Travelgate.
The emails

25/
.

It has been a war of attrition, and unfortunately Clinton and the country lost.

Because even if nothing is ever proven, eventually the number of accusations, no matter how ridiculous, will stick and taint and erode.

It's been sadly effective.

26/ .

It's how they turned a nice, nerdy, Methodist girl from Chicago into a warmongering, baby eating, pedophile who is somehow simultaneously a sickly, ineffective, dummy and all powerful, dominating, literal witch.

Again, we got it very wrong.

27/

We did not do our political math.

Flynn + Stein / Putin x wikileaks + Sanders x the media + James Comey + Susan Sarandon (Russian bots + social media * Cambridge Analytica) = A Thwarted Democracy

We did not demand enough from the media. Or each other.

28/

We have endured much these last four years, and much of it was avoidable. Completely avoidable.

If we do not have this conversation with v each other and with ourselves then this will all happen again and Trump will just become the first among many.

That I know for sure.

/