There are emotional and rational ways to make any particular argument. She just chose to focus on arguments that only her staffers care about, rather than appealing to the (obviously) very real populist energy and anger.
Facts do matter, and I think it's disingenuous to really argue that they don't, even to the American electorate. I think the overriding truth is that politics is about engagement, and it's a battle - just because you have the 'right' ideas doesn't mean you will win. You need to engage, encourage, and motivate people to vote for you - which the Clinton campaign could not do.
Obviously. I think the point being made though is that they seem to matter less than many people thought. Trump ran a campaign that was light on facts, and in many cases used misinformation in lieu of facts. The fact that this is less important than what, if it's true, amounts to a very slight level of corruption in the other candidate (I'm unsure why I should have considered the idea that money given to a charity would get you semi-favorable treatment with regard to an audience as the horrible thing it was presented as) is something I find upsetting.
I understand that people are upset with their governance, but the only thing that comes to mind when I think of this situation is "to cut off your nose to spite your face."
So? It's not like she's taking it out to buy herself houses and cars? At most, I think you could make a case that she's used the profile of the charity to boost her political career. If that's the case, and the charity gets income that it spends on worthy causes and she gets clout, well that's not the best outcome, but it's sure far from the worst.
> 2. charity or "charity"? - valid question, given large percentage of its income is spent on overhead
I'm fairly sure this has been thoroughly debunked. The amount of income to that charity that goes to overhead is average by all accounts I've seen that are reputable[1]. I've looked, because this has come up before. If you have a source that says otherwise that is not some random blog that references some other random blog[2], I would be happy to read it.
2: I'm way too tired of debunking what people consider a valid source once they've decided that all the mainstream media is biased and untrustworthy. It's hard to tell whether in some cases the errors are due to incompetence, negligence or with purpose. Undoubtedly a useful feature to some.
I realise it's probably too late to correct facts, and it doesn't seem to matter much anyway, but a large percentage of the charity donations did not go on overhead. They operation was very highly rated by charity watchdogs.
The soundbite you often hear is about X% spent on salaries and only Y% donated to charity. Which is true, but misleading because the Foundation actually pays people to administer medicine. It's not the type of charity that just hands the money to other groups.
How do you figure 2. ? The foundation's 990 and audited financials[1] show ~90% of FY2104 revenues ($217mm) going to program services, with the majority of that ($143mm) going to provide healthcare overseas via [2], and the rest disbursed over a collection of other programs.
> Facts do matter, and I think it's disingenuous to really argue that they don't, even to the American electorate.
Facts matter, but emotion matters more. Foe example, some Trump supporters believe that parts of the US are now governed by Sharia law. The fact is wrong, but the underlying fear and racism is real and so much more powerful. The fact doesn't really matter.
Facts do matter, and I think it's disingenuous to really argue that they don't, even to the American electorate. I think the overriding truth is that politics is about engagement, and it's a battle - just because you have the 'right' ideas doesn't mean you will win. You need to engage, encourage, and motivate people to vote for you - which the Clinton campaign could not do.