Opinion: Why Hillary Clinton didn’t have a chance against Donald Trump

To the editor: Yes, mistakes made by Hillary Clinton’s campaign contributed to her loss one year ago. However, she never really had a chance. (“One year later, Democrats try to use painful lessons of 2016 to guide future campaigns,” Nov. 3)

With the tremendous effect of Russia’s influence operation (including what increasingly looks to be the Trump campaign’s complicity), Fox News, Trump’s lies and Facebook and Twitter spreading untruths about her, it was inevitable that she would lose.

Clinton ran a straightforward, traditional campaign addressing important issues, all the while combating all these ominous negative forces.

So, if we’re talking about what the Democrats are going to do in the future to win elections, they had better focus on how to keep the Russians out of our elections. Paper ballots, anyone?

Kae Yates, Claremont

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To the editor: The Democratic Party does not have to dig deep at all to find out why its candidate lost. It was no more complex than that a large proportion of people could not bring themselves to vote for Clinton because she was such a flawed candidate.

Many lifelong Democrats like myself voted for her anyway, but only because the alternative was frightening. Evidently, many people like me just could not bring themselves to vote for her.

All the Democrats have to do is get a competent, likable nominee with far less baggage next time and they will be fine — that is, if we manage to survive until the next election.

Joe Bonino, Glendale

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To the editor: One fact seems to be constantly overlooked while wringing our hands over the 2016 election: Clinton did not lose.

The majority of American people, whose will is so often cited, did not vote for Trump. He was chosen by an archaic cabal known as the electoral college.

Trump is the choice of empty acreage, and we can see how well that turned out.

The lesson to be learned here is that the electoral college has long outlived its usefulness. It’s time we had a truly representative democracy.

Leslie Stem, Gardena

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