Writing What Happened helped purge Hillary Clinton of her frustration and disappointment. She was supposed to win (and win Big!) while making History as the First Woman President of the United States. But, it was not to be. A series of gaffes, mistakes, and miscalculations (along with Russian hacking and Fake News) produced the unlikely Trump Presidency. After reading What Happened it’s clear that Hillary Clinton doesn’t know what happened. What do you think really happened? GRADE: B
FAKE TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Preface
Introduction
Ch. 1: A Life in Public Service
Ch. 2: My Turn After Obama
Ch. 3: Campaign Kickoff: A Running Start (But No Visits to Wisconsin!)
Ch. 4: A Woman in the Lion’s Den (How I Bluffed Biden)
Ch. 5: A Better America or Making America Great Again?
Ch. 6: Hollywood Nights: George, Amal, Meryl and I
Ch. 7: Bill’s Baggage
Ch. 8: I Never Liked that Man, Jeffrey Epstein
Ch. 9: Things Start to Go Wrong
Ch. 10: John Podesta: Friend, Art Connoisseur, Pizza Lover
Ch. 11: Passing Out
Ch. 12: Bernie Sanders: Marxist
Ch. 13: A Strong Wall Street is a Strong America
Ch. 14: Comey Drops the Investigation
Ch. 15: We Kill Seth Rich
Ch. 16: Bleaching Emails to Protect National Security
Ch. 17: I Need to Remember to Stay Hydrated
Ch. 18: The Russian Hack Idea
Ch. 19: Donald Trump and Rape Culture
Ch. 20: How I Almost Killed Huma
Ch. 21: The Final Stretch: Fake News and Comey Returns!
Ch. 22: Our Misogynist Racist Working Class
Ch. 23: Whose Fault Was It?
The FBI, Vladimir Putin, the Obamas, the New York Times, James Comey, Huma, Suburban Women, Bernie Sanders, Julian Assange, John Podesta, Corporate Media, Misogyny, My Campaign Staff, Aspartame, Macedonia, Our Misogynist Racist Working Class, Alexandre Dumas, Facebook, Pollsters, Harambe, Meryl, El niño, Anthony Weiner, Ohio’s Department of Motor Vehicles, Twitter, Chipotle, White Supremacists, Nazis, Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy
Ch. 24: We Kill Klaus Eberwein
Ch. 25: Looking Ahead: 2020?
Index
REAL TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Author’s Note
PERSEVERANCE 1
Showing Up 3
Grit and Gratitude 17
COMPETITION 37
Get Caught Trying 39
Getting Started 59
A Day in the Life 83
SISTERHOOD 109
On Being a Woman in Politics 111
Motherhood, Wifehood, Daughterhood, Sisterhood 147
Turning Mourning into a Moment 173
IDEALISM AND REALISM 193
Change Makers 195
Sweating the Details 217
Making History 243
FRUSTRATION 261
Country Roads 263
Those Damn Emails 289
Trolls, Bots, Fake News, and Real Russians 325
Election Night 377
Why 391
RESILIENCE 427
Love and Kindness 429
Onward Together 447
Acknowledgements 465
Index 471
George, I like the way the book is divided into “fake” and “real” tables of content. I can see why Hillary Clinton needed to get the fake news out of the way first, and with it possibly her anger, bitterness, and disappointment. I still can’t believe she didn’t win.
Prashant, the FAKE TABLE OF CONTENTS and REAL TABLE OF CONTENTS was my idea. Glad you enjoyed it!
Oh, I didn’t realise that at all. I actually thought they were part of the book! Very clever, George.
Prashant, I have a quirky sense of humor.
I don’t care what happened! As long as she lost I’m happy!
Bob, 65,844,954 voters would disagree with you.
Yeah, Bob’s happy with the Big Dufus in the White House. Way to go, Bob. You’re Clinton-hate helped make that happen.
unfortunately for them, the segregated themselves into too few states to matter. Winning CA and NY by YUGE margins doesn’t win the presidency.
What happened? The fulfillment of a quarter-century of brainwashing by the right-wng media machine that makes about 40% of the voting population absolutely incapable of voting FOR their own economic self-interest because that involves voting for hate objects (Dems, libs, people of color, women, Jews–whatever the hate object du jour is). Throw in an unhealthy dose of misogyny–and there you have it.
/Dismounting soapbox now.
Deb, don’t underestimate the Russian hacking factor. They influenced the vote in key swing states.
Deb has it spot on. I think it’s amazing that her using the term deplorables caused them to go into a frenzy, but tRUMPs mocking of a disabled reporter, bragging about grabbing women by their genitals, dissing a gold star family, bragging he could shoot someone in the middle of NYC, and having his MAGA crap made in China rather than America didn’t. Even when he said we’d pay for the wall and then get Mexico to reimburse us didn’t get them riled up. But his softening on DACA may be what does it, and if he keeps to that, and the fact that there may be no new fence, just reinforcing the old one may get them to have tizzie fits.
Maggie, the core of Trump supporters would overlook almost any behavior the President would take. I used to be astonished by what Trump could get away with. Not anymore…
ps plus the fact that the dems got complacent, and ignored middle America in campaigning. I remember being very doubtul of the expected win.
Maggie, the Democratic Party members in the Senate and the House of Representatives are old. Where are the Millennial Democrats?
I like the young Kennedy. There’s also an vet running against Paul Ryan, and a woman who was a fighter pilot running in WV, IIRC.
We’ve got 3 Dems running against Duncan Hunter in a solid red district. They’ve agreed to no negative campaigning amongst themselves.
In my opinion, anyone who voted for a 3rd party candidate voted for trump and is to blame for what we have in the white house. I was not a fan of Hillary, but refused to vote for anyone else. If all these people whose “conscience” couldn’t let them vote for Hillary had voted for her, we might not have the clown in office now, or at least the popular vote would have been much higher.
George, thanks for this!
I also found your fake table of contents hilarious – kind of gallows humour?
Imho it was a big mistake for the Dems not to look for someone younger, millennial or whatever!
Actually before 2008 I had hopes that Hillary would become president – with Obama as vice president to give him some time to prepare for the job of president. I was surprised (but in a positive way …) that he made it and also found his years as president very positive – though he was limited in many ways by US politics and other world problems.
Now I don’t know what to say re Trump – there was a famous by Karl Kraus saying re Hitler many years ago:
“zu ihm fällt mir nichts mehr ein”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Kraus_(writer)
He was brilliant in his analysis of Europe before WW1 and before WW2 too when he fought against the rise of fascism – but it didn’t help …
“he founded his own newspaper, Die Fackel (de) (The Torch), which he continued to direct, publish, and write until his death, and from which he launched his attacks on hypocrisy, psychoanalysis, corruption of the Habsburg empire, nationalism of the pan-German movement, laissez-faire economic policies, and numerous other subjects.”
PS:
We have similar situations in Europe, politicians (like Orbán in Hungary) where you don’t know how to react …
What Deb said and the unleashing of public hatred toward women, ethnic groups, elites, Washington, etc. How they could see Trump as likely to champion their interests amazes me. She also made too many miscalculations and repeated mistakes made in 2008. Hillary may have her deficits but compared to this she is Abraham Lincoln.
Patti, you’re right about Hillary repeating many of her 2008 mistakes. Many of the older males at the Tonawanda Aquatic & Fitness Center told me they could never vote for a woman for President. It’s partly a generational problem.
What everyone said above is all true. But I’d add (and this is all on her): rather than rely on people who knew what they were doing and proved they knew how to win – Bill, James Carville, etc. – she went first with Mark Penn in 2008 – granted, she got snowed under by Obama – and, even worse, with Robbie Mook this time.
Seriously, Hillary? Terrible choice.
But yes, the woman thing played, in my mind, enough of a role to have made the difference.
Jeff, I agree with you. Poor staff personnel decisions damaged Hillary’s campaign. Someone should have advised her to go to Wisconsin!
This may be a personal thing, but I found Hillary capable, intelligent, progressive…. and completely unlikable. This as opposed to Trump, who could get unconditional love from millions of people, and runs the country like a Clown Car.
Dan, you are just one of the millions of people who Hillary Clinton just rubbed the Wrong Way. Diane bought the audio book version of WHAT HAPPENED, but I find Hillary hard to listen to. Her voice grates on me.
The honorable press corps freely admit they contributed big time. While giving him endless hours of free coverage so all the “deplorables” could hear his racist, mysogonistic, sociopathic, bigoted, ignorant rants, they gave equal time to the emails.
Apparently, not going to Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania wasn’t the cause since the research shows it wasn’t about economics. Seems it was about liking his point of view.
Perhaps if Comey, Bernie and the press had acted responsibly, more people in those states would have voted. Bernie’s revolution never had a chance except to play spoiler.
Jackie
George, if only your Table of Contents was the real one! I particularly want to read Chapter 15.
Jeff, the Alt-Right would love the “Fake Table of Contents”!
Jackie, a lot of Democrats and Liberals and Progressives voted for Third Party candidates. That also doomed Hillary.
I’ve said it a hundred fucking times but I guess I need to say it again: I DON’T LIKE TRUMP! I just hate Hitlery more! I’m not glad he’s in but I’m delighted she’s out!