Shattered

Shattered explains the details around Hillary Clinton’s shocking 2016 presidential election loss and explains how an FBI investigation, Bernie Sanders, infighting on her team, and overconfidence in data analytics all contributed to her defeat.

If you followed the news at all during this time, you probably heard at least something about Clinton’s email scandal. Basically, the whole thing stemmed from her use of a personal email server during her time as Secretary of State. This mistake was an obstacle throughout her campaign.

When a congressional committee was investigating a terror attack on Americans in Libya, they discovered Hillary’s use of her personal account for official business at the time. The committee released the report in the early stages of her campaign in the summer of 2015.

They believed it was serious enough that the FBI needed to get involved. So they released 55,000 pages of work-related emails, some that had classified information. A year later, months before the election, FBI director James Comey released a statement calling her aides “careless” and even mentioned the possibility that “hostile actors gained access to her emails.” However, he stated no charges would be pressed.

The drama further persisted when the DNC and Hillary’s campaign chairman would have their email accounts leaked right before the election. These didn’t have anything to do with Clinton’s personal server, but it didn’t matter. The public heard the word “email” and connected the new events to the investigation on the email scandal. In short, all the public knew is that she was getting a lot of bad press.

The email scandal was a huge obstacle, but it wasn’t the only one the Clinton campaign would have to face. An even bigger challenge was 72-year-old Vermont senator Bernie Sanders. The authors likened Sanders to a Democratic equivalent of Donald Trump. They had both tapped into anti-establishment sentiments that were on the rise post 2008 recession. Clinton never really understood this movement or connected with it, and it cost her. Hillary believed a lot of Bernie’s proposals such as free college tuition were too “socialist” for the average American. But even if they were, at least they were concrete proposals, and Clinton didn’t have any concrete narrative. Furthermore, Sanders spoke against corruption and viewed Clinton as just another member of the corrupt establishment that needed to be removed. Since he was from the same party, this tension put her in a difficult position. On the one hand, she wanted Obama voters to support her, so she couldn’t just criticize his policies. Especially because she had been at least somewhat responsible for many of them. But she also knew attacking him would backfire because of his popularity. It was this kind…