text: A recent Forum carried an article by professor Joshua Sandman of the University of New Haven analyzing the reasons for Hillary Clinton's failed presidential campaign against Donald Trump. I differ with the professor on a number of points.
  He reduced Clinton to a "flawed candidate with no empathy and no message to the voters." On the contrary, Clinton showed far more empathy and understanding of the average American family. Her dedication to children and education were always at the forefront of her platform. Trump chose to appeal to the basest, most desperate instincts of the electorate: fear, hatred, prejudice, tribalism, xenophobia and greed. Clinton offered details and measurable strategies, while Trump offered slogans, grandiose claims and lies.
  Sandman attacks Clinton's motto of "Stronger Together" as "vague" and "not a message or a theme." Trump served us a daily diet of derision, divisiveness and diatribe under the banner of "Make America Great," which turned out, was merely a code phrase for "Make America White," as evidenced by Trump's choice of Stephen Bannon as his chief consultant, an ideologue comfortable with the KKK, White Nationalists, and anti-Semites. Clinton chose to take the higher ground, and she carried with her a plurality of 1.5 million voters.
  One of the few accurate statements that came out of the Trump mouthpiece was that the election would be rigged. It became rigged when FBI Director James Comey chose to reopen the email investigation once the Weiner-Abedin computer came under scrutiny. Clinton's momentum, which was growing way beyond a few percentage points into a real headwind, was undermined. The email issue, which should have been relegated to the dustbin of history, was reignited just days before the election. Save for this, Clinton would surely have swept through to a convincing popular and electoral victory.