When Hillary Clinton lost the election for United States president in 2016, the mainstream mantra was that America wasn't ready for a female president. That narrative may have been politically convenient, but it ignored concerns about the candidate that were shared by a sizeable slice of America. Nevertheless, it holds some critical and timely lessons for today.

In 2016, while standing at a podium with the words "stronger together" on it, Hillary Clinton, who was at that time performing strongly in the polls, told her audience that half of her opponent's supporters were "deplorables." Presumably she expected such speech to help circle the wagons around her and her candidacy, but instead it might have alienated those who tentatively supported the other candidate but could have been open to voting for her.

Her comment, however, did something more immediately relevant to the current election, too: It exposed what she thought about a sizeable slice of the American population—the population she would be charged with serving, if elected—and, I would argue, it exposed some........

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