What Wonder Woman Can Teach Hillary About Personal Responsibility

Hillary Clinton made national headlines last week during an interview at Code Conference 2017 where she blamed the crash and burn of her 2016 presidential campaign on Russia, James Comey, lies about her private email server, Twitter bots, the DNC, fake news, voter suppression, and WikiLeaks. Opposite Clinton in the national conversation was fictional princess and superhero Wonder Woman, whose movie opened to excellent reviews and shattered records with a worldwide box office take of over $200 million.

The former received negative headlines for continuing to force-feed Americans her everyone’s-fault-but-mine narrative for why she lost the election and for trying to reboot the “vast right wing conspiracy” and expand it to include Russia, the FBI, and — inexplicably — the Democratic National Committee. The latter received resplendent headlines for single-handedly defeating the Central Powers in World War One.

While nobody can deny that both of these newsworthy women are powerful, influential and inspiring to many, there are some clear contrasts that can be drawn between them. There are the obvious ones, such as: Wonder Woman loves a guy named Steve, while Hillary Clinton mocked the men on President Trump’s economic team for being named Steve. Wonder Woman’s weapon of choice is a lasso of truth, while Hillary Clinton would likely melt if touched by a lasso of truth. And Wonder Woman is playing in hundreds of theaters across Wisconsin, while Hillary Clinton can rarely ever be seen in Wisconsin.

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But obvious differences aside, there are deeper, more substantive contrasts between the two and some important lessons Clinton could learn from the Amazon princess.

In the 77-minute interview covering why Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election, Clinton mentioned Russia 22 times, James Comey nine times, fake news eight times, and WikiLeaks seven times. She mentioned the issue of trade and the Trans-Pacific Partnership a combined total of zero times, even though national and swing-state exit polls show that voters believe by double-digit margins that multinational trade deals kill American jobs. This is especially true in states that were harmed most by the loss of manufacturing jobs, such as Wisconsin and Michigan — states Clinton lost in the Democratic primary elections and the general election.

Russia and fake news didn’t help Bernie Sanders win those states, and the DNC certainly didn’t help Bernie; it actively worked against him.

Hillary Clinton wasn’t as much a victim of fake news in these states as she was the subject of real news. Real news that told everyone how she said the TPP was “the gold standard” for international trade deals. She also loved NAFTA until it was time to run for president in 2008. When there’s no election to win, Hillary Clinton believes multi-national free trade deals are worth all the collateral damage they inflict on U.S. manufacturing jobs. Unfortunately for her, the U.S. electorate disagrees.

Wonder Woman also believed something everyone thought was nuts. She believed she could end World War One by killing Ares, the Greek god of war. However, when everyone told her she was wrong, Wonder Woman didn’t flip-flop. She didn’t claim she never said it. She didn’t give Ares a red reset button and pose for a photo op with him. She stuck to her position until the end.

Hillary Clinton wasn’t as much a victim of fake news in these states as she was the subject of real news.

Former FBI Director James Comey may indeed have played a role in Hillary Clinton’s Election Day defeat. Using actual facts from an actual investigation, he gave a press conference in which he eviscerated the massive lie she had been peddling about her server for months. Lie after lie about her server scored her a basket of Washington Post Pinocchios that all the hammers and all the Bleachbit on Earth couldn’t erase.

Wonder Woman’s cinematic journey revolves around her desire for truth and justice, while Hillary Clinton’s real-life journey revolves around dodging truth and justice, and — whether she wants to admit it or not —  that dishonesty played a huge role in the election’s outcome. Exit polls show that only 36 percent of the American electorate believed Clinton to be honest and trustworthy. Clinton tried to rewrite history in the interview by saying that her private server was “the biggest nothing-burger ever.” But nobody will forget then-FBI director Comey explaining that it was two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame-seed bun.

Also absent from Clinton’s “analysis” of how others ripped the election from her capable hands was the word “deplorables.” Like the word “trade,” the word “deplorables” showed up zero times in the interview. Her comment that 25 percent of Americans are a basket of sexist, homophobic, xenophobic deplorables certainly played a bigger role in her loss than Twitter bots. If nothing else, it certainly gave the Twitter bots a keyword to automatically retweet.

In Wonder Woman’s final showdown with Ares, he tried to convince her to destroy the world with him by characterizing the human race as a basket of evil deplorables. In fact, the whole movie came down to a single choice. Wonder Woman had to decide if human beings were a race worth saving or if they were merely hopeless, meaningless deplorables.

Spoiler alert: She decided they were worth saving.

If Hillary Clinton is gearing up for another 2020 presidential run, she should learn something from Wonder Woman’s example.

Eddie Zipperer is an assistant professor of political science at Georgia Military College and a regular LifeZette contributor.