WHY HILLARY LOST

The presses have been rolling with the results of study after study concerning why Hillary Clinton lost the election in November 2016. The experts have digested the demographics, conducted interviews, and analyzed voter attitudes state by state. Research will continue.

We can be assured that books will come from the most surprising loss in modern political history. Her defeat was a stunning upset of herculean proportions, one unrivaled since Truman defeated Dewey on November 2, 1948. Mrs. Clinton was so devastated that she couldn't compose herself enough to appear before a multitude of her saddened, seared, and tear-soaked supporters who had gathered on that election evening to taste the heady wine of victory. Instead of facing the public, the reporters, the public, and the cameras, she sent a substitute. The loss hurt, and it hurt bad.

ONE REASON FOR THE DEFEAT

In all the research done thus far concerning the reasons for the debacle, one published secular study is of particular interest. Among the reasons cited, two would catch the eye of anyone familiar with the Bible.

The study found that millions of people voted against Mrs. Clinton because they were infuriated by her the-rules-don't-apply-to-me-attitude. Their perception of the Democratic nominee was that she had spent her public life breaking the law with impunity and seeing herself as a privileged person entitled to live above the rules, viewing them as being for the little people, but not her. Some believed this to be the modus operandi of the so-called Banana Republics where the elite do whatever they want, but the rest are to abide by the law.

Her attitude caught the eye of the voter who's familiar with Deuteronomy 17 and II Samuel 11. In the Mosaic Law, God stipulated that the king was not above the Torah. Rather than living above it, he was to meditate in it, copy it, read it, and heed it all the days of his life (Deuteronomy 17:18-20). No matter how powerful, Israel's kings, from the best to the worst, were not above the Law of the land.

In II Samuel 11, we read about Israel's greatest king who decided to flout the very Law he was to copy, meditate on, read, and heed. Instead, the great David began living as it he were above it, behaving as if the Ten Commandments applied to everyone else, and then engaging in a massive cover up.

But God held David accountable by sending a prophet to denounce him to his face and announcing, "The sword will never depart from your house."

ANOTHER REASON FOR THE DEFEAT

The researchers found a fatal flaw in her campaign, one that turned voters away from her candidacy by the millions. The study showed that she glutted her speeches with stories of her accomplishments, what the report called her tiresome and annoying "yapping about herself" and how good she was. She tuned people off by her bragging about herself. Article after article began to point out that many of the stories she told about her achievements weren't true at all, but the point was that even if all those accounts were true, shouldn't someone else be touting them?

In an unrelated project, researchers in England did a study of people who engage in what they called "self-promotion" and found that "self-promoters overestimate the extent to which people on the receiving end of their stories are likely to feel happy and proud for them. At the same time, they also seem to underestimate the extent to which recipients are likely to feel annoyed with them." They particularly cited Facebook as a fertile playground for braggarts. 

What Mrs. Clinton overlooked was that people don't cotton to someone who tells them how good he (or she) is. The smartest people don't have to tell us that they're brilliant. Spiritual people don't tell people how spiritual they are. When a person engages in bragamony, there's a huge drop on the likeability meter because admire modesty, a Lou Gehrig, a Nolan Ryan.

This was another trait of Hillary that caught the eye of the person familiar with the Scriptures because Proverbs 27:2 advocates: "Let another praise you, and not your own mouth; A stranger, and not your own lips." Mrs. Clinton paid no attention to that principle either.

THE TWO TEXTS

The majority of our politicians of both parties aren't known for listening to the Bible. Oh, they'll quote it when it's to their advantage, but their quoting comes across as self-serving.

But what if Mrs. Clinton had read and heeded the principles of Deuteronomy 17 and Proverbs 27:2: live under the laws everybody else has to live under and quit yapping about yourself. Simple. Just do those two things.

If she had done that, would she no longer be "Hillary? Would she now be, "Madam President"? We'll never know for certain, but the research indicated, "Yes, she would."