Case Reopened

In my last article, I discussed the reasons why the Wikileaks emails were gaining so little traction in the media. My reasons were that 1) we expect this from Hillary by now, 2) we need soundbites, not pages of emails, and 3) other alternative stories are juicier. Well folks… Clinton’s juicy sound bite story has arrived! A few days ago, the FBI released a statement that they will be reopening the investigation regarding Clinton and her email server based on recent findings.

Where did those findings originate? (No, not from Wikileaks.) Surprisingly enough, they were found on the infamous Anthony Weiner’s computer that was being investigated for other reasons. It turns out that the emails actually belonged to Weiner’s ex-wife and now-Clinton aide Huma Abedin, which makes a lot more sense… but that explanation sounds a lot less scandalous.

Story or sound-bite?

To be honest, that’s nearly all the information the public has access to, except for a few more details you can read here. The fact that the FBI has released no other information in and of itself is hurting Clinton’s campaign, because now the media has its sound bite to run with. Hillary Clinton and her email controversy are now tied to a scandalous politician being investigated for inappropriate relations with a minor—and if that’s not juicy, I don’t know what is. The longer it takes for the FBI to release more details, the more and more this impression will be reinforced in the public’s mind. People have no other information with which to justify or denounce their support for Clinton, which means the short story is getting revisited over and over again.

Given that it is only one week from the election, I disagree with my own advice from the last blog post. The Clinton campaign has been backed into a corner with this one and there is little room for pivoting anymore. I really doubt that any other scandal will break in the next 7 days that is bigger news than this, even though Trump has proven to be a bit unpredictable. The only thing left for the Clinton campaign to do is to keep their heads down and wait for November 8^th. Realistically, no major investigation findings can break in the next week, given the sheer multitude of information to comb through and many people have already made their choice via early voting.

Why can’t the Wikileaks emails dominate the news cycle? 

The email dumping continues as Wikileaks has recently completed “The Podesta Emails: Pt. 20”. New outrages and suspicions have been arising with each new leak, yet these stories will often disappear from the news cycle within a few days. The latest stories include… Bill Clinton’s paid speeches, police brutality victims like Eric Garner, and Clinton aides’ reaction to her private server. But don’t worry about catching up, by tomorrow there will be 3-5 more shocking stories to cover up those updates anyway. As the campaign comes to a close, the Wikileaks information overload is starting to feel like old news before it’s even leaked.

Why do these perfectly shocking and scandalous stories seem so tired out? I have three possible reasons for you.

1. Because that’s what we expect from Hillary Clinton by now.

The shock and awe of Clinton’s email controversy is long gone. It’s not news that HRC has been involved in some shady political dealings. Personally, I have not seen a story from the Podesta Emails series that has truly shocked me because everyone expects Wikileaks to find dirt on the campaign.

2. Because to stay interested, we need soundbites, not pages and pages of emails.

It’s difficult to turn a long thread of emails into an attention-grabbing soundbite—and that’s what the public needs to stay interested in a story. Political media thrives on short, catchy, memorable phrases, like “basket of deplorables” and “nasty woman.” It’s not to say that the released emails aren’t incriminating, or at the very least intriguing, but the truth is, very few voters will take the time to research and educate themselves on the topic, especially if it’s not being blasted from every media source imaginable. The problem with the information overload can be summed up like this: We will never see a trending hashtag on Twitter that reads “#HillaryIsShady2016BecauseEvenHerAidesWereSuspiciousOfHerPrivateServerIfYouGoBackAndLookAtTheEmailsFromMarchOf2015.”

3. Because the alternative is so much juicier.

Along with the first two reasons, HRC has the best political distraction in modern history to cover up the news cycle with faux paus: Donald J. Trump. This is perhaps one of the best things to happen to the Clinton campaign in the midst of this email controversy. Even if a few stories from the Wikileaks dumps get traction in the media for a little while, something related to Trump is sure to overshadow them. Whether it’s new sexual harassment claims or his refusal to accept the validity of the democratic process, something over in the Donald camp is sure to cover up everything else in the media.

Overall, in the next two weeks, I will be interested to see if a Wikileaks story can truly saturate the news cycle. If that were to occur, the Clinton campaign should just keep their heads down, continue to pivot, and wait until the next Donald slip-up comes along to dominate the media once again.

The Leak

---

Over the past week, Wikileaks has been releasing thousands of new emails from the Clinton campaign, mostly from campaign chairman, John Podesta. Most of the prominent email chains merely reveal “how the sausage is made” during any presidential campaign. This includes subjects like how to humanize the candidate, ways to respond to attacks about the Clinton Foundation, and the announcement of her position on the Keystone pipeline. Other emails reveal shadier yet fairly predictable subjects, including a town hall question hint from a DNC official and Clinton’s aides attacking Catholicism and Evangelism.

 

The Clinton Campaign’s Response

---

While there are literally tens of thousands of new emails for everyone to pore over and pick through and use to either incriminate or defend Hillary, the reality is that overall this email leak is… well, boring. The subjects highlighted in the emails simply reveal what we already know about the candidate, based on the campaign she’s been running and from the previous email dumps. The relatively tame leak gives the Clinton campaign a huge advantage to what could’ve been its demise. The campaign is taking a boring story and making it interesting again, by questioning Russia’s involvement with the Wikileaks hack and Trump’s ties to Russia. Trump’s deeply rooted ties to Russia seems to be the stuff of conspiracy theories, but the timing of the recent email leak seems, at the very least, convenient when considering Trump’s recent debacle. One of Trump’s communication advisor Jason Miller tweeted “And here… we… go” with a link to the new Wikileaks emails, clearly giddy about what the hacking would reveal. CNN reported that Clinton’s senior spokesman Glen Caplin responded:

“It is absolutely disgraceful that the Trump campaign is cheering on a release today engineered by Vladimir Putin to interfere in this election, and this comes after Donald Trump encouraged more espionage over the summer and continued to deny the hack even happened at Sunday’s debate. The timing shows you that even Putin knows Trump had a bad weekend and a bad debate.”

This response single handedly spins the email dump to reflect more poorly on Trump than it does on Clinton. From Caplin’s response, the audience is forced to question 1) Trump’s comments about Russian hacking, 2) Trump’s suspicious ties to Russia, and 3) Trump’s recent track record and polling. This communicative tactic successfully avoided addressing Clinton’s shortcomings and instead focused on the shortcomings of a presidential candidate who encourages and eggs on espionage against our nation. If future email dumps continue to report similar (boring) findings, the Clinton campaign should continue to use this tactic in order to detract attention away from the emails themselves and onto the way in which the emails were obtained.

A political controversy involving an FBI investigation, a potential national security breech, and the integrity of a Presidential candidate seems to be anything but funny, but this hasn’t stopped people from trying. Even Hillary Clinton herself has channeled her inner comedian on the subject of her private server. Regardless of the source, humor has effectively oversimplified Clinton’s email controversy to her complete disadvantage. Instead of gaining more insight into the complexities of the controversy (which you can find in articles like this), the general public is continually bombarded with jabs and jokes based on the oversimplified explanation.

When transforming a very complex situation into a joke or a funny sound bite or even a viral meme, the story has to be extremely simple. Something along the lines of “Clinton had a private server and deleted emails because she’s untrustworthy.” Take a look at a few examples of this “email humor.”

Clinton’s Snap Chat Joke

In August of 2015 at a Democratic fundraiser dinner, Clinton attempted to lighten up the controversy with a joke written into her speech. Clinton said, “You may have seen that I recently launched a Snapchat account. I love it. I love it… Those messages disappear all by themselves.” Although you can hear the crowd at the speech laughing, this joke sparked a lot of questions about whether Clinton was taking the FBI investigations seriously. You can read more here.

 

 

Jokes at the RNC

At the Republic National Convention this year, speakers loved to slip in email jokes wherever they could. This even sparked articles ranking “the best and the worst Hillary jokes” from the convention. You can read the entire list here. My personal favorite was delivered by Darryl Glenn, a Senatorial candidate for the state of Colorado. He laughed as he said, “And we all know she loves her pant suits — yes, you know it’s coming — but we should send her an email and tell her that she deserves a bright orange jump suit.” Watch Glenn’s full speech here, or skip to 5:30 for his joke.

 

Internet Jokes

Above all, the internet world has had a hay day with Clinton’s email controversy. With just a few words pasted on a picture of the candidate, users’ “creations” can circulate social media for weeks on end. New memes and internet jokes pop up every day, regardless of whether there is new information. Here’s a look at a few viral memes about Hillary’s emails:

 

Clearly, the oversimplification of her email controversy does not favor Clinton and the humor used by the candidate herself, the opposing party, and the internet world is only propagating this version of the story.