For those who are not caught up: If you don’t know, now you know.
The rhetoric surrounding Hillary Clinton’s email controversy from the GOP, and especially candidate Donald Trump, has not changed much since the beginning, a controversy that proceeded her candidacy for president. The rhetoric has not changed much because there is a need to continue a simple narrative that can be followed easily.
Check out this lovely timeline by the WSJ detailing Secretary Clinton’s email troubles.
After several interviews and investigations with various federal agencies, the GOP, Trump and those opposed* to Hillary (Arguably, these are three separate groups with a common denominator: They aren’t with her.), choose to continue with the same, simple rhetoric and message even though the message should be losing ground. There should be new issues to discuss and the email controversy should not be used any longer because of the loss in relevance (from federal investigations not finding her responsible), and the amount of time that has passed (The FBI called Secretary Clinton “extremely careless,” but decided to not pursue criminal charges in July of 2016).
Those opposed to Secretary Clinton, especially the Republican party and their candidate, stick to the emails narrative because those opposed have the opportunity to talk about Sec. Clinton’s experience negatively without fleshing out difficult policies and using no more more than two syllables per word. Short concise messages from a well-known narrative make for decent enough rhetoric to drive home the message: do not trust her.
“Why did she delete 33,000 (emails)?” – Trump from the first presidential debate, Monday, Sept 26.
She lied. She is a liar. She cannot be trusted. She hid the emails from you. She deleted them but she is hiding something.
For the Republicans to continue to swing at this scandal and beat it to death seems illogical to some, the simple rhetoric and narrative drives home the message and makes great sound bites. It also creates a conversation of controversies that can involve other issues of untrustworthiness like white water and Goldman Sachs speeches.
*I personally did not find it fair to assume those against Hillary are necessary Trump voters or Republicans.
I feel like your image is very accurate, because over the course of this election I have noticed that Secretary Clinton has turned into he GOPs personal punching bag. The Republicans will push this email controversy along with anything else they can come up with, to further demonize secretary Clinton. I feel like even if she is elected President, then 3 ears from now we ill still be hearing about her emails.