Clinton Scandals—Twenty-First-Century Version, but Not Bill

Benghazi and “her emails” became mantras for the right wing during the lead-up to and during the 2016 presidential campaign. These two incidents are less scandal than poorly executed policy and bad judgment, but they raise the interesting proposition that Hillary Clinton’s prior celebrity and the animosity that came with it may have generated sufficient fervor to make these incidents appear to be scandals. Certainly, the prevalence of Republican rallying cries of “lock her up” has become a part of our pop culture and the analysis of YouTube clips containing references to the incidents in the chapter demonstrates their penetration into our pop culture.