The rumor mill was churning mildly that Donald Trump was never meant to be here. He was rather created to ensure that Hillary gets to the top without any serious Republican opposition … and like the Taliban … it backfired. Many actually believed it … thanks to her obsession with the Presidency. It seems it was the opposite. It was Hillary who delivered Trump to us. She has been nurturing this dream for quite some time and over the years it intensified and gradually gave way to a sense of entitlement. It got some shape when she successfully convinced her husband to aim for the White House, who was then happy to be under the radar as the Governor of a small southern state. What followed Bill’s tenure as President was years of careful planning; backroom deals with Republicans and Democrats alike; arrangements with both labor unions and Wall Street … to ensure that she has the necessary resources when the time is right. And when she did take the plunge in 2008, a modest first-time junior senator from Illinois left her defeated and shocked. Despite her getting bitter and personal with a relatively rookie politician, despite playing the gender card, her efforts to be accepted by the Democrats were in vain. As opposed to slipping into introspection, this debacle instilled in her a deep-rooted sense of insecurity and desperation for the next time. So, this time she got proactive in eliminating any serious challenge from within her party, resorting to unethical practices and scare tactics. Unlike other open primary years, where there were 8 – 10 candidates in the contention, this year had just 1 … her! Martin O’Malley doesn’t even remember he contested and Bernie Sanders was this rogue socialist who suddenly decided to join the party few months before and threw his hat in the ring. Panicked, she huddled all super delegates and converted the Democratic National Committee (DNC) into her close-knit living room book-reading club. What followed were visible instances of manipulating the primary electoral system since merit alone did nto work last time. Bernie Sanders complained about the favoritism shown towards her by the DNC on multiple occasions, which was later confirmed thanks to WikiLeaks. The DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz (DWS) was forced to resign at the height of the election cycle, booed off the stage at the convention … only to be appointed as one of the chief think-tanks of Clinton campaign (surprise!). There were clear signs that among the Democratic grass-roots worker, like last time, Clinton was NOT sold as a candidate. Candidates from either party go through the process of a free, fair and open primary process to pressure test their candidacy on a smaller yet diverse enough scale. Because Hillary and the DNC manipulated this process by not offering Democrats enough choices, the party did not energize and coalesce around the only candidate offered. Democrats came to power in 1992 through a broad coalition of union workers, women, Blacks and Hispanics which was formed by Bill and later on solidified by Obama, who added urban young voters to the mix. Clinton and the DNC destroyed it in 2016 and lost all of them. As an example, the Michigan Democratic Party, having seen early warning signs of waning support and enthusiasm among likely voters, urged the campaign to make more trips, which fell into deaf ears as the campaign was over-confident about the state and the entire rust-belt (even though she lost the primary to Bernie). There are dozens of such examples of her campaign ignoring the local party establishment. And yet social media is buzzing with how she didn’t make it coz she is not “likable”. Richard Nixon was hated by his party (they called him Tricky Dick) and yet went on to win the election. It is also not because America “isn’t ready for a woman”. America was ready for a Black President … just not Rev. Al Sharpton in 2004 but for Barack Obama in 2008. America is ready for a woman president … just not any woman.