various "she deserved it since she ran a bad campaign" circular arguments.

I for one don't feel I make that argument. I make the argument that once you are known by the public for many years and have a sort of a brand, that it is real hard to undo that. And then if you decide to run for political office, the other side can and will use whatever in that brand that they can against you. Including that you are a woman, if that works for them, but all kinds of other stuff too. And it's just the way things are. It's pure genius and admirable when you can overcome that, but that's rare.

Just like "just the way things are" is why John Kerry lost. He was smeared with swift boats and upper class sailing proclivities.

Luckily for Bill Clinton, public judgment about being smeared as a pot smoking draft dodger had changed by the time he ran, he turned out to be running at the right time, a decade earlier it would have killed him.

So chose your candidates carefully, because they will get smeared and whether the smears stick depends all kinds of thing like their personality and their history with the public.

You are really railing about the culture as it is. How people vote. But this in a democracy, as far as voting, you are stuck with the culture as it is. Some call it pandering, others call it smart politics. Once you win is when you are supposed to try to change things. (And, as has been noted, the need to immediately start raising funds for the next campaign has screwed that all up.)

There is no rule that the media has to treat candidates "fairly." Part of the job of the candidate has always been to manipulate that.We have a new kind of media, and that was part of the problem, and Trump lucked out with manipulating it to his benefit.

Where I don't agree with you is that you feel what happened to Hillary is like the ideal representative narrative to point out what is wrong with our culture. I don't feel she is a good example at all. I don't feel angry for her, I feel she had and has a lot of benefits in life beyond the wildest dreams of most people and held powers in her hand over the lives of many. She's wealthy and powerful and she never was a role model for me. She gambled on the presidency and lost the game to dirty tricks which should be expected when you do that, move on. (She gambled on being a carpetbagger in NY and she won. She later became Sec. of State of her opponent even though many of his fans had been taught to hate her. Pretty amazing right there. I'm still amazed by that, actually.)