Mrs. Clinton, though, went well beyond ridicule in her election lament on Saturday.

She inveighed against the rise of “phony news,” recalling how when lifelong friends of hers went canvassing, they were informed by voters that Mrs. Clinton was behind all manner of criminality, including running a “child trafficking ring in the basement of a pizzeria.”

When her friends would push back, they would be told, “ ‘Oh yeah, I saw it on the internet,’ ” Mrs. Clinton recounted with dismay.

She savaged Russia for “weaponizing information, stealing information,” but her critique plunged far deeper than the events of last year. She said democracy itself was under duress because avenues of communication with the electorate had been compromised.

“A democracy depends upon an informed citizenry that has access to accurate information,” Mrs. Clinton said to applause, imploring leaders to stand up to what she described as “partisan advocacy” masquerading as news.

And she even appeared to recast her famous 1990s-era claim of a vast right-wing conspiracy working against Democrats. “Our body politic’s immune system has been impaired, because there has been a concerted effort, starting with the creation of the Fox network,” said Mrs. Clinton, pointing out that Fox News did not exist when Mr. Clinton ran in 1992.

“It was one of the reasons why he probably survived,” she said.

The talk had turned to last year’s election after Mr. Carville, an hour into the discussion, acknowledged that “there’s an elephant in the room.” But there was another one, too: the reappraisal of Mr. Clinton’s treatment of women.