ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg says the “macho atmosphere” of the 2016 campaign is what doomed Hillary Clinton. A more reasonable argument is that Mrs. Clinton wasn’t macho enough to make it to the White House.

At a Columbia University Women’s Conference event on Sunday, Justice Ginsburg was asked again about the 2016 election, to which she opined, according to Fox News Insider, ” ‘I think it was difficult for Hillary Clinton to get by even the macho atmosphere prevailing during that campaign, and she was criticized in a way I think no man would have been criticized,’ Justice Ginsburg said. ‘I think anyone who watched that campaign unfold would answer it the same way I did: Yes, sexism played a prominent part,’ she continued.”

Mrs. Clinton wasn’t the only loser of the 2016 season. Does Justice Ginsburg think former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Ohio Gov. John Kasich are all casualties of machismo? Perhaps their own lack of it. When voters looked at the world, we wisely decided against sending anyone who needed a safe space, face-planted into a van, or was low-energy, into the vipers’ pit of the world.

Political campaigns are about getting to know the candidates, but more than that, we find out in those environments who can handle the heat, and who can’t. If Justice Ginsburg’s wronged Hillary Clinton (or anyone else, for that matter) couldn’t handle an unconventional, swaggering and confident American billionaire, how could she handle the world itself?

Americans decided she couldn’t. And not because of machismo, but because she doesn’t have the fortitude to face all that the world throws at the American president. The fact that we can’t ask the late U.S. Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens about Mrs. Clinton’s ability to handle the tyrants and terrorists, tells you everything you need to know.

It’s leadership that empowers generals to do their job and wipe out the savages of ISIS. It’s leadership that orders a roundup of the terrorist gang MS-13. It’s leadership that forces Congress to do right by the American people with massive tax reform reinvigorating our economy and giving the future back to the American people. It’s leadership that puts America first. If Justice Ginsburg wants to call all that machismo, fine. We’ll take that over safe spaces any day.

Mrs. Clinton and her little team of enablers are still wandering the forest clutching their pearls and gnashing their teeth over how the election was stolen from them.

Mrs. Clinton, so completely unprepared for the White House, continues to reveal the actual reason for her massive failure: a complete lack of self-awareness brought on in part by a political system that for far too long had manipulated the environment guaranteeing certain outcomes.

Mrs. Clinton and her two-time failed, little ragtag team can’t accept the election results even now because they had already planned the rest of their lives. When they began their cruise to the White House, hitting an iceberg was the last thing they expected.

An entire world of Democratic career bureaucrats, campaign workers and party operatives were all ready for the rest of their powerful and money-drenched lives. They expected at least eight more years of running the world, getting book deals, having who knows how many more billions of dollars pour in the Clinton Foundation. Then a cozy retirement on the taxpayers’ dime for the rest of their lives rounded out the perfect plan.

Until those deplorable Americans decided otherwise.

After relying on Americans doing what they’re told by your celebrity friends and colluding media, I suppose Mrs. Clinton can be forgiven for being confused, and that confusion still prevails. Newsweek reported she is planning on returning to the campaign trail to support candidates for the 2018 midterm elections. Yet, “[d]espite plans to campaign for some Democrats, advisors and friends of Clinton said the former secretary of state wants to keep a low enough profile so as not to attract criticism from Republican candidates,” according to the newsweekly.

In other words, Mrs. Clinton will be hiding while she’s helping. The woman who insists she could be president is still too unsure and too afraid to get out of the van. That’s not machismo keeping her down, it’s her own lack of character.

Reflecting what most Democrats must now think, a Politico headline from this week blares, “Hillary Clinton Needs to Move On: Why is one of the most qualified leaders in the world continuing to let Trump define her, when she could be changing the subject?”

Here’s a possibility: President Trump isn’t defining Mrs. Clinton at all. Let’s give the woman a little credit, shall we? Hillary Clinton is defining Hillary Clinton. The answer to Politico’s question is simple, and not macho at all: Mrs. Clinton has failed and is failing now because she is not one of the most qualified leaders in the world. You’re welcome.

• Tammy Bruce, author and Fox News contributor, is a radio talk show host.

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