Last month, The New York Times ran a fascinating and distressing look at the statistical probability of paternal succession in presidential politics, as well as in sports, business, and entertainment. The economist Seth Stephens-Davidowitz found that, based on recent history, “an American male is 4,582 times more likely to become an Army general if his father was one; 1,895 times more likely to become a famous C.E.O.; 1,497 times more likely to win a Grammy” and that it is “8,500 times more likely a senator’s son” will become a senator himself.

But based on historical precedent, here is how likely it is for a president’s wife to become president herself: zero times more likely. It’s never happened before.

So while it is fair to feel critical of the advisors, strategies, and policies deployed by both Hillary and Bill Clinton during the years they have each wielded political power, it is not fair or accurate to suggest their familial circumstances are equivalent to those of the Bushes, the Roosevelts, the Adamses, the Kennedys, or the Cuomos. If you want to compare them to the Tayloe Rosses, the Wyatt Carraways, or the Chase Smiths, that’s cool. But it doesn’t pack quite the same punch. And that’s part of the point.

I hope we will get over being shocked that Hillary is less popular when she’s running for president than when she’s just lost the nomination or when her husband cheated on her.

Among the most worrying things about Hillary Clinton not facing a serious primary challenge from within her party is that in the almost three decades she’s been in the national eye, a distinct pattern has emerged: Americans love her when she is vulnerable and scrappy and loathe her when she is powerful and coasting. This speaks to some depressing truths about our national tastes in women—they appeal to us most when they are the least threatening—but also to Hillary’s own instincts and behaviors. She is at her worst—too careful, too canned—when she feels she has something to lose, and at her rousing best when she feels she’s got nothing to lose. Recall that she reached the most appealing rhetorical heights of her career in a moment of defeat. From now on, she observed in her concession speech, “it will be unremarkable for a woman to win primary state victories, unremarkable to have a woman in a close race to be our nominee, unremarkable to think that a woman can be the president of the United States.”