When we consider what that this
country has been forced to suffer under someone as unqualified and unfit to be
president as Donald Trump, it is useful to keep a steady head and look at the
reasons why this happened. Not just that many white voters felt “empowered” by
his racially divisive and anti-immigrant rhetoric, but that they felt that the
“alternative” seemed not just more corrupt, but more dishonest in general. The
candidate herself also seemed oddly unable to see that the voting dynamics had
changed, particularly in “swing” and Midwest “rustbelt” states like Wisconsin
and Michigan, whose state houses were Republican-controlled. While the
candidate would build-up her vote tallies in “left coast” states and in New
York where voters knew all about Trump, elsewhere things were not looking too
good. But the candidate either did not
care or was too arrogant to change direction. She should have been “clued in”
to what was happening in the country by the “surprising” strength of her
populist primary opponent, and listened to comments from people like actress Susan
Sarandon—who was not a so-called “BernieBro”—who on MSNBC expressed a dislike
for the candidate so intense that she intimated that she might vote for Trump
if she was the Democratic nominee, if only because Trump promised “change.”
And so we have that candidate,
Hillary Clinton, still on her tour promoting her book about “gutsy women,”
continuing to show no “guts” at all as she went on the Howard Stern show the
other day and rehashed her tiresome “everyone but me” blame game. Chris
Cillizza, “editor-at-large” for the Clinton News Network—aka CNN—crowed that
Hillary “absolutely destroyed” Bernie Sanders. After first claiming that she
didn’t “hate” Sanders for supposedly hurting her in the 2016 election by not officially
endorsing her until a month after the primaries, she “delivered the dagger,”
according to Cillizza’s calculation: “And I hope he doesn’t do it again to
whoever gets the nomination (in her estimation, Joe Biden). Once is enough.”
Oh please, you hypocrite.
As some of us may recall, voters
in 2007 were hungering for “change,” and they saw that embodied not in Hillary
Clinton and the others on the Democratic debate stages, but in newcomer Barack
Obama, and it certainly helped that he actually acted presidential from the
start. We may also recall the egotistical Hillary losing her mind on a few
occasions, such as trying to convince black voters that Obama had no chance in
a national election, using racist code with white voters in Pennsylvania, and
completely losing it when after Obama’s delegate count for the Democratic
nomination seemed assured, she went off on some bizarre “stream of
consciousness” rant about Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination after winning the
California primary, and how a “similar” circumstance might still find her the
nominee. Contrary to Clinton’s complaints about the media being “unfair” to her
to despite overwhelming evidence that the media tried to shove her down voters’
throats, few in the media seemed to be willing to inquire about what the hell she
was talking about; CNN certainly didn’t, having failed in its attempt to derail
Obama by running the so-called Rev. Wright “scandal” 24/7 for weeks until it
just petered out from sheer irrelevance.
Did the vindictive Hillary try to
hurt Obama during the 2008 presidential election? Well of course she did. She
was so slow and tepid in her “endorsement” of Obama that I’m sure that most
people don’t recall if she had or not; to his credit, Bill Clinton did go on
the road to make supportive speeches, but that was because he wanted to avoid
being looked upon as a “sore loser” like his wife and hurt the chances to
continue the Clinton “dynasty.” With Hillary on the sidelines pouting, president-elect
Obama was obliged to seek her “forgiveness” by offering her the position of
Secretary of State, which she was so grudging to accept that Obama practically
had to go on hands and knees in order to “persuade” her. Contrary to popular
opinion, Hillary did nothing that was notable during her four years in the
State Department; in fact, all of the major Obama-era international agreements
were promulgated during John Kerry’s tenure at State. The only thing that “happened”
during Hillary’s tenure—Benghazi—was due to her indifference to actual work. Furthermore, like Mike Pompeo she did not have
the temperament to be an effective diplomat; rather, she acted like a
placeholder on a four-year world vacation on the taxpayer dime, just so should she
could add it to her “resume” of “experiences.”
Of course, Bernie Sanders wasn’t
the only person or organization that she blamed for her election loss.
According to a Newsweek story two
years ago, the list goes something like this: “sexism,” Barack Obama, former FBI
Director James Comey, “self-hating women,” the media, “uninformed voters,”
voter suppression, Russia, her campaign staff (as if she would have listened to
any advice anyways), the Democratic National Committee, campaign finance laws,
Green Party candidate Jill Stein, the Electoral College, former New York Rep.
Anthony Weiner, and her “misunderstood” comments about “deplorables.” The only
outside factor she didn’t mention that was actually relevant were white
identity/nationalist voters, which of course included some of those “self-hating”
women.
Clinton’s only “confession” to personal fault was concerning
the use of a personal server for government business, although she still seems
not to understand how this “innocent” mistake of hers not only overwhelmed her “message”
and made her supporters defensive about that support—hoping that her expected
victory would not require them to dwell on her failures—but it suggested something
much more problematic: that Clinton, unlike Trump who just says any stupid
thing that pops into whatever occupies his brain case, is a pathological liar and
far more secretive about what she does or doesn’t do. In short, a large
majority of voters did not trust her in 2016, and there is no reason to believe
that she is any more trustworthy now, given her continued failure at
self-examination and assessment.
In fact, let’s take things a step
further. I think that in many ways Sanders and Trump were different sides of
the same coin, their principle difference being ideological. But that is
selling Sanders short, for morally and ethically he was and is far above both Trump
and Clinton, and that would have been the difference for voters in swing states
in 2016. There is no doubt in my mind
that Sanders would have beaten Trump, perhaps easily. Those who claim that
Sanders would have faced an implacable enemy in Congress forget that the
president still has the power to promulgate executive orders, which all
presidents have availed themselves to.
On the other hand, Hillary Clinton
is like Trump in the worst ways. Not only does Clinton have no problem blaming
others for her mistakes, but she has engaged in character assassination,
although in less “explicit” terms. The server business with her initial denials
of wrongdoing and then claiming it was “no big deal” is very Trumpian. Her
habit of concealment and resort to “alternate facts” is also Trumpian. If we
had a crystal ball in the event that it was Clinton who won the election, it is
within the realm of possibility to see her on the impeachment dock instead of
Trump. While we can presume that Clinton would put in place competent people in
her administration, there is no real evidence that she would listen to them
anymore than Trump would. Remember that Clinton claims that she is a “gutsy”
woman—which could, of course, mean she would rely on her “guts” more than on
reasoned policy examination, an assumption that can be made based on the
evidence of her dislike of her judgment being a subject for debate.
Without the “pressure” of being
an official candidate, Hillary Clinton’s current tour of the country saying
things that everyone who isn’t a Trump fanatic knows to be true may make her
seem to be a “wise” sage, but on closer examination her own world continues to
be an “alternate fact” one. Keeping herself in public view doesn’t change that,
but it does provide “hope” for her still loyal disciples that she will jump
back into the ring. This would be the third time for Clinton, and it doesn’t
seem likely that it would work out any better than it did for William Jennings
Bryan.
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