Hillary Clinton said Wednesday that the wave of race-related violence in the United States shows that America is still divided, and argued that Donald Trump is promoting this division.
“America’s struggle with race is not finished,” she said in Illinois, in the same chamber where Abraham Lincoln gave his “House Divided” speech in 1858. Clinton added that Trump “fans the fire” of that division and that violence.
“In times like these we need a president who can help pull us together not split us apart,” Clinton said. “And that’s why Donald Trump is so dangerous.”
“This man is the nominee of the party of Lincoln, we are watching it become the party of Trump,” she added. “And this is not just a huge loss to our democracy, it is a threat to it.”
Clinton spoke just a day after President Obama delivered a speech at a memorial in Dallas for the five police officers killed last week. Those shootings happened at a demonstration against the police killings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile.
Clinton said Trump has stoked racial division with his proposal to track Muslims living in the United States, his claims that Judge Gonzalo Curiel was a Mexican and therefore unfit to proceed over the Trump University hearings, and his claims that Mexican immigrants are “rapists,” among others. She told the story of a young adopted child asking his mother if Trump would deport him.
“When kids are scared about political candidates and policy debates, it’s a sign that something has gone terribly wrong,” she said.
“He says that if he doesn’t win in November we won’t even have a country anymore, America won’t continue to survive,” Clinton said of Trump’s rhetoric. “I don’t know what he’s talking about, but I know we don’t need that kind of fear-mongering. Not now, not ever.”
The former secretary of state asked voters to “imagine if he had not just Twitter and cable news to go after his opponents, but the IRS. Or for that case the entire military.”
Clinton called on Americans to “listen” to those who have been directly affected by racial violence or police violence, recognize that Black Lives Matter and also listen to the many “dedicated, principled” police offers who defend democracy.
“I’m here today in this place because the words Lincoln spoke all those years ago still hold resonance for us now. Remember, he said, a house divided against himself cannot stand,” Clinton said. “The challenges we face today don’t approach those of Lincoln’s times, not even close and we should be clear about that. But the recent events in America have left people asking the hard questions if we are still a house divided.”
