Every few months, Hillary Clinton likes to remind America why she lost the 2016 election. Back in March, recall, she told an audience that she “won the places that represent two thirds of America’s gross domestic product. So I won the places that are optimistic, diverse, dynamic, moving forward, and his whole campaign, ‘make America great again,’ was looking backwards.” The smart people voted for her, and the mouth-breathers voted for the other guy. Charming.
That Clinton holds half the country in disdain is no longer remarkable. Her latest expression of disgust, however, isn’t just ugly but culpably irresponsible. “You cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for, what you care about,” Clinton told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. “That’s why I believe, if we are fortunate enough to win back the House and/or the Senate, that’s when civility can start again.”
We leave it to our readers to decide whether the party of Chuck Schumer, Dianne Feinstein, Cory Booker, and Kamala Harris—the party that gleefully portrayed Brett Kavanaugh as a gang rapist in an effort to delay his confirmation to the Supreme Court—is prepared to restore civility in the nation’s capital. Probably not, would be our view. But Clinton’s assertion that one “cannot” treat Republicans with civility amounts almost to an act of rhetorical sedition.
It’s fair to point out that the GOP has generated some uncivil conduct of its own, beginning of course with the president himself, and we don’t doubt for a minute that critics of the administration have received anonymous death threats.
But the last few months have seen representatives of Clinton’s camp—Democrats and progressives—behave in ways that go beyond incivility and border on maniacal. The shrieking protesters who disrupted the Kavanaugh hearings and confirmation vote—coordinated with the help of elected Democrats—were only the latest instance of the party’s spiteful hysteria. Representatives of progressivism have also doxxed Republican officeholders (the addresses of GOP members of the Judiciary Committee were posted to Wikipedia during the Kavanaugh hearings by a Democratic staffer), and one zealot sent what was supposed to be ricin to Donald Trump and the Pentagon. In California a deranged man attempted to stab a GOP congressional candidate with a switchblade, and a number of Republicans—Ted Cruz, Kirstjen Nielsen, Mitch McConnell—have been chased from public places by fanatical leftists.
All this while Democratic party leaders either stay silent or hint at approval. When CNN’s Dana Bash asked Hawaii senator Mazie Hirono if she thought “going after people at restaurants should stop,” Hirono replied, “This is what happens. They—because when you look at white supremacists and all that, this is what is coming forth in our country. . . . this is the kind of activism that occurs. And people make their own decisions.” We’ll take that as a “No.”
One would think that Clinton, who clearly wants another leadership role and who craves popularity, would have sense enough to urge moderation and civility during a dangerously acrimonious time in the nation’s history. But that would be to assume Hillary Clinton is a leader. She has always been a follower. Today she applauds the lunatics who harass and scream at those with whom they disagree. What will she applaud tomorrow?
