Two-time failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was disturbed in January 2017 when President Trump used the occasion of his inaugural speech to address the hardships of certain voters.
Because that is the thing for which Trump deserves criticism, apparently.
Clinton recalled the moment recently during an interview with shock jock Howard Stern.
“[Bill Clinton] and I are sitting with George and Laura Bush,” she said. “And then [Trump] started on that speech, which was so bizarre, and that’s when I got really worried.”
“I thought, wait a minute,” Clinton continued, “it’s not rational, but it’s also not politics. It’s not what a president does. A president is supposed to try to reach out to people who weren’t for him or her. You’re supposed to say, ‘OK. I am going to be the president of everyone. Those who supported me and those who didn’t, because we’re going to pull the country together.”
Clinton did not let it go at that. She had a lot more to say about the address.
“I had hoped I would hear a little of that. I didn’t hear any of that,” she said. “And then that ‘carnage in the street’ and the dark, dystopian vision. I was sitting there just like, ‘Wow,’ couldn’t believe it.”
She added with a laugh, “And George W. Bush says to me, ‘Well, that was some weird shit.'”
For reference, I believe this is the passage to which Clinton was referring:
This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.
I fail to see what is so “dark” and “dystopian” about recognizing the very real suffering of very real people. Is it impolite to mention these things during an inaugural speech? Am I missing something?
As for Clinton claiming she did not hear anywhere in Trump’s address a desire to “pull the country together,” the president said in the very next sentence: “We are one nation and their pain is our pain. Their dreams are our dreams. And their success will be our success. We share one heart, one home, and one glorious destiny. The oath of office I take today is an oath of allegiance to all Americans.”
But other than that, yeah, Clinton makes some great points.
Trump deserves a lot of the criticism he gets. But that Clinton fails so regularly to get it right is just another reminder of why she lost to him in the first place.
(h/t Matthew Schmitz)
