Twice-failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton believes President Trump’s administration is a gateway to fascism.
“The idea that it can’t happen here is just old-fashioned, my friends,” the former secretary of state warned this weekend during an address at Wellesley College.
Her remarks came with a specific reference to former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s new book, Fascism: A Warning. How seriously should we take any “warning” written by a former secretary of state who mocked 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney when he cautioned about the growing Russian threat? I am going to say not much.
But in any case, Clinton went on: “The demagoguery, the appeal to the crowd, the very clever use of symbols, the intimidation, verbal and physical. This is a classic pattern. There is nothing new about it, it is just different means of messages being delivered.”
The funny thing is that every supposedly fascist characteristic she attributes to the Trump administration can be attributed to her own disastrous 2016 presidential campaign. Think back to her characterization of the “deplorables,” or of the symbolism of choosing the Javits Convention Center in New York City for its glass ceiling for her Election Day evening, or of her roping off journalists, etc. The fascist characteristics that Clinton listed most certainly can be attributed to the old Clinton White House, of which the former first lady was one of its shrewdest and most ruthless defenders. (Speaking of physical intimidation, I wonder what former President Bill Clinton is up to these days.)
Though Hillary Clinton did not refer to Trump by name this weekend, her winding speech warning about the rise of a fascistic United States was aimed squarely at the current resident of the White House.
“There is nothing normal about undermining the rule of law. There is nothing normal about attacking the press. There is nothing normal about trying to undermine another branch of government. There is nothing normal about trying to use the political system to go after your enemies. There is nothing normal about any of that,” she said.
“I am a very worried optimist,” Hillary Clinton added. “You do something today that is even more outrageous than what you did yesterday, you say something that is totally beyond the pale of what should be expected from any public official. And so what happened yesterday is so quickly lost in what is happening today. And this goes way beyond party.
She concluded, “If you care about this incredible experiment that we have been engaged in now for 200-plus years, then you have to be concerned about this.”
If you claimed in 2017 that Hillary Clinton was above sniping at the White House from the sidelines as a full-time job, you would have been sorely mistaken. Hillary Clinton, who is clearly broken and bitter from having lost the most winnable of all elections to the least electable of all candidates, has been a nonstop agitator since even before Trump was inaugurated in January 2017.
With grace and charm like this, it is a real tragedy that U.S. voters missed out on having her serve as their chief executive.
