Hillary Clinton bears an enormous amount of responsibility for the election of Donald Trump. Her 2016 strategy was extremely cynical: to go as far right as possible and deliver for her 1% donors, while still hoping to squeak by and win, based on the fact that Trump is transparently a monster. It is a calculus based not upon principles, but upon profoundly jaded and self-serving thinking. Let’s take a look at how that strategy manifested itself in the presidential campaign and in her record as an ostensible public servant.
-- She offered no credible plan for combating climate change. She was proud to serve as Secretary of State under Barack Obama, who famously bragged about increasing domestic oil drilling more than any other president in US history.
-- She did not propose a credible plan for college debt relief.
-- She did not campaign on universal healthcare coverage.
-- Hillary Clinton did not propose any decrease in the criminally bloated military budget.
-- Her plan for the self-perpetuating and self-defeating boondoggle known as the “War on Drugs?” Stay the course.
-- Based on her Senate record and record as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton was rightfully viewed as a hawk on military matters. Working class White, Black and Latino Americans have been disproportionately killed and unimaginably traumatized in Afghanistan and Iraq. A cheerleader for the insane "War on Terror" should not be expected to be popular in such communities. Trump was to the LEFT of her in his campaign rhetoric on military matters.
-- Many Black voters didn't bother going out to vote for Hillary Clinton because she never credibly showed herself to be an ally. Not being a performative racist jag-off, like Donald Trump, is NOT the same as being a proactive ally. She has said ignorant and offensive things related to race over the years; she backed her husband's garbage crime bill, a bill which extended the grim trend of mass incarceration; she offered no credible plan to address police killings of unarmed Black Americans. No support for reparations. No credible plan to address the savage economic, educational & health inequalities that are the result of our white supremacist history.
-- As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton jetted around Europe lobbying Prime Ministers to start fracking and allow American companies there secure the contracts to do so.
-- As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton championed the violent overthrow of the dictator Qaddafi in Libya - actions which helped to usher in the current failed state hellscape of Libya, featuring slave markets and the rise of Islamic terrorist groups.
-- On the campaign trail, Hillary Clinton assured the voters that she would work hard to hold Wall Street in check, so the unprecedented plunder and funneling of wealth to the 1% might slow. She was then famously caught on tape assuring a crowd of Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street flunkees that such talk was only rhetoric and that she would have their backs.
-- Hillary Clinton's disdain for working class Black & White folks was on display when she didn't bother to visit Wisconsin or Michigan, battleground states, in the heat of the campaign. Incomprehensible.
-- Hillary Clinton’s public statements on the woman who accused her husband of rape, Paula Jones, on Bill Clinton’s alleged paramour Gennifer Flowers and on Monica Lewinsky have been dismissive, unbelieving and disrespectful. If her statements about these women had come from a man, I would label such a man as sexist.
I have a particular contempt for people who think they can have it both ways in life. In this case, Hilary Clinton can be a toady for the idiotic and sociopathic policies of her 1% buddies and somehow also get the votes of the people that their policies, or lack thereof, are screwing. Life doesn't work that way. But arrogant people like Hillary Clinton like to think that it does. To act in this manner is galling enough, but then, to try to shift the blame for her loss onto the people she failed to offer anything better than "I'm probably not as bad as that maniac from Queens" and to actually write a book about the campaign titled "What Happened?" is insulting. What happened, Hillary? Well, a large part of the answer to that question is: You did.
