This began as a Tweetstorm, but I’ll fill things out here. James Fallows has asked Atlantic readers, why the hate for Hillary Clinton? And gets some interesting answers from his readership.
For me, it’s not that there isn’t a bill of particulars against Hillary. I’ve got my issues with her too, big ones. (Iraq, eg.) But I do have a problem with the hyper-characterization of ordinary positions or foibles, as that of a scheming bitch. (And as you’ve guessed, yes, I strongly suspect that the tone of criticism is highly gendered.)
Basically HRC is a rather ordinary progressive Democrat, not very far in substance from Barack Obama or Joe Biden. She’s fairly explicitly running for Obama’s third term. In most cases, even where she differs from Obama in tone — turns out the substance really isn’t that far off.
For instance, her speech yesterday at AIPAC was called “a Symphony of Craven, Delusional Pandering” by Michelle Goldberg at Slate. On substance? Well, steady as she goes, it turns out: She likely simply has a different, more “inside” strategy for how to deal with Netanyahu. And since she’s speaking as the likely next president, she’s actually got to speak strategically. Maybe it works, maybe not. If you think Bernie’s more candid style will create better results, well, that’s hard to prove one way or the other. But Slate’s headline follows the pattern of flamboyant demonization. Fun!
Another example: Hillary makes some dumb and frankly inexplicable remarks about the Reagans “starting a national conversation” on AIDS. Well, they didn’t, and she walked it back and apologized. That wasn’t enough for some, as this proved that she was Evil! and didn’t care about gay people, or AIDS sufferers, or any of that.
You know who actually kind of did promote a “national discussion on AIDS”? The Clintons! — including a featured speaker at the 1992 Democratic Convention. (The GOP, back when it responded to the public’s mood instead of a reactionary rump, actually followed suit!)
Another example: You have probably heard of her (admittedly ugly!) remarks on “superpredators” from 1996, and have formed an image of her as a player of racial politics. How many of us know much about her $125 billion plan to help poor and minority communities? For example:
- Supporting millions of new jobs and providing pathways of opportunity through a $50 billion investment in youth employment, reentry support for those formerly incarcerated, and small business. Roughly one in ten Americans between the ages of 16 and 24 is unemployed, more than twice the national average. And these numbers hide devastating racial disparities: the unemployment rate for African American teenagers is almost twice that of white teenagers, while the unemployment rate for Latino teenagers is roughly a quarter higher. Meanwhile, millions of Americans reenter society every year from our jails and prisons without the support necessary to find jobs and make a successful transition home. Clinton will invest $50 billion to create jobs in communities that are being left out and left behind. She will:
- Invest $20 billion to support millions of youth jobs—providing direct federal funding for local programs that will put our kids to work.
- Invest $5 billion in reentry programs for formerly incarcerated people—so that those who have made mistakes in the past have a fair shot at getting back on their feet.
- Invest $25 billion to support entrepreneurship and small business growth in underserved communities—because small business is the engine of job growth for hardworking Americans all across the country, and that engine shouldn’t be limited by zip code.
Ambitious! How many of those who would vilify Hillary on racial politics know what she’s actually proposing?
And then Hillary was chasing her own (forked!) tail on coal and “putting coal miners out of business”… yes it was awkward and cringeworthy, as Trevor Noah pointed out. On the other hand, there’s nothing new to the fact of coal’s decline. And Hillary’s actually got a $30 billion plan for economic revitalization of coal country.
Clinton’s plan calls for $30 billion towards infrastructure improvements, mine land remediation, training and education programs, and incentives for business investment in Appalachia, the Illinois Basin, and the Western coal areas.
“What I like about this plan is that it’s multi-faceted,” Evan Hansen, president of Downstream Strategies, a West Virginia-based environmental consulting firm, told ThinkProgress. “There is no one solution.”
Hansen pointed to education, for example. While many people in coal communities need training and education that will make them more attractive employees, training the workforce alone is not enough. The areas also need to bolster the businesses that will hire people, Hansen said, and that means improving standard of living in order to attract new investment. Clinton’s plan includes both infrastructure and broadband improvements.
Wow, sounds kind of like a New Deal Democrat. Who knew? Who cares? #lolnothingmatters She’s a clumsy, scheming bitch, we all know that!
Especially those of us on the left ought to be careful with how we characterize Hillary. Partly because she’s our likely candidate; and partly because the proposals deserve to be discussed on their merits. Count me out of a view that says that the details don’t really matter; that a “political revolution” is sufficient (though it may be necessary); or even that policy expertise is itself the problem. As Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson say in the NYT, history says otherwise.
HRC is someone the progressive base can do business with. If she wins, it will require a good deal of engagement and pressure, both to force her to her left — and, critically, to weaken the hand of her opponents. But this is not exceptional. It’s just politics.
jconway says
The problem is, nobody else including her is talking about them. It would be great if she went on tv and went up with ads touting these plans in easy to understand terms actual voters, and not the wonderful wonks that lurk here, can understand.
But yeah the coal plan is fantastic and a great way to win back Trump voters, why isn’t she talking about them? Where are the ads? Where’s the equivalent of that program for Detroit, Flint, Akron, or Springfield for that matter and other post industrial cities? She has to change the conversation and do so fast.
I absolutely agree with you and other supporters of her that she is a more than capable leader who could make an excellent president if given the right opportunities and the critical prodding from all of us. But she has a real problem with honesty, she has a real problem with holding herself to a different set of ethical standards than the rest of us, and she has a real problem with white working class voters that her policies could solve if she found a way to sell them on a hat or a t shirt.
Liberals can hold their noses at the thought, but this is the short attention span country we live in. Bill figured out how to sell a complex policy in a soundbite, time for Hillary to do the same and get to work!
Christopher says
I’ve tried a couple of diaries with much the same message, but I think this one is better.
Trickle up says
I do not get the Hillary hate (and I’m for Sanders).
So I hope it”s not too peevish for me to ask, How is Clinton a progressive?
We might hope she would govern as a progressive. I’ll bet she would if we were mobilized half as well in real life as we were here on BMG. But that’s wishful thinking.
How is she a progressive? Not trying to start a fight, really do not follow this line of thought.
Charley on the MTA says
Well, you’d have to define what you mean by that word, and then look up her stated positions, which she’s helpfully put up on her website, and see how they stack up. I think I tried to do that above.
johntmay says
That’s the other problem. It’s like she has some evil twin out there who takes one position (on TPP, NAFTA, Health Care, Wall Street, Iraq War, and on and on) and there’s the good twin who is running for the presidency who takes different views.
Christopher says
I refer my honourable friends to this diary, and especially the links therefrom.
johntmay says
For me, health care is #1 and growing wealth disparity is a very close #2. On both issues, her walk is clear. (I do not care about her talk). She is in bed with the Wall Street thugs and she is beholding to the health insurance corporate terrorists.
From my perspective, if she gets elected, me and my ilk (working class stiffs) are no better off and continue to slide.
paulsimmons says
I’ll start with the fact that a Sanders victory is improbable, however:
If Sanders means what he says about creating a movement, of which his campaign is merely a preliminary component, and if:
That movement does the necessary on-the-ground organizing; and if:
A critical mass is created at the grassroots level,
A Clinton Administration can be held accountable. I need not mention what total Republican hegemony would do to the federal bench.
The same is manifestly untrue in the case of either Trump or Cruz. This is one of those “Vote-like your-whole-world-depended-upon-it” elections. I’m not so naive as to presume that this election will take us to heaven, but in this political environment (characterized by amok social Darwinism) only a Democratic victory will buy folks the time to arrest the slide.
johntmay says
I’ll agree that a Sanders victory is improbable at the moment. Let’s see how the media treats him after he wins all of the next eight races. That’s another moment in time. As far as the federal bench goes, Hillary will hold back the tide against any effort to reverse Roe, but that’s it. She’ll defend Citizens United and the power that monopoly capitalists have over labor. If elected, on day one, she will call all of her “donors” and let them know that the fix is in and they can all relax. Just keep the checks coming for her 2020 campaign. She’s easy to predict. Just follow the money.
Yes, I’ll agree with Charlie. “Basically HRC is a rather ordinary progressive Democrat” but what stands as an ordinary progressive Democrat today is not what it used to be.
Mark L. Bail says
changed since you were a conservative Republican?
johntmay says
There are a few political individuals who I can say I have never cared for/admired/trusted no matter where I stood. Hillary is one and Mitt Romney is another. On the other hand, I always liked Jim Bradue and always greatly admired Rachel Maddow and Joe Biden. It comes down to trust and heart and a willingness to put people ahead of ones own wealth and celebrity. On those, she and her husband score a goose egg along with Mitt Romney.
johntmay says
Daniel Patrick Moynihan to the “always liked” and Chuck Shumer to the never trusted, regardless of where I stood.
Mark L. Bail says
point of view, but I’m sorry for your work situation.
I don’t share your experience personally, but my friend was just laid off from Mass Mutual after 8 years. He wasn’t doing a bad job; the bosses screwed up their estimated income and needed to cut 350 people to have their most profitable year in a while. My sister works at Bay State Medical. They just decided to stop matching employee 401k deposits. The nurses had the opportunity to unionize. They were too afraid of retribution.
In the 90s, we convinced ourselves (society, I mean) that you had to work hard, go to college, and if you had what it took, you could do okay. I think there was a fair amount of wage bigotry: people who worked fast food or in Home Depot deserved what they got paid. A generation ago, people in factories could make a living doing unskilled labor. It’s time to start lifting all the boats, not just the yachts.
Charley on the MTA says
You’re right, today’s ordinary progressive Dem is *more* progressive than 20 years ago.
johntmay says
A man who said:
This is no time for fear, for reaction or for timidity…Ours must be a party of liberal thought, of planned action, of enlightened international outlook, and of the greatest good to the greatest number of our citizens…. although those same figures proved that the cost of production fell very greatly; corporate profit resulting from this period was enormous; at the same time little of that profit was devoted to the reduction of prices. The consumer was forgotten. Very little of it went into increased wages; the worker was forgotten…..My friends, you and I as common-sense citizens know that it would help to protect the savings of the country from the dishonesty of crooks and from the lack of honor of some men in high financial places. Publicity is the enemy of crookedness…
FDR
SomervilleTom says
The reality is that we have spent the last forty years creating an “innovation economy” whose SOLE purpose is to replace workers — especially skilled workers — with machinery. We have been extraordinarily successful. No politician, no policy, and no promises are going to bring back those lost jobs.
One of the more challenging aspects of the revolution that faces us is the requirement to revolutionize the rules and stances we take towards how we distribute the wealth our economy generates.
No policy based on labor can possibly accomplish that. That’s why minimum wage laws, laws about organized labor, “fair trade” agreements — all of it — are irrelevant because they aren’t going to make one iota of difference. This is NOT the economy that FDR transformed.
The fact that one politician makes empty promises that resonate with some us, and another politician makes empty promises that resonate with others, has nothing to do with what either will actually DO.
What we must actually DO is recapture wealth from our wealthiest and put it back into the wallets and bank accounts of the rest of us so that we can restart our consumer economy.
It takes ONE person ONE MOMENT to recognize and capture an insight that, for example, allows a programmable robot to improve its efficiency by another factor of ten. Who should benefit from the increased wealth that results from that insight? Minimum wage laws, organized labor, etc., etc., etc., are NOT going to help answer that question.
johntmay says
The same “innovation economy” is in other developed nations where their middle class is actually growing. Ours is shrinking. Our .1% has been experiencing explosive growth in their wealth. Politicians and Policies have gotten us here.
As Bill Clinton said, “If you find a turtle on a fence post, you can bet that someone put it there”. Who put our economy here? Hint: Cui Bono? Who benefited from this? Answer, the .1% and the politicians they control.
Politicians and Policies will get us out, but not if we elect politicians in bed with the .1% and then “trust and hope and believe” that they will do the right thing.
SomervilleTom says
I think it will be enormously helpful to look at specific developed nations whose middle class is actually growing, and then contrast and compare their economic policies with ours.
I wholeheartedly agree with you about the 0.1%. I’m really not interested in continuing a discussion with you, however, if you continue your relentless, unwarranted, and unsubstantiated attacks on Hillary Clinton.
johntmay says
Canada is officially home to the richest middle class on the planet.
And they have elected officials who view health care as a human right, not something that is theoretical and will never ever happen.
Denmark the happiest country and they have fast food workers that make $45K a year, with that same “theoretical” health care.
But so long as Democrats support candidates who are at the very least cognitively captured by the .1%, we’ll continue to see the middle class shrink.
Christopher says
…with the notion that organizing and raising the minimum wage won’t make any difference. Maybe it would be more accurate to say necessary, but not sufficient?
SomervilleTom says
I strongly encourage you take another look at the numbers we’re discussing here. There are 2,000 billable hours in a year. A increase in the minimum wage of even $10 (way beyond what anyone is proposing) is $20,000 per year per worker.
Even here in MA, our richest residents have a net worth measured in BILLIONS. For example, our wealthiest resident has a net worth of nearly FIFTEEN BILLION DOLLARS.
I suggest that there is simply NO scenario in which raising the minimum wage by $20,000 per worker is going to make a dent in any billion-dollar portfolio. As in other distributions, the overwhelming majority of business owners are not themselves billionaires. The largest impact, by far, of raising the minimum wage is to simply move already scarce wealth from one of the rest of us to another of the rest of us. The average pizza-shop owner who hires minimum-wage workers for the kitchen is no more wealthy than the rest of us.
What we need to do is instead TAKE BACK the wealth from the billionaire class. We need to do that in the form of very high gift and estate taxes, and on significantly higher capital gains taxes. We need to find a way to tax NET WORTH, rather than gains based on sales and distributions.
Yes, raising the minimum wage is necessary. No, that has nothing to do with reducing wealth concentration.
johntmay says
They get that wealth in a few ways. One is inheritance. Our founders wanted an estate tax (not every founder, of course). Another way is to have a progressive tax rate, something that Thomas Jefferson endorsed. But even here in “Blue” Massachusetts, we can’t get anywhere on raising taxes on the rich.
The other way that the rich get filthy rich is though what John Kay refers to as “Financialisation”. Hint: Goldman Sachs and Hedge Fund Managers (dare I mention that!)
So how do we take it back?
SomervilleTom says
1. Significantly increase the capital gains tax rate for gains above an inflation -adjusted threshold
2. Significantly increase the estate/gift tax for estates above an inflation-adjusted threshold, where the increase is to the confiscatory levels enacted by earlier generations (77%).
3. Find a way to tax net worth, or at least changes in net worth.
One approach is for Congress to pass legislation instructing the CBO to calculate a GINI coefficient for US economy each year (no more difficult than calculating CPI and inflation), and setting a regulatory limit of, say, 30 (corresponding to Germany in 2011) or 32.6 (corresponding the UK in 2012), as compared to the US GINI of 41.1 in 2013 (comparable to Qatar, Morocco, Turkmenistan, etc).
I have long argued for “Catch-and-release Taxation” (too bad the original photo evaporated, it was a great shot of an enormous bass), where we change our tax laws so that we are allowed to make as much wealth as we like in a given year (like catching fresh-water fish), and return everything above a certain limit.
ryepower12 says
social issues? Yep. And then what?
Labor? Well, Democrats had the chance to pass a major bill that would have let organizing unions be considerably easier when Obama was first elected President…. and how’d that go? Or what about Massachusetts, where the Democratic Senate, House and Governor voted to strip collective bargaining rights from public employee unions?
Health care? The President spent all his capital passing a bill much further to the right than the one Democrats tried to push 20 years before, so even if some (deeply flawed) progress was made… nope.
Domestic Policy? Now this could be a huge winner… if Hillary wasn’t running on the “Not Obama” foreign policy platform.
Second question…. which progressives?
Rank and file progressive voters? Sure. Elected leaders? Hell no.
You realize who our incoming Senate Majority Leader is, right? Does Chuck Schumer scream to you, “more progressive than 20 years ago?”
Or how about Nancy Pelosi, who supported single payer all throughout her career until the day a truly progressive candidate had a chance to win the party’s nomination for President, and had a platform of Medicare for All?
Or how about free public university, which a few months ago was something universally supported, but is now somehow racist (!)… according to party elders.
This election has demonstrated just how far to the right the Democratic Party has come. When confronted with a popular progressive who could have been nominated who wanted to push for core progressive issues without compromising ahead of time….. the party’s elected leaders have almost unanimously shrinked from the positions they’ve held in the past, when they thought there was no shot in hell they could pass, and ran to the right so fast I’m pretty sure I heard the shockwaves from they broke the sound barrier.
The people are more progressive than they were 20 years ago. Not our politicians. And that’s all because of Big $$$ in politics.
SomervilleTom says
You write:
I want to remind you that “the one Democrats tried to push 20 years before” was called “HillaryCare”, and it was called that because Hillary Clinton led the ultimately unsuccessful effort to pass it.
Barack Obama and the Democrats PASSED the ACA, something that no Democrat — including the lifelong efforts of Ted Kennedy — has done before.
The world is dark, and not as dark as you paint it. Hillary Clinton is no saint, but she is not Satan either.
Our nation has plunged rightward for the past thirty five years. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama have managed to slow and constrain that rightward shift.
The sad truth is that America is in what pilots call a “death spiral”, engines running full tilt, no lift, and the aircraft plunging towards the ground. The people need a president who will do everything possible to regain control of the aircraft and pull out of the spiral. Continually attacking Democrats doesn’t help.
None of us know what this election has demonstrated, because this election hasn’t happened yet. Barry Goldwater won the GOP nomination in 1968. He did not win the general. George McGovern won the Democratic nomination in 1972. He did not win the general.
Donald Trump is almost certainly going to win the GOP nomination. Hillary Clinton is almost certainly going to win the Democratic nomination. I passionately hope that Donald Trump loses and Hillary Clinton wins. I certainly hope that when Hillary Clinton wins, the presence of Donald Trump on the ticket causes significant gains in the House and Senate, maybe even a majority of each.
If and when that happens, then it is up to “the people” to stop and then reverse the rightward shift of our government.
fredrichlariccia says
with the passage of CHIP ( Children’s Health Insurance Program ) even after Hillarycare was defeated. It now protects more than 8 million poor kids.
At her event in Washington state last night she told the story of a young man who came up to her before she spoke and told her that because of the CHIP program his family had been avoided bankruptcy due to the chronic illness of one of his siblings.
That program now insures more than 8 million poor kids. How many lives do you think it has saved ? Scores, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands ?
Even if it saved that young man’s siblings single life it would have been worth it !
Fred Rich LaRiccia
ryepower12 says
than she is today.
Kind of my point.
johntmay says
With Trump at her heels and his populist message (all talk, no walk, but a populist message indeed), does Hillary move to the left once she is sworn in with (we hope) at least the senate in control of the Dems?
If the answer is “yes, she moves to the left”, please tell me where.
Thanks in advance.
P.S. After hearing Paul Ryan yesterday, it seems that even he is finally hearing the populist crowds.
johntmay says
With Trump at her heels and his populist message (all talk, no walk, but a populist message indeed), does Hillary move to the left once she is sworn in with (we hope) at least the senate in control of the Dems?
If the answer is “yes, she moves to the left”, please tell me where.
Thanks in advance.
P.S. After hearing Paul Ryan yesterday, it seems that even he is finally hearing the populist crowds.
Christopher says
…but I’ve long argued that there’s really not as much space on her left for her to move into anyway.
fenway49 says
I needed a good laugh
Christopher says
I missed the memo that free public university was either once universally supported or now considered racist.
theloquaciousliberal says
Some commentators (and Clinton bakers) have made the argument that offering free college tuition at public schools would make it impossible for private, historically black colleges to compete. I assume that’s what the OP was referring to. See e.g. Clyburn:
http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/22/politics/james-clyburn-bernie-sanders-hbcu/
Christopher says
She has criticized Citizens United every chance she has. HRC is also likely to win at least AZ tonight.
johntmay says
“Since when do democrats attack one another on universal health care?”
Hillary Clinton 2008.
“Bernie Sanders’ health care plan would “empower Republican governors to take away Medicaid, to take away health insurance for low-income and middle-income working Americans.”
Chelsea Clinton 2016
“People who have health emergencies can’t wait for us to have a theoretical debate about some better idea that will never, ever come to pass.”
Hillary Clinton 2016
HR's Kevin says
is any language that demonizes the other side as “evil” or “corrupt”.
Guess what, if Bernie wins the nomination, you are going to desperately need the help of the existing “evil” Democratic establishment and all the people who actually like Hillary and other establishment Dems and who have given their time and money to help them. You cannot accomplish anything with just the most fervent Bernie supporters. So the question you should be asking is regardless of your personal feelings, do you really feel that it helps your cause to personally insult all of those people?
I have read a lot of comments from extreme Bernie supporters that suggest that they will sit out the election or write-in Bernie’s name if Hillary is the nominee. If you have that view, why should you expect Hillary supporters to support Bernie in the general election when you have treated them so badly?
It might make you personally feel good to use the type of language you have been using, but it doesn’t help your cause if it drives away people who should be your allies.
ryepower12 says
Hillary would appoint justices who would repeal Citizens United.
The places she takes money from suggests we have cause for alarm.
Charley on the MTA says
Sorry, John, you’re just outright not correct on this one. She has been very consistently harshly critical of that decision, and has said she would appoint judges that would reverse it. Remember that the org Citizens United existed to air a film lambasting … Hillary Clinton. You think it might be personal for her?
This is kind of what I’m talking about — can we just characterize her positions accurately, without demonization?
And if the response is, “Well, you can’t trust her to go through with it,” I mean, I can’t help that. We’re talking heads-you-lose-tails-I-win at that point.
jconway says
He has walked he walked and demonstrated to any aspiring President that you can go dollar for dollar with small donors and zero money from lobbyists or corporations. For the Sanders supporter her record and rhetoric, which I agree with you Charley and Christopher is actually quite strong on this issue going back to her days in the Senate, is compromised since has used the system she has now. Obama effectively killed public financing by opting out of matching funds well before the court overturned it, McCain to his credit was the last nominee to opt in in either party.
I am not saying they are right in this analysis, I am saying Hillary could have chosen the road not taken and chose to play in the system she is rhetorically appalled by. Sanders found a way to be successful without having to do that, and it offers her a lesson for the general. Pretty easy win for her to say “Bernie has taught me a lot and I respect him, I will follow his lead” and then power her general campaign with small donors. Maybe he can record an ad for her, but that is the kind of co-option and collaboration she will need for the general.
johntmay says
She’s got super pacs, dark money, millions and millions of dollars flowing in because of Citizens United. If elected, she will believe that she will need millions and millions more for re-election. How does reversing Citizen’s United play into that? My guess is that she will fight to repeal it from the front office while working in the back alleys to support it. And no, I don’t trust her. I have no reason to. Her complete reversal on health care as a human right was the last straw for me.
Charley on the MTA says
who got into office under the old system who nonetheless voted for and passed McCain-Feingold. QED. That’s not extraordinary. I don’t see why she or Sanders ought to unilaterally disarm, however.
I also don’t find her position on health care to be a flip-flop at all. She’s trying to push for the best *possible* system. Always has. She’s been a very consistent advocate for access to health care, from 1993 to CHIP and going forward. Just that she’s not promising single-payer I don’t view as a “betrayal”.
johntmay says
A total flip flop. She no longer sees it as a human right. She did at one point. Since that time, her campaign has received millions of “donations” from health care corporations and insurance corporations. She now wants it to be “affordable”, not a right.
Affordable means no one has a right to it and must buy it.
Total Flip Flop.
HR's Kevin says
I am kind of sick of this “healthcare as a human right” rhetoric, because if we are going to go that route, I think there are even more important rights that no one wants to talk about such as the right for shelter and food. No one cares to make those a campaign issue because most people aren’t homeless nor are the homeless very politically active.
fenway49 says
It seems to be a favorite in the Clinton playbook.
“Let us insinuate that the candidate calling for meaningful action on healthcare is vaguely insensitive to real needs in other areas and in fact a callous, calculating pol. On the basis of this insinuation, let us imply that the more conservative, less ambitious candidate on healthcare is in fact the better choice, even though she has ZERO intention of addressing the supposedly pressing needs that have been thus identified.”
HR's Kevin says
First, I have no idea what the “Clinton playbook is”. I like both candidates and am not really a Clinton partisan. I just don’t want to see our likely nominee vilified by our own side.
But it is a fact that no one is talking about housing as a “human right” while it is happening with healthcare. It doesn’t mean that people don’t care about the issue. But it does mean that it is not a priority in campaign messaging from anyone’s campaign. And that is most definitely because the healthcare issue has more personal resonance for most voters.
I am not really trying to suggest that Bernie is insensitive to the issue. I am just trying to remind people using this rhetoric that there are other important human rights that we all too often forget about because they don’t affect us personally.
johntmay says
Hillary 1994
Mrs. Hillary Clinton: No, because what I think would happen if there is not health care reform this year, and if, for whatever reason, the
Congress doesn’t pass health care reform, I believe, and I may be to totally off base on this, but I believe that by the year 2000 we will have a single payer system. I don’t think it’s — I don’t even think it’s a close call politically.
I think the momentum for a single payer system will sweep the country.
Hillary 2016
….a theoretical debate about some better idea that will never, ever come to pass….
SomervilleTom says
You said elsewhere here that you were a Republican before you were a Democrat. Were you a Republican while Bill Clinton was in the White House? Were you a Republican while Hillary Clinton was promoting “HillaryCare”?
More importantly, when Ms. Clinton was supporting government-sponsored single payer in 1994, were you for or against it?
johntmay says
I was against “socialized medicine” in 1994. I was uneducated about it, even worse. I was getting false information. I was wrong, totally wrong. I have no problem in admitting that.
So was Hillary wrong then when she supported it or is she wrong now for opposing it? Finally, what reasons does she give for that change?
SomervilleTom says
Your question was already asked and answered upthread:
No flip-flop. She was neither wrong when she supported it nor wrong now when she doesn’t see it as a viable next step.
Ms. Clinton advocates — and has always advocated — the best possible healthcare system. You have adjusted your position based on your knowledge, the facts, and the reality the world was different 20 years ago than it is today.
Ms. Clinton has done the same.
fenway49 says
for the “best possible” healthcare system by insisting publicly that cherished goals “will never, ever come to pass.” At least not if one is a competent negotiator. One attempts to harness the large amount of support for a single payer system within one’s party, and within the nation, to get real progress at a minimum.
Color me unimpressed by a candidate whose electoral strategy is to tell us all the things we can’t get. But it seems to work marvelously with the many, many Democrats who feel the need to get in touch with their inner kicked dog and make themselves feel superior to the poor little hippies by telling themselves how “pragmatic” and “realistic” they are.
SomervilleTom says
Fair enough. It also gains nothing to push for “government-sponsored single payer health care” when accomplishing that is a virtual impossibility. When we do the latter, we end up with the feelings of disillusionment and betrayal that we had after both Deval Patrick here at home and Barack Obama in the Oval Office. Candidate Barack Obama was going to close GITMO. President Barack Obama did something different.
We both know that with anything like the current makeup of the House and Senate, government-sponsored single-payer health care is not remotely possible. I hope we both know, and I remind you that Mr. Sanders has said from the get-go, that the ONLY WAY it will happen is for a “grass-roots political revolution” to rise up and FORCE congress to act.
If that happens, then I suggest that Ms. Clinton will be far more able to effectively channel the energy of that revolution into ACTUAL and CONCRETE legislation that results in a government-sponsored single-payer health care system than Mr. Sanders.
I wish that we had a candidate with the vision of Bernie Sanders and the political expertise of Hillary Clinton. We don’t. Supporting Mr. Sanders in the primary was fine, I assume he got your vote, and I’m glad he did so. That’s why we have primaries.
Isn’t it now time to move on?
fenway49 says
21 states haven’t voted.
I personally don’t believe Hillary Clinton will channel any progressive energy because I don’t believe she wants to. The 1993 Clinton healthcare effort was thousands of pages long because it tried so hard not to ruffle any insurance industry feathers. The “lesson” she appears to have learned was that even that was a bridge too far. I don’t see her – particularly after saying that it “will never, ever come to pass” – even attempting a fight for single payer. On the vast majority of issues, in fact, I believe a lot of her lip service to the left came about only because Bernie Sanders generated more enthusiasm than she expected and will disappear about 5 seconds after he concedes (assuming she does, in fact, win the nomination).
I agree that some Sanders supporters, particularly the younger ones, would be disappointed if he became President and couldn’t get this stuff through. Personally my problem with Barack Obama (less so with Deval Patrick) was not that he fought the good fight and lost, but that time and time again I saw his administration pushing in the wrong direction. How many times did Geithner testify in Congress to weaken Dodd-Frank? It’s not so much that they fought unsuccessfully for progressive things, it’s that so often they fought affirmatively against progressive things. I have to say I expect the same, and worse, from Hillary Clinton.
Christopher says
HRC re-examines the political realities after 20 years. I very much want single-payer to happen, but we can’t make the perfect the enemy of the good, especially when lives and health are at stake.
ryepower12 says
when 30 million Americans are denied health care, and at least twice that are paying so much for the insurance that they struggle to afford to use its benefits.
The ACA has holes in it larger than Swiss Cheese. It was better than what we had before, but not by nearly as much as we’d like.
Christopher says
By better than before it qualifies as the good in my book, but I thought it was supposed to end anybody being denied health care.
ryepower12 says
“I don’t see why she or Sanders ought to unilaterally disarm, however.”
Because the Democratic Party, if it’s going to be a progressive force, has to regain the trust of the people.
We’re never, ever going to do that if we’re seen as in Wall St’s pockets. More and more people will continue to tune out of the system, thinking both parties work for the corporations and nation’s powerful elite. Fewer and fewer will register in the party, or work toward’s our party’s success.
And they’re certainly not going to start pitching in the kinds of small dollars to the Democratic Party that they are Bernie Sanders so long as the Democratic Party’s taking in corporate money.
We need to reject the corporate influence of our party and let the broader public know that we will sink or swim with them.
HR's Kevin says
whether there is enough money out there from small donors to fully fund not only a full Presidential campaign but House and Senate campaigns as well. It would be nice if there were, but I am a little skeptical.
Mark L. Bail says
argument where money equals corruption. Life and politics are a lot more complicated that that. The argument that an establishment candidate could more effectively change Citizens United is just as potent. At some point, Bernie would have to enter the real world of the general election where people would attack him, and he would need more money than could be raised by small, individual donors.
And as Charley points out, no one can argue with your prejudice. Overcoming your lack of trust is a bridge too far for anyone. And lack of trust is neither an argument or an edification. And there’s no way Hillary can compete with the idealistic vision of Bernie as Savior.
johntmay says
Large amounts of money from a small number of donors will bring a candidate who favors that group. Small amounts of money from large numbers of donors will bring us a candidate who favors that group. Both have been “corrupted” or to put it better, without judgement, both have been changed by that money. To think otherwise is simply denying human behavior and the influence of money.
If you have the time, I would recommend that you read WHAT MONEY CAN’T BUY
The Moral Limits of Markets
Michael J. Sandel
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Mark L. Bail says
It would be good to limit that influence. Right now, there is no way to do that. Sanders can talk all he wants about it, but it won’t buy him advertising or air time. A Supreme Court decision would have to be obviated. Sanders can’t do that by talking about it. I agree on the issue, but after that, I don’t see how Sanders as president changes anything.
ykozlov says
Citizens United is only a piece of the puzzle of the system of corruption.
Here is Elizabeth Warren making some suggestions that have nothing to do with the court (yet).
And here is some model legislation.
kbusch says
grow up in a wealthy family?
Saying “money does equal corruption” is, well, ridiculous. It’s frankly tribal thinking: there’s an evil money tribe, everything they do or touch is bad.
So what’s the solution? Extermination?
Christopher says
You just don’t like her way of getting there. I have no patience for this foot-stomping purity on methods!
kirth says
A word promoted by the DLC to justify their strategy of triangulation, engineered to put Democrats in office even if it meant abandoning traditionally-Democratic values. Anyone who objects to selling out those values is accused of being a purist.
“Besides, the Republicans are worse!” The success of this argument allows the party “centrists” to skew policy far to the right, so long as it’s still to the left of the Republicans. That forces the Rs to go ever further to the right, allowing the Ds to do likewise, so they can capture more votes by being marginally more reasonable.
Also, you and Clinton keep saying “health care,” but what you both mean is insurance coverage. Human rights do not exist to provide for corporate profit.
Christopher says
…but I’m not about to let that or any other single issue hold the big picture hostage, so yes I call such a position unreasonable purity which I’ll gladly leave to the “tea party”.
johntmay says
But on her own campaign website, it reads: Affordable health care is a basic human right.
Can someone explain to me how something can be a “right” and then, at the same time, in the same universe, only be obtained though a market based system of merchants and customers, buyers and sellers?
If health care is my right, why do I then have to purchase it? If I have to purchase it, that means that someone else it, I do not, and I then buy it from them.
Affordable:
To have the financial means for; bear the cost of.
Do I have the right to affordable free speech? Does a woman have the right to affordable reproductive rights?
Some would say that I am splitting hairs and dealing in semantics, I disagree.
I do wish she would change that. I realize it’s not going to happen overnight. We’ve been trying since the days of Truman. The reality that we have private health insurance in the first place and that most of us get it through our employers is just the unintended consequences of two separate events, neither one having anything to do with the other and neither one with the intent of insuring the nation’s health.
I do wish she would change that. If she wins the nomination, I will support her and yes, I will vote for her but I will still urge her to establish health care as a human right and detach it from health insurance corporations that sell it to us in the marketplace at a huge and unnecessary (and I would say immoral) profit.
Christopher says
…I’m pretty sure as with most medical issues, one does have to pay to exercise their reproductive rights. Also, those with money do often have more access to media to carry their speech. There’s also the fact that firearms protected by the 2nd amendment still have to be purchased. I am glad to finally see you acknowledge she uses the term human right in connection to health care and that you will support her if nominated.
I’m fully with you on the merits, but public policy is largely a Congressional role. If by some miracle single-payer gets through Congress I don’t think she would veto it. I don’t believe I have heard her criticize it on the merits, but simply on the politics.
Trickle up says
not free as in beer.
Peter Porcupine says
Beds and medicine have costs to fabricate.Medical imaging machines have electrick bills.
Without bringing back a monastic system of uncompensated healers, you are going to have to pay for health care – via cash, insurance, or taxes.
johntmay says
Just as other providers of public safety, school, and so many others receive compensation. The list is long: police officers, fire fighters, presidents, senators, second grade teachers, high school custodians, judges on the US Supreme Court, vice presidents, US Marines, all receive compensation. Further, the companies that provide police cars for the police officers receive compensation as do the construction companies that build the schools where the teachers work. Everyone is compensated. No one works for free.
Why is it so difficult to understand a system where instead of my doctor billing my private insurance company to pay for my colonoscopy, he bills a branch of the government?
He still gets compensated. The only difference is in the latter, there is no CEO making $10,000,000 for me to support.
Peter Porcupine says
…he will be paid with taxes. On you, me, and the rest of us. That is your preferred method of payment.
Explain to me why having government departments processing a claim will cost less than a clerk in an insurance company.
Christopher says
….that such a method has proven more cost effective in every place else it has been tried, including our own Medicare system. Nobody is arguing for a complete reinvention of the wheel here. Yes, for the record, I do prefer that taxes pay for essential services. Sanders argues that any tax increase needed for this will be more than offset by the savings you will see in not having to pay premia yourself.
johntmay says
This is how Medicare and Medicaid work. The medical provider sends a bill and the government pays the bill with the government’s money. Yup, it works just fine.
How will a government processing department cost less than a private corporation? Well, for starters, the government department does not have to worry about delivering a profit to shareholders and a government department is not burdened by having to support the salary of a CEO who makes over $10,000,000 per year.
HR's Kevin says
Is food a human right? Is housing a human right? Is clothing? Don’t all of those get provided through “market based systems”? Is Bernie Sanders proposing a way to reduce hunger and homelessness that doesn’t involve such systems? Should we replace food stamps with “government feeding stations”?
johntmay says
But performing my own colonoscopy is not possible. That’s one key difference between health care and other matters. Medical care is something we typically need others for and cannot do on our own.
scott12mass says
I do have a question for all those who want the government to pay for all health care. Are there any personal responsibility limits? If someone is afflicted with something to which they have contributed, should they be treated the same as someone who was hit by a bus and broke their leg?
Two people need a lung transplant, one smokes, one doesn’t. Should they be treated the same? First come, first served?
Age is a factor?
SomervilleTom says
The rest of the first world nations have already figured this out. I suggest we pick and choose what has worked best for those nations.
johntmay says
Of all the nations in the developed world with this sort of medical model, all are free democracies and none of them have a significant number of citizens fighting to change from that system to a market based one.
johntmay says
Yes, of course. Who sets the limits? We do. How? We set limits via the democratic process, electing representatives who work within the constitutional republic to set limits.
scott12mass says
That is what has already been happening.
fenway49 says
Because, as with Bill Clinton and Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton-candidate version, we can count on good Democrats to back every crappy thing they do with dire warnings about “the virtues of incrementalism” and how things are done in the “real world” and accusations of aiding-and-abetting the evil GOP by not clapping loudly enough. Up will be down, stagnant (at best) wages will be a “soaring economy,” a Rubinite approach to Wall Street will be “the best we can get.” Just as Hillary Clinton is a “progressive,” so will Cory Booker be — and whoever else is coming through the pipeline.
I’ve seen this movie before. It sucked and it isn’t worth making a sequel. God defend me from my friends.
bob-gardner says
How else can you explain her attack on the non-violent BDS movement?
jconway says
And BDS is trying to delegitmize one of our staunchest allies in the Middle East. BDS has some members who are open anti Semites and it officially opposes the two state solution. I give her and Bernie a ton of credit for being sane on Israel despite left wing pressure from the likes of BDS and right wing pressure from Bibi and Adelson. They are right in the middle where America should be, a friend but an honest one, committed to peace. A continued Israeli state and a peaceful Palestinian one.
bob-gardner says
. . . “right wing pressure from Bibi and Adelson”, let me know. And the occupation of Palestine is illegitimate. Delegitimizing it is redundant.
jconway says
For far too many on the BDS side and campus Palestinian activists or the Noam Chomsky’s of the world the entire state since 1947 is “illegitimately occupied”. I disagree with that. I support Israel having a right to exist within the pre-1967 borders agreed to at the UN. It’s not Israel’s fault it’s neighbors didn’t recognize it or that the Arab sections walked away from the UN proposal in 1946 that would’ve given them substantially more land than what they will end up getting now.
If you define “occupation” to mean the illegal settling and de jure annexation of the West Bank and Gaza than we are in full agreement, as is Secretary Clinton. Read the Vox piece Charlie links to, her policy is no different from that of Obama’s, the Bushes or her husband. America has been committed to the two state solution on a bipartisan basis for decades. She will try and use the leverage of her election and closer relationship to Bibi to achieve concessions Obama was unable to do. She was quite clear that failure to settle this conflict fairly on both sides will result in endless war and no democratic governance for either.
bob-gardner says
As the Vox piece states, the policy she put forth in front of AIPAC has been a complete failure through at least three presidential administrations.
Then she takes a failed policy and makes it worse by going out of her way to attack a non-violent movement.
Why oppose non-violence? Isn’t that what we have been preaching to the Palestinians all these years?
eb3-fka-ernie-boch-iii says
Most respectfully Charlie, your analysis sounds like an answer in a love letter column written by Mr. Spock.
It’s emotion that is driving this race. On top of the usual racist and sexist voter is the never-seen-before anti-establishment majority. Hillary is the establishment. Pure and simple. We can strip that down all day long but it’s not going to change the fact that the she is as much the face of the establishment as any candidate from either party.
Trump is anti-establishment
Sanders is anti-establishment
Elizabeth Warren is anti-establishment
SomervilleTom says
What some might call “emotion” others might call “media lies”.
I agree that “it’s emotion that is driving this race”. It’s broader than that — “emotion” has been driving the GOP for decades now. Facts say that there is no measurable genetic difference between “African-American” and “Caucasion” races. There are NO genetic markers that separate one from the other. Emotion says that Blacks and Mexicans are bad and whites are good.
It takes more than emotion to govern a nation. Sometimes we must face realities and facts that we don’t like, and we must face them because they are real.
If we are to survive as a democracy, we must find a way to move past pure emotion and include reason, rationality, truth, facts, and science in our governance.
eb3-fka-ernie-boch-iii says
Sometimes it’s is no one’s fault. Time marches on. Is what it is. New generation. People want change. Out with old and in with the new. Can’t teach an old horse new tricks. What-have-you-done-for-me-lately mindset. Happens to everyone at some point. Can’t control what everyone thinks. The numbers don’t lie.
Charley on the MTA says
There is something to this. She definitely seems trapped in a 1990’s “moderate” style of politics, eg. not seeming to realize how politically toxic her Wall Street connections are. And fairly or unfairly, she’s being made to own the entire Bill Clinton record on welfare, crime, NAFTA, etc. At least on the margins of both the GOP and Dem primary electorates, there really is an appetite for “revolution” — a rejection of that whole consensus.
She is barely hanging on because of that. She is not politically nimble, to say the least. At the same time she has adjusted her positions to the left.
Christopher says
HRC has IMO more than earned her spot in line to be President. I’m glad the party is moving left, but I’d prefer it not sprint right past her on its way.
centralmassdad says
I am not so convinced that the party is moving left and the surprising strength of Sanders doesn’t necessarily provide evidence otherwise because it seems so shallow. So, he is running on “health care is a human right (whatever that means)”. Assuming this means single-payer, this is a policy that was opposed by Democrats in the 90s and defeated by the Democratic Congress in 2010. And the bill they did pass seems to be despised by right and left, and lost them the Congress to a more ideologically right wing GOP.
Is there any suggestion that Congressional Dems are feeling pressure from their left on this? It is primary season, but there is not. Is there any evidence that a more left wing Democratic Party might mount a challenge to GOP control of purple states? No. Which means that leftward movement in Congress is nowhere on the horizon either.
That’s why I say “shallow.” I just dont see any evidence of some left wing or progressive surge outside of the surprising resiliency of a candidate who will not win the nomination. Not like the evidence of the right wing shift of the GOP that was in evidence as far back as 2006.
JimC says
… could have some fun with this headline.
I agree with the diary’s main point, but I don’t know, maybe a slightly higher bar? I keep picturing HRC doing a Christine O’Donnell-type ad where she denies she’s Satan.
Charley on the MTA says
“Satan” is mild hyperbole of some of the rhetoric she’s facing from the left, much less the right. I don’t see how you could read the post and think it was my “bar.”
jconway says
That activist in Honduras who was allegedly assassinated by the government is the lefts Vince Foster on social media. Really sad to see otherwise smart and dedicated people I know falling for that meme that doesn’t pass a snopes test.
JimC says
I don’t see how you could read my comment and think I meant you literally set Satan as the literal “bar.”
Charley on the MTA says
“I’m nothing you’ve heard. I’m you.”
SomervilleTom says
Multiple media sources report that Hillary Clinton is no longer kicking her family dog and stealing from her neighbors. Gallup polls report that eighty percent of Americans want a president who does not kick dogs and steal from neighbors. Exit polls show that 70% of voters who care about dog abuse and neighbor theft voted for Mr. Sanders.
We are in a self-perpetuating media-driven cycle of lies, distortions, bias, and fantasy.
johntmay says
Drop the Super Pacs
Endorse Health Care as a human right
Do that, and I will put a “Vote for Hillary” bumper sticker on my Scion FR-S.
And the question is, why won’t she do ANY of this?
JimC says
They’re not coming out.
Think about it: she didn’t have a private meeting with Goldman Sachs executives. She gave a paid speech; it was probably to new recruits, or carefully selected GS clients, or something of that nature. She was there as herself, and she DIDN’T SAY ANYTHING you or I would consider controversial.
But you can bet that everyone in the room signed an ironclad non-disclosure.
The whole point of her appearance, I assume, was “We’re Goldman Sachs! We don’t get the Rotary Club president to speak, we get Hillary Rodham Clinton! Aren’t you impressed?”
So forget it, John. They overpaid her. They should, they’re Goldman Sachs. The transcripts are not news.
johntmay says
And if she “didn’t say anything”, why not be open and honest about it?
JimC says
Of the three things you listed, the transcripts are by far the least important item.
She can certainly be criticized for accepting such large speaking fees from a Wall Street firm. But I don’t think it really hurts her, because a lot of supporters see her as someone who breaks glass ceilings, and PLENTY of male politicians get such speaking fees all the time.
Case in point: last week there was a scandal involving Wounded Warriors, a group that helps veterans. (The scandal, I think, was that they are accused of keeping too much for themselves.) It was mentioned on the news that they gave George W. Bush $100K for a speech. Is that outrageous? NO — because $100K is a really low fee for an ex-president. That probably barely covers his expenses and security detail. He did them a favor.
Bigger fish, John. Sorry but the speech issue doesn’t work in this primary, and it won’t work in the general.
johntmay says
Excuse me? Please, “vote for me because of my genitals” ain’t going to cut it with me. Sure, there are many male politicians who have sold out to big money, Chuck Shumer is one and Barack Obama has to a degree. I’m still not in favor of it.
Coming from the perspective of a working class guy who has been ignored by both parties for the past 40 years, there are only two people talking to us at the moment, and Hillary is not one of them.
JimC says
Sanders and Trump, you mean?
fenway49 says
I’m pretty sure johntmay is not saying to vote for Trump. He’s saying that other people out there will vote for Trump because they don’t believe Hillary Clinton gives a shit about them.
Trump is appealing to people’s basest instincts. The Republicans, horrified though they profess to be at his rise, have been doing this to great effect for half a century. But he also speaks to economic insecurity on a regular basis.
Let’s be clear. I don’t think Trump will be president, and if he were elected I don’t think he has any real intention of addressing our economic problems constructively. As always with Trump, there is no substance to what he’s saying about the issue. “There’s gonna be jobs, you’re gonna see, there’s gonna be the greatest jobs anyone ever thought of. We’re gonna win and there’s gonna be incredible jobs.”
None of this crap fools me. But it’s really struck a chord with millions of pissed-off, scared people. In the last couple of days I’ve seen articles saying his popularity owes more to racial and cultural insecurity than economic insecurity. And there’s plenty of racism and hostility in the country, but I think for a lot of people economic insecurity feeds that. What we’re seeing in this election is that if Democrats don’t occupy the space calling out for a chance at a better economic life, right-wing charlatans will fill the void.
Christopher says
…that doesn’t come across as xenophobic bluster? Everyone says he is somehow right on trade, but I can’t look past his outrage to find actual coherent plans. What can HRC do at this point to satisfy people? She can be who she is and sound to centrist, or if she does switch (She has come out against TPP and voted against CAFTA, remember.), that will just confirm to some that she sticks her finger in the wind and has no principles. Personally, I wish people would listen a little more closely (and, for that matter more closely examine her actual record) and find that this constituency has (and I would argue always had) a friend in the Clintons.
kbusch says
Trump’s statement on middle class economics runs like this: Americans have been losing jobs and earning power steadily due to unfair trade relations with other countries, first and foremost China but not just China. Why do we have unfair trading relations? We have unfair trading relations because they were negotiated by career government workers with no experience doing the kind of hard-bargaining one only learns how to do by working in business. So if we replaced these unsuccessful negotiators with high-quality ones, we’d have better trade agreements and American workers would win more jobs and better wages.
*
Notice that there is a lot that’s wrong with the above position but it has a strikingly clear narrative. It involves talking about real people (actual diplomats, actual business people), and it doesn’t dive into the wonkishness about the advantages of free trade. This aspect will not be easy even for Sanders to answer in a general election campaign.
SomervilleTom says
I strongly suspect that since Goldman Sachs paid for her appearance, they own ALL rights to whatever was said there. Ms. Clinton cannot provide intellectual property that she does not own. If Goldman Sach’s allows the transcripts to be published, I strongly suspect that Ms. Clinton will be at the front of the line distributing them.
Your personal animus against Ms. Clinton is just that — a personal animus. And yes, this commentary provides a fine example of the mechanism I parodied in my comment.
There’s no story in “the transcripts”, and you sound like deniers flaming on about “climategate” (a similarly non-story “story”).
johntmay says
If that were the case, don’t you think that would be her reply?
Please, the degree to which you are defending this woman is getting awkward.
When first asked about it, she declined to reply. The second time she said she’d have to “look into that” and the third time she was asked, she replied that she would, “when the Republicans” do the same.
And yes, I have an animus towards congenital liars. I realize that no one is perfect and we all have our moments were we fall. However, the ongoing pattern of lies, distortions and deceptions with this candidate is indeed something I have an animus against, so should we all.
SomervilleTom says
Sorry, but no —′ I’ll not “give you a break”.
I’m sick of rubbish like your accusation that Ms. Clinton is a “congenital liar”. As in sick to death of it. As in out of patience with trying to be courteous.
There is no “ongoing pattern of lies, distortions and deceptions”. There is, instead, a personal, unfounded, and tiresome relentlessly repeated pattern of hate speech. Commentary like this has more in common with Climate Change Deniers and extreme right-wing hate sites than with a “reality based community”.
I think it’s past time to knock it off.
JimC says
You’re arguing semantics.
Is she a “congenital liar?” I don’t think so. (Honestly I’m not even sure what that means.)
Is there an “ongoing pattern” of any sort of questionable public statements coming from Team Clinton? Just for one example, Chelsea Clinton’s comment about Sanders wanting to destroy Obamacare? There most assuredly is one, and it deserves every ounce of scrutiny it gets.
HRC’s tactics remain her own worst enemy.
johntmay says
She’s been for TPP and NAFTA and against both. She’s been against marriage equality and for it. She’s been for the Iraq War and against it. She’s been for universal single payer and it now against it. She was on one side of a bankruptcy bill and then the other. I’ll accept that she is not a liar. Since she is not, can you please explain to me why she has taken so many different positions? Further, can you tell me what confidence you have or that I should have with her positions in the future?
I’m going to need help with this if she wins the nomination and I have to campaign for her. The independents that I will be speaking with will have these questions for me and frankly, I don’t know how to reply.
Thanks in advance for your help/
Christopher says
Though I am not sure she was ever for the TPP. Lots of people were against marriage equality before they were for it. On Iraq she was for giving the President authority to conduct the campaign, but against how he did in fact conduct it. She has explained how and why she changed sides on the bankruptcy bill, but was trying to make it better. (Legislative positions are hardly ever black/white or consistent due to how the process works; just ask John “I actually did vote for the $87B before I voted against it.” Kerry.) Because she’s willing to be nuanced and in some cases follow the evidence to new conclusions, I actually have MORE confidence in her ability to analyse the issues that may hit her desk as President. This is partly why I don’t choose my President based on an issues checklist, but rather their overall ability to do the job.
doubleman says
I’m sorry, but this is absurd. Not understanding that she made some (or most) of these calls for political expediency easily calls for a diagnosis of Clinton Derangement Syndrome (but a different one than the one which you so often diagnose others with). She may well make a much better President than any other candidate, but, please, Christopher, let’s be honest about who she is and the choices she’s made.
Christopher says
…how you’ve learned to read people’s minds. Derangement in this context means extreme hatred to the point of not believing they can do anything right so that definitely doesn’t apply to me (see also Bush Derangement Syndrome, Obama Derangement Syndrome, always used AGAINST the person so named). I also haven’t diagnosed it that often, only 2 or 3 who refuse to give her credit for anything and certainly not every Sanders supporter. All of my suggestions above are easily fathomable and apply to more people than just her, politicians and non-politicians alike. I absolutely stand by every word of my previous comment and don’t believe I am being the slightest bit gullible.
kirth says
Would you believe her own words, as presented on the State Department website?
Now are you sure? Please note that she did not say, as she now claims, that she “hoped” TPP would be the gold standard. She said it IS the gold standard.
And yes, she has lied repeatedly. There was her claim that she dodged sniper fire in Bosnia. A complete fabrication.
There was her lie that “I don’t know where [Sanders] was when I was trying to get health care in ’93 and ’94…” in spite of the publicly available photo hand-inscribed and signed by her in 1993, thanking Sanders for his help with the issue.
There is her fabrication of Nancy Reagan’s supposed activism in fighting AIDS, which was completely counter to the truth.
She has a long history of disregard for fact. It’s a major reason I do not want her to be President. You’re welcome to support her for that office, but you should not be blind to her problem with facts.
Christopher says
She was doing her job as a Cabinet Secretary promoting administration policy, but not necessarily making a personal statement. As a candidate she waited to see and then came out against it, though if she really had simply changed her mind that would have been OK too. Bosnia was a rhetorical flourish and yes, her mouth got ahead of her brain on the other two – happens to all of us.
johntmay says
She has changed her mind much more than most and there is all that inconvenient video tape of her saying this and then that. This is the sort of answer that the independents are not going to buy, nor should they.
Christopher says
…or is she officially in unforgivable lost cause territory for you? I LIKE that people revisit their positions to match current circumstances, even if in some cases the motive is an acknowledgement of political realities. That speaks to the ability as President to process and act upon new information, rather than simply being the “decider” a la GWB.
ChiliPepr says
It has been reported before that in other speeches “The sponsor shall not have ownership rights of any kind,” and Sen Clinton retains all rights. I would assume that she did the same with GS.
kbusch says
I’m trying to think about what kind of dirt one would expect to find in these transcripts. Ms. Clinton’s speeches are unlikely to be delving into some kind of secret master plan Goldman Sachs has concocted in their gold-leafed basements to strip the middle class of its remaining wealth. More typically celebrity speeches are given at corporate events to inspire corporate minions through contact with someone demonstrating leadership, charisma, and drive so that they, pumped up, can return to their jobs more eager to work. I’d expect such transcripts to be more hokey than some kind of sign of betrayal.
The problem with income inequality is not most usefully seen as a victory of the Greedy or, to use older terminology, the Wicked over the Innocent. Instead, it is the problem that financial power has become convertible into political power in our country. We’ve let the laws and their enforcement heavily tilt in favor of the financial power. This is not solved by acting as if rich people have cooties; it is solved by systemic change.
This yearning for transcripts seems to me to part and parcel of the cootie theory of income inequality.
Christopher says
By law they operate without coordination with or approval from the campaign they support.
doubleman says
Good one.
Christopher says
…once suggest that his opponent should be accused of animal abuse and when told his opponent hadn’t said, “I know, I just want to see him deny it”? Then he proceeded to lift his own dog by the ears to the chagrin of animal lovers everywhere.
JimC says
It was not “animal abuse” in the classic sense of the term (neglect or violence). It was — well, never mind what it was.
Christopher says
I partly wasn’t sure and partly wanted to keep it clean.
paulsimmons says
…given that 33% of Sanders supporters say they will refuse to vote for Clinton, should she be the Democratic nominee, according to a Wall Steet Journal NBC News Poll.
Let the following suffice to address this matter:
Christopher says
…that calls out how each candidate’s record is treated.
johntmay says
…I am not a normal “Dem”.
I believe that health care is a human right and I want to lessen the power that Wall Street has over our lives.
SomervilleTom says
I think most of us, specifically including Hillary Clinton, agree with you.
Our difference is not in our desire to accomplish those two things. It seems to me that our difference is instead in our perception of how effective these two candidates will be in making that vision a concrete reality.
My perception is that EACH candidate wants to accomplish this. I support Ms. Clinton in the primary because I believe she is more likely to be effective than Mr. Sanders. I will enthusiastically support whichever candidate wins the nomination because I believe that either candidate is a FAR better choice than any of the several GOP candidates.