Are you finally with her? The Hillary Clinton paradox
Ignore Hillary Clinton at your own peril
Once again, Hillary Clinton is absolutely correct.
During an interview last Monday on the "Tonight Show," host Jimmy Fallonasked Clinton the following question: “I mean, it's Biden versus Trump. What do you say to voters who are upset that those are the two choices?"
Clinton responded:
Greg Sargent explains in a recent essay at The New Republic:
To that point, as detailed by Gabriel Sherman in a new must-read article at Vanity Fair, Donald Trump is much closer to winning the 2024 election than many members of the news media and general public would like to admit.
Ultimately, this yearning for Donald Trump to become President of the United States for a second time is a symptom of a deep malaise and sickness in American culture and society where it appears that tens of millions (if not more) people have a collective compulsion towards self-destruction. This is very common behavior in a society that is experiencing multiple crises and does not have the maturity or capacity to process its death anxieties in a healthy and productive way.
As I try to make sense of this sick yearning and poisoned nostalgia, I have been returning to the work of the highly influential social psychologist and psychoanalyst Erich Fromm. In a 1973 essay in the New York Times about Fromm’s then-new book, “The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness,” Sara Sanborn wrote the following:
When I am emailed or otherwise speak with people who tell me that they are principled liberals, progressives or “good lefties”, which in their minds means they cannot in good conscience support President Biden, I have a standard reply. I tell them to make a list of all the issues they purport to care about so much. Look very carefully at the list. There is not one real issue on that list that Donald Trump, his MAGA people and the Republican Party will address in a way that you would like. Moreover, they will make all those things far worse in ways you likely cannot even imagine. Thus, to convince oneself that not voting for Biden is a type of great strategic move and the long game where the Democrats will be forced to adapt after they are defeated in the 2024 election is silly talk to the extreme. Donald Trump will be America’s first dictator; he and his successors will not leave power; burning down the proverbial village in order to save it does not work.
So please listen to Hillary Clinton and the other alarm-sounders this time. They are trying to save the American people and American democracy. But in the end the American people will have to exercise the agency, intelligence, reason, and be responsible enough to save themselves.
www.salon.com
Hillary was right in 2016 and she is right now.
Ignore Hillary Clinton at your own peril
Once again, Hillary Clinton is absolutely correct.
During an interview last Monday on the "Tonight Show," host Jimmy Fallonasked Clinton the following question: “I mean, it's Biden versus Trump. What do you say to voters who are upset that those are the two choices?"
Clinton responded:
Clinton’s warning to the disinterested and fence-sitters, that they need to get in the fight and stop engaging in purity tests and searching for the non-existent perfect candidate regarding their decision to vote for President Biden, is still needed. A large number of Americans are politically disengaged and still refuse to understand (or perhaps even care) that Trump and his MAGA people and the larger antidemocracy movement are an extreme danger to the country. Even worse, there is a large percentage of Americans — Trump followers, “independents,” and undecided voters — who have convinced themselves that the horrible Trump presidency, with its mass death from COVID, ruined economy and coup attempt, was “the good old days” and yearn to return to them.
Greg Sargent explains in a recent essay at The New Republic:
This is but the most recent example of Hillary Clinton telling uncomfortable truths about the existential danger embodied by Donald Trump and his MAGA coalition. She has personal experience with Trump and his allies’ capacity for skullduggery and evil. Trump has continued to publicly threaten Clinton’s safety. Given Trump’s promises to be America’s first dictator and his attraction to violence and other pathological behavior, Clinton knows that she must take him and his followers very seriously. (Never forget that Trump infamously threatened Clinton in 2016 with “2nd Amendment people.”)
To that point, as detailed by Gabriel Sherman in a new must-read article at Vanity Fair, Donald Trump is much closer to winning the 2024 election than many members of the news media and general public would like to admit.
Ultimately, this yearning for Donald Trump to become President of the United States for a second time is a symptom of a deep malaise and sickness in American culture and society where it appears that tens of millions (if not more) people have a collective compulsion towards self-destruction. This is very common behavior in a society that is experiencing multiple crises and does not have the maturity or capacity to process its death anxieties in a healthy and productive way.
As I try to make sense of this sick yearning and poisoned nostalgia, I have been returning to the work of the highly influential social psychologist and psychoanalyst Erich Fromm. In a 1973 essay in the New York Times about Fromm’s then-new book, “The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness,” Sara Sanborn wrote the following:
Some fifty years later, Fromm’s concerns speak directly to the Trumpocene and how the American people got here and hopefully can escape it before we run out of time.
When I am emailed or otherwise speak with people who tell me that they are principled liberals, progressives or “good lefties”, which in their minds means they cannot in good conscience support President Biden, I have a standard reply. I tell them to make a list of all the issues they purport to care about so much. Look very carefully at the list. There is not one real issue on that list that Donald Trump, his MAGA people and the Republican Party will address in a way that you would like. Moreover, they will make all those things far worse in ways you likely cannot even imagine. Thus, to convince oneself that not voting for Biden is a type of great strategic move and the long game where the Democrats will be forced to adapt after they are defeated in the 2024 election is silly talk to the extreme. Donald Trump will be America’s first dictator; he and his successors will not leave power; burning down the proverbial village in order to save it does not work.
So please listen to Hillary Clinton and the other alarm-sounders this time. They are trying to save the American people and American democracy. But in the end the American people will have to exercise the agency, intelligence, reason, and be responsible enough to save themselves.
Are you finally with her? The Hillary Clinton paradox
Ignore Hillary Clinton at your own peril
www.salon.com
Hillary was right in 2016 and she is right now.
...
