What Hillary Clinton really thinks

[yallerdawg]

Source: Vox, by Ezra Klein

On page 239 of What Happened, Hillary Clinton reveals that she almost ran a very different campaign in 2016. Before announcing for president, she read Peter Barnes’s book With Liberty and Dividends for All, and became fascinated by the idea of using revenue from shared natural resources, like fossil fuel extraction and public airwaves, alongside revenue from taxing public harms, like carbon emissions and risky financial practices, to give every American “a modest basic income.”

Her ambitions for this idea were expansive, touching on not just the country’s economic ills but its political and spiritual ones. “Besides cash in people’s pockets,” she writes, “it would be also be a way of making every American feel more connected to our country and to each other.”

This is the kind of transformative vision that Clinton was often criticized for not having. It’s an idea bigger than a wall, perhaps bigger even than single-payer health care or free college. But she couldn’t make the numbers work. Every version of the plan she tried either raised taxes too high or slashed essential programs. So she scrapped it. “That was the responsible decision,” she writes. But after the 2016 election, Clinton is no longer sure that “responsible” is the right litmus test for campaign rhetoric. “I wonder now whether we should’ve thrown caution to the wind, embraced [it] as a long-term goal and figured out the details later,” she writes.

What Happened has been sold as Clinton’s apologia for her 2016 campaign, and it is that. But it’s more remarkable for Clinton’s extended defense of a political style that has become unfashionable in both the Republican and Democratic parties. Clinton is not a radical or a revolutionary, a disruptor or a socialist, and she’s proud of that fact. She’s a pragmatist who believes in working within the system, in promising roughly what you believe you can deliver, in saying how you’ll pay for your plans. She is frustrated by a polity that doesn’t share her “thrill” over incremental policies that help real people or her skepticism of sweeping plans that will never come to fruition. She believes in politics the way it is actually practiced, and she holds to that belief at a moment when it’s never been less popular.

Read the rest and the interview at: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/9/13/16298120/hillary-clinton-what-happened-interview

[JHan]

1. Would have been amazing if she ran on instinct here, it would be tough to implement..

but she could have started dismantling obstacles to making it a reality.

[yallerdawg]

4. The next paragraph:

This makes Clinton a more unusual figure than she gets credit for being: Not only does she refuse to paint an inspiring vision of a political process rid of corruption, partisanship, and rancor, but she’s also actively dismissive of those promises and the politicians who make them.

[JHan]

8. In all the ridiculous email leaks, one email stayed with me where she said:

"I'm not a politician who promises more than they can deliver" or words to that effect. That's VERY unusual. The usual stereotype of a Politician is someone selling snake oil, lying, promising the moon and the stars and then failing. I think she said today, the problem with that approach are the understandable recriminations that come after, people feel duped. Instead she'd rather talk about what can be done here and now to improve people's lives.

She was far more idealistic when she was younger, even Leon Panetta dismissed her idealism while she was first lady... I think her years in the Senate taught her the challenges of effective governance.

[yallerdawg]

15. She also anticipated a double standard.

Where the boys could get away with vagaries and dismissals, did Hillary imagine for one second she could get away with that?

"...I don’t think I’m held to the same standard as anybody else. I believed that if I were to say, “let’s do a carbon tax, let’s do single-payer tomorrow, let’s do whatever it is that might be viewed as universal and inspiring,” unlike either my primary opponent or my general election opponent, I would’ve been hammered all the time. “Okay, how are you going to do that? How are you going to pay for it? Where’s the money going to come from?” If I had said we are going to leave it to the legislative process, people would’ve said, “Well, you’ve been around, you know how it works. How are you going to do that? You don’t have 60 votes.”

[JHan]

18. Yep. "How's Hillary gonna pay for it"..

"hillary gives out freebies" ... "hillary pandering"... etc etc etc .

endless bullshit.

[Ken Burch]

6. Whoever runs in 2020 needs to talk about dismantling obstacles.

The message should be about saying "let's make things possible", rather than "we can't actually DO those things".

Challenging limits and constraints is a great way to show leadership.

[JHan]

10. the point is she would have done it if she were president.

Clearly it was uppermost in her mind. It is not as simple as a slogan. Anyone could say a slogan. I switch off when that's all I'm receiving - I also accept my view is atypical.

I'm convinced the electorate isn't aware of the power and pressure coming from the right , which - btw - she talks about in the interview. The hold the RW have on everything from economics to public policy has to be challenged.

[Ken Burch]

13. OK. It's not as simple as a slogan.

And I was talking about the future there, not HRC.

There was nothing in he presentation in the campaign to suggest that this was the sort of idea she might consider as president. It's not as though people to her left KNEW she supported this idea and voted against her in the primaries anyway.

There is a lot of pressure coming from the right, at all times-but the only thing to do in response to that pressure is to connect with all progressives, to ally with them against the right, and take it as a good sign that there are activists on the left applying countervailing pressure.

Right-wing pressure only works when we don't fight back against it, or when we try to diffuse it by meeting it halfway.

The way to beat it is to stand up to it and to defend the things and the people we stand for with passion and without hesitation.

[JHan]

14. The democratic platform last year defended what democrats believe in Ken, have you read it?

You're talking as if Dems do not do this.

I can wax from dawn to dusk on the different approaches to problem solving and governance between Republicans and Democrats, yet I always hear this odd complaint " We have to stand up for x and x" which is a canard fitting the meme "dems do nothing".

[Ken Burch]

21. You're making it sound like I'm attacking the party, and I'm not.

I'm going on the way the fall campaigns, other than Obama's, have generally played out in the years I've been politically involved(from 1976 onward).

The platform(which is often very good-the '92 and '96 platforms being different from that, and we really need to never go that far to the right again)is usually not mentioned in the fall campaign. The campaign strategists generally tell the nominee not to defend liberal ideas or even the word "liberal" when they are attacked from the right, the GOP is mainly allowed to set the terms of the debate, and our strategy tends to focus more on calling the GOP right wing(which they are, but about which the larger voting public doesn't particularly seem to care).

This is the way I've seen most of our fall campaigns run, and I've been making this observation about them the whole time.

Obama won because he largely broke with that pattern.

My comment about rejecting obstacles and limits was solely about the future.

[JI7]

2. A female head of state would have disrupted Just as Obama did

That's why certain types ate don opposed to someone like her.

[Ken Burch]

9. That's not why anyone on the Left opposed her, though.

People who wanted a more left candidate on our side weren't anti-disruption.

It does go for the 'thugs, though.

[JI7]

12. They weren't on the left

[haveahart]

3. Excellent post. Thanks.

[LonePirate]

5. And some people still didn't think she was sufficientlyliberal or progressive.

[Ken Burch]

11. Nobody knew she had considered this idea, though.

There wasn't anything in the proposals she did make, good as they were, that suggested she would think of anything like this.

It's a McGovernite idea...probably the best idea his campaign proposed...and her whole political presentation had been of a person who had nothing in common with anything the McGovern campaign(and little with the RFK or Eugene McCarthy campaigns before it) had been about.

She would have been a fine president, and she would still be a great Supreme Court justice.

[yallerdawg]

17. Let's look at McGovern's election map.

I can't imagine why she dropped it.

[Ken Burch]

19. UH-you might want to re-check which map you posted there.

Also, McGovern was up against the Nixon dirty tricks campaign-anyone we nominated would have lost badly in '72 when faced with that band of scoundrels.

[yallerdawg]

22. My mistake! Correct map.

[Ken Burch]

24. And that's the map we'd have had with pretty much any other possible Dem nominee.

Teddy Kennedy(whose platform would have been very close to McGovern's)took himself out of contention in '69 with Chappaquiddick, but he was the only one who'd have likely done appreciably better.

If Ed Muskie(who was my first choice as an eleven-year-old in '72-I was politically aware early, won't apologize for that)fell apart that quickly as a result of a couple of fairly minor Nixon tricks during the New Hampshire primary, he would have been roadkill in a fall campaign. Plus, he never built a national campaign organization for the primaries, apparently believing he already had the nomination sewed up and wouldn't have to campaign until after the convention.

Hubert Humphrey could never have appealed to the majority of the party who were antiwar, and had nothing more to offer "middle America" than McGovern did.

Scoop Jackson had no broad national support and he was a boring stump speaker. He had no chance against Nixon, either.

The 1972 election was settled when the China trip happened. And it wasn't McGovern's fault that the party regulars cut him loose. He did nothing to them to deserve that.

Many of McGovern's ideas ended up being adopted later as public policy, so they couldn't have been THAT unpopular.

[yallerdawg]

28. And that's the map I referred to in 2016...

whenever anyone suggested we should nominate an "independent socialist from Vermont."

We've been there before.

[Ken Burch]

31. Except that there were polls showing that independent socialist from Vermont

winning 55% of the vote against Trump or any other Republican.

Your analogy doesn't hold.

And the argument that we can only win if our nominee keeps the left out in the cold doesn't hold, either.

And once the China trip happened, NO Democrat was going to even come close to beating Nixon in '72.

Our platform that year had nothing to do with it.

[yallerdawg]

33. Of course polls showed 2nd place finisher Sanders beating Trump.

That's the race the Republicans wanted!

If you think Hillary "held her ammo" on Sanders, the Republicans were commiserating with him, pointing out how badly he had been treated by the Democrats.

If Sanders had been our nominee, it would have been "an any Republican" landslide.

Do you need reminding that if we lived in a democracy, Hillary would be president?

[Ken Burch]

34. It's not as though the GOP gamed those poll results. That isn't possible.

They'd have had no way of knowing which households would be called, and there's no way that that many Republican voters would be in a "say you support Bernie just to make things us easier for us in the fall" hivemind. Those polls reflected actual public support for his ideas-and the support for the ideas was and is much higher than support for the person.

And there are major differences between Bernie's campaign and the McGovern campaign.

Bernie's was not specifically tied in the public mind to the counterculture in the way McGovern's was.

He had some significant labor support-McGovern had none.

There were no issues that could split the party in the way the reproductive rights or gay rights struggles split it in '72-we are now united as a pro-choice, pro-LGBTQ party.

Obviously, HRC would be president if we lived in a real democracy.

And I accept that she was nominated and campaigned for her in the fall.

But that doesn't mean her showing was the best any possible Dem nominee could have achieved last year. 49% wasn't our highest of high-water marks no matter what, and while she did was "electable", there were no groups she could win in the fall that none of our other candidates wouldn't have run just as strongly.

We have no need to anathemize Bernie's ideas or ideas similar to them.

We just have to create a change agenda that makes everyone in our coalition feel they are included and protected by the party and in the program.

[yallerdawg]

35. Hillary received more votes than any white man in the history of our country!

I'm not sure the other Democrat in the contest would have done better - O'Malley never caught on for some reason.

I keep hearing the same refrain since the election..."I supported and voted for Hillary, BUT yada-yada-yada."

You really don't understand what a thumb in the eye that is?

Even now, she can't have her say.

Yeah, this goes on and on.

[JI7]

37. exactly, her actual votes and supporters are dismissed for some fucking polls

i still think her support is dismissed because she got mainly minority support.

[Ken Burch]

40. I started another thread in praise of her for coming out against the Electoral College.

I know Hillary achieved that showing.

And I'm not doing any "but yada-yada-yada".

I wasn't arguing that she shouldn't have been nominated-I was simply rejecting the argument that Bernie would have lost in a landslide.

Do I have to leave that assertion unchallenged just to prove that I accept the results of the primaries?

If so...why?

Bernie almost certainly won't run again, and wouldn't be nominated if he did, so what harm does it do simply to say he wouldn't have gone down in flames in the LAST election? What difference does it make now if someone says that?

Folks, the Hillary V. Bernie contest in the past now.

She beat him in the primaries. We're past that one.

The discussion of ideas now is no longer an argument between their campaigns and supporters.

It's just a discussion of ideas.

We can't just make our entire discourse here into "Hillary should be in the White House".

She should be...and she has the right to speak out on policy and ideas, to have a voice in the future.

I've always agreed with that.

[JI7]

36. Hillary was up against the Fucking KGB and Nixon was nowhere near as dirty as the republicans are

today along with the whore media that props up their bs.

[Ken Burch]

38. And I wasn't saying anything negative about her.

Simply pointing out the we can't assume her 49% was the best showing we could possibly have had this year.

I wish she was president.

Is it disrespect to her simply to point out that Bernie was never as weak as McGovern in the polls?

I fully accept the result of the primaries and I don't even want the guy to run again.

[JI7]

39. mcgovern actually won the nomination

i know for you polls count more than actual voting results since the actual results go against what you want.

[Ken Burch]

41. It's not about "what I want". I don't want Bernie to run again.

And I'm not questioning the nomination of Hillary in '16.

I accept wholeheartedly that she won.

It was the other poster who claimed Bernie would have done as badly as McGovern.

Are you saying I have to leave that claim unchallenged just to prove I respect Hillary and her supporters in the primary?

Why, when it has nothing to do with Hillary at all?

[delisen]

23. Hillary Clinton stated she had no interest in a Supreme Court seat.

She is an activist, and a fighter. She would be a fine president-but as a partisan for that which she believes, she will be an even greater force.

[Ken Burch]

25. I didn't say she had. It's simply a position I've always thought she would do well in.

My suggestion was a statement of respect for her.

[guillaumeb]

7. Making the numbers work.

The US spends more on its war budget than nearly every other country combined. Perhaps if that budget could be cut a tiny bit more could be done?

But instead, the war budget rises constantly as belts are tightened and Americans are told that the country cannot afford even the same low level of social spending, much less more social spending.

[delisen]

16. Clinton is poised to become a major force. Thank you Hillary Clinton

Clinton for refusing to be a scapegoat.

Trump is quickly making the American presidency and the executive branch of government a much less powerful force.

He has trashed its power to build (which is ironic) and be a positive force. He still has the power to destroy-but others in government are beginning to block him.

The imperial presidency which developed after World War II - when other countries were in shambles-was going to end anyway. Trump has hastened the process.

I think we are going to have a space to build a stronger democracy.

I am glad Clinton addressed the issue of what the Republican gerrymandering and voter suppression is aimed at: the calling of a Continental Congress to change the Constitution and radically change our Bill of Rights-to take power from the many and give it to the few.

No one knows the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy better than the woman who named it and she is not going to waste our time telling us to fight the Democratic Party. She is going to take the fight to the true opponents of democracy.


https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/wisconsin/articles/2017-03-20/wisconsin-gop-moving-to-call-for-constitutional-convention

[yallerdawg]

20. "STFU and go away" is NOT what we need!

If we slip back into "Dancing wit the Stars" and "a pox on both your houses" we could be in a world of shit!

If the Republicans can elect someone like Trump - as unqualified a candidate imaginable and an abysmal human being to boot! - what else have they got up their sleeves?

Hillary:

"... if we don’t convince people to register to vote and vote, the simplest exercise of your citizenship in our country, in the 2018 election, then I really do think we’re going to see the clear and present danger to our democracy that I’ve been talking about come to fruition. We will see a constitutional convention. Now, whether it ever finally gets ratified, I’m not sure, but it will be so divisive and it will rile up so much of our population, we will see the continuing efforts on the right to disenfranchise people, to roll back regulations that are good for our health and our environment and so much else, we will not recognize America.

[Thinkingabout]

29. I would hope she does stay involved, she has been a strong advocate for years, she knows

how to do this.

[RandySF]

26. .

[oasis]

27. The most ready, willing and able candidate of our time. nt

Hillary Rodham Clinton.

[Thinkingabout]

30. Yes she was

[RandySF]

32. .