Tag Archives: Hillary Clinton

Day 7: Yes, It’s Scary, But Is It a Critical Election?

1 Nov 2016 By in Candidates and Campaigns Tags: , , , , , , , 8 Comments

stereopticon image of a crowd gathered around a train to hear Roosevelt speak.

For all its drama and dismay, the election of 2016 might not end up being a ‘critical election,’ in the sense of marking a permanent change in the makeup or ideology of one or both of the parties. Whether the election ends up producing such change depends on which presidential candidate wins and how his or her party establishment behaves afterward.

If Hillary Clinton wins, her victory will mainly mark a continuation of the Obama years and of the centrism that has prevailed among Democrats since Bill Clinton’s presidency.  Secretary Clinton adopted a progressive platform at the time of the 2016 Democratic convention to placate Sanders’ supporters, but the Democratic establishment in general has given few signs of having adopted a dramatically new constellation of ideas. Instead, the tenor of the campaign on the Democratic side has been defensive, couched in terms of defending past accomplishments and promising to advance along the established lines.

If Donald Trump wins, it remains to be seen whether his victory translates into a broad and permanent change in the philosophy and direction of the GOP.  There is no question of 2016 being a critical election if Trump succeeds in getting his party to move in the direction he is charting: if he succeeds in associating Republicanism with a more inward-looking, pro-citizen, and anti-global ideology. In order to do this, Republicans would have to renounce their history of support for big business, which is now typically a transnational enterprise. Republicans would have to take the lead on reforming trade, recasting themselves as protectors of American workers and American industry. Hawkish Republicans would have to get in touch with their isolationist side. And the issues dear to the hearts of social conservatives would likely take a back seat to those having to do with the economy.

In most cases, a critical election is the culmination of broad and concerted changes already occurring within a political party, often in connection with the emergence of a charismatic standard-bearer. In 1860, for instance, Abraham Lincoln’s election was merely the capstone of a decades-long effort to incorporate anti-slavery into a broader platform of economic empowerment that would appeal to mainstream voters (who were white).  In 1828, Andrew Jackson’s election signaled the emergence of a new kind of party that combined a desire for retrenchment and austerity with an unwavering democratic appeal.  And, in 1980, Ronald Reagan’s election signified the arrival of a new kind of economic philosophy (henceforth known as ‘Reaganomics’), along with a newly potent faith-based conservatism intent on bucking certain types of modern secular change.

Trump is an outsider whose ideas the GOP mainstream has not embraced.  If he is elected, it’s unclear whether, or to what extent, other leading Republicans would feel pressed take up his agenda and ideas. Republicans in the House and Senate could act in contradistinction to him.  Were this to happen, the GOP as a whole would continue in a state of fragmentation and confusion.  Governmental paralysis, rather than lasting partisan transformation, would be the result.

Image: From this source

Day 46: Hillary’s Views, In a Nutshell?

23 Sep 2016 By in Candidates and Campaigns Tags: , , , , , 4 Comments

Florida aerial, © 2016 Susan Barsy
It’s an asymmetry that may determine the election: in contradistinction to the Democratic nominee, Donald Trump has hammered away at the electorate with a few controversial ideas.  These ideas have been castigated, ridiculed, and discussed so much that the main 3 or 4 of them are easy to reel off.  Trump has a gimme cap that says ‘Make America Great Again.’  He ‘wants to build a wall.’  He favors: 1) establishing inviolable national borders and radically altering US immigration policies; 2) ending ‘unfair’ trade deals; and 3) radically reducing US commitments overseas.

Trump has been careful never to disavow these ‘unpopular’ ideas.  He has articulated them with intense discipline for more than a year, through countless interviews, debates, speeches, and rallies.  No matter how odious, these are the main ideas he stands for.  To the mainstream of both parties, any one of these goals is anathema.  So, American politics has been furiously warring over Donald Trump’s ideas for almost two years.

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton has run a far more sophisticated and decorous campaign.  Suddenly, though, commentators and allies are noting that her campaign is singularly empty of goals and ideas.  The bland sameness she offers is meant to be reassuring, premised on the assumption that most of the country ‘feels okay.’  But what does Clinton stand for?   Where would she lead?  What, in a nutshell, is her vision of our future?

Public intellectuals friendly to Clinton are prodding her to zero in on something.  But the asymmetry already established may continue to weigh heavily on her campaign.

Image: Aerial of Florida,
© 2016 Susan Barsy


RELATED:
Albert R. Hunt, ‘Hillary Needs a Better Slogan’ (Bloomberg View)

Day 50: A Change in the Political Atmosphere

19 Sep 2016 By in Candidates and Campaigns Tags: , , , , 3 Comments

Day 50 beautiful aerial of blue ocean and sky
The atmosphere of the presidential race has changed, with ardent Democrats conscious of a tightening race.  Despite Donald Trump’s negative qualities, he has doggedly chipped away at Hillary Clinton’s lead.  Recent polls, whether from Reuters or CBS, show Clinton’s lead in the battleground states vanishing or perilously thin.  John Zogby, writing in Forbes, has the two candidates in a dead heat for the lead, with Jill Stein and Gary Johnson siphoning off enough support to deny either of the other two an advantage.  The particulars don’t matter as much as this general point: it’s getting more difficult to dismiss Trump and more necessary to admit he could end up in the Oval Office.

It might be unthinkable; but impossible, no.

Over the weekend, John Podhoretz published a column in the New York Post, excoriating Democrats for their misguided belief in Hillary Clinton’s candidacy.  He blames the establishment for failing to vet or challenge her sufficiently.  Even Bernie Sanders’ astonishingly strong showing against her in the primaries failed to awaken party loyalists to the stubborn limits of her appeal.  Some Democrats remain baffled as to why the electorate has not swung toward a candidate they regard as likeable and decent.  It’s painful to admit she offers too little in the way of the backbone and implacability the nation wants.

Meanwhile, Trump, formerly intent on misbehaving himself into oblivion, has subtly shifted his strategy, putting more time into dignified niche appearances (like Monday’s at the Economics Club of New York, which some business channels aired in its entirety) and less into vociferous and controversial rallies.  Fearful of throwing away his shot, Trump has stepped up his game.  He wants to win and senses he can.

Oddly, he suddenly chose to lay to rest the birther controversy, admitting last week (after years of claiming otherwise) that Barack Obama was born in the US rather than elsewhere abroad.  Why bother?  Because admitting the truth—that President Obama is an American—is going to help Trump with African-Americans more generally.  An LA Times poll registers increasing support for Trump among that constituency, prompting the president to warn African-Americans that he will view it as a ‘personal insult’ if they don’t turn out for Clinton.  Meanwhile, Trump’s simple message to urban blacks—that years of the Democratic rule have failed to deliver the safety, employment, and access to decent schools that they deserve—is resonating.

RELATED READING:
Niall Ferguson, “The Fight Isn’t Going Clinton’s Way” (Boston Globe)

Day 56: Hillary Has Pneumonia

13 Sep 2016 By in Candidates and Campaigns Tags: , , , , , 4 Comments

day-56
On Thursday, I took about 300 aerial photographs and re-watched All the Way, the HBO film about LBJ, on the plane.  I turned up the volume just as LBJ is entering the Capitol to make his first public remarks as president before Congress.  Still absorbing the fact of Kennedy’s assassination and his own sudden elevation to the presidency, Johnson, played by Bryan Cranston, is the cynosure of all eyes, cameras and former colleagues turning toward him in a swirl of suspenseful curiosity.  Meanwhile, the memory of a recurrent nightmare from childhood spools through Johnson’s mind.  In it, he hides in terror under the floorboards of a house during a Comanche raid.  Cowering in the dark, yet certain of his eventual discovery and death at the hands of an unseen enemy, he intones with grim conviction, “It’s only a matter of time before they haul me up into the light where their knives gleam.”

On Sunday, I caught the nightly news, which showed footage of an obviously unwell Hillary Clinton leaving a 9/11 ceremony and collapsing while trying to get into a car.  It came out that she had been being treated for pneumonia and dehydration.  Shortly after her collapse, Clinton re-appeared, waving at the crowd and asserting that she was just fine.  Having known since Friday that she had pneumonia, Clinton later justified glossing over it, saying “I just didn’t think it was going to be that big a deal.”

Part of me wants to believe that the electorate is capable of understanding what’s entailed in recovering from this common but dangerous ailment.  Hillary must rest, independent of a time-table; doing so needn’t have any ill effect on the prospect of her winning.  Let her surrogates fill the gap.  Let Hillary herself stay at home and wage a modern-day front-porch campaign.  Behaving commonsensically could be a path to victory.

But what if Johnson’s murderous vision of American politics is more realistic?  Will Hillary’s untimely illness destroy her chances?  As All The Way ends, Johnson’s dark vision of politics dogs him, even as the 1964 election validates his claim to the presidency.  As the adulation of devoted friends and supporters washes over him at his victory party, still that inner voice murmurs its grim prophesy:

But the sun will come up, and the knives will come out.  And all these smiling faces will be watching me, waiting for that one first moment of weakness.  And then they will gut me like a deer.

Political Change

30 Aug 2016 By in Candidates and Campaigns Tags: , , , , , 6 Comments

Walk the walk (DNC 2016) screenshot by Susan Barsy
A return to ‘normalcy’ after the US presidential election is unlikely.  Many of us are tired of the campaign, tired of the endless opining, poll numbers, and tweets.  Tired of the candidates and the unpleasant prospects they embody, we long for the closure of election day.  Election Day!  What then?

Underneath the candidates is an undeniable weakness in both parties.  Over a hundred GOP leaders have said they will not support their party’s nominee.  Yet Mr Trump was chosen through a much-contested primary, in which voters failed to coalesce around any of Mr Trump’s numerous challengers, rejecting both moderates and conservatives.  Moreover, disgruntled Republicans subsequently failed to rally around an alternative, despite a protracted explicit attempt that Mitt Romney led.  Leading Republicans know what they’re against.  But what are they for?

The Republican problem isn’t a lack of talent.  It is a lack of a unifying, majoritarian ideology.  This is why disaffected Republicans have proved unable to bolt (as they did, for example, in 1912, when the Progressives, disaffected with President Taft, broke away to support Teddy Roosevelt’s effort to retake the presidency).  Republicans as a group don’t agree on what they stand for, having honed their identity as the party of ‘no.’  Should leaders who can’t govern their party govern the country?  I don’t think so.

Less remarked on is the disturbing weakness of the Democratic party.  In an election cycle playing out as an epic battle of personality, the idea that the Democrats are just as beleaguered as the Republicans is inadmissible.  Yet the Democrats are arguably as benighted.  They bank too much on identity politics, while relying on a concept of the role of government that has scarcely been updated since the 1960s.

Besides the staleness of their ideology, Democrats are turning people off with their record of poor governance in some cities and states.  Here in Chicago, corruption and egregious mismanagement are synonymous with Democratic rule.  I personally have grown disaffected with the state’s Democrats, who as a group have not come out in favor of reform and government efficiency.

At the national level, Democratic leaders like Donna Brazile want citizens to think that the practices of the DNC and the Clinton Foundation are nothing to be concerned about; yet this is the very attitude that voters find unacceptable and disillusioning.  Who believes that, if elected, Hillary Clinton would ‘run a tight ship’?  The Obama Administration has been a model of probity; but a Hillary Clinton White House?  Hardly.

Besides winking at corruption and coasting along on a raft of outdated and expensive ideas, the Democrats suffer from a striking dearth of junior leadership and grass-roots organization.  When will their next generation of leaders appear?  It’s appalling to consider that Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Rahm Emanuel were, until lately, their brightest stars.  The most admirable and powerful figures in the party are all senior citizens, which augurs well from the point of view of experience but augurs a bumpy leaderless period ahead.

Thus, despite the all-but-extinguished condition of the Republican party, it is doubtful whether the Democrats will win control of the Senate, let alone the House.

The systematic weaknesses plaguing both major parties indicate that the nation is heading into, but scarcely concluding, a period of partisan re-alignment.  The ugly factionalism that is so distressing for citizens to witness and that poses a grave threat to stable federal governance is likely to continue for some time.  When major parties die, it can take a while.  In the short-term, the parties’ problems will cause widespread anxiety and confusion.  Ultimately, reorganization awaits the emergence of clean new leaders with viable modern ideas.

Image: “Walk the Walk” (DNC 2016).
Screenshot by Susan Barsy.

Note: this post has been modified from its original version.