There is no prospective match-up for the November presidential election that is more terrifying than Donald Trump vs. Hillary Clinton. The violence and “Heil Hitler” salutes practiced by his supporters make any semantic debate about whether his politics can be defined as “fascist” kinda moot. Ask yourself why he even bothered to schedule a campaign rally in Chicago when the likelihood of protestors outnumbering Trump supporters was all but certain? How long until the open carry gun activists make common cause with his campaign and make good on his threat to turn out Trump supporters to Bernie Sanders rallies? The man is dangerous and unpredictable.
Also unpredictable is what suicidally stupid thing Hillary Clinton is going to say on the campaign trail today. In just the last couple of days we’ve heard her praise the Reagans for starting a “national conversation” about AIDS (by notoriously refusing to utter the word for over half a decade), repeating the easily – and snarkily – refuted lie that Bernie Sanders hasn’t done much to advance the cause of universal healthcare, and issuing a pathetic word salad about Chicago’s anti-Trump protest the tl;dr version of which is apparently that Dylann Roof started a national conversation about the Confederate battle flag.
These were not gaffes or gotchas. These were unforced errors. These were planned, practiced and vetted campaign strategies. Put aside any consideration of Clinton as a public official. She sucks as a campaigner. As Erik Loomis recently put it, “Hillary Clinton is a Martha Coakley-level campaigner with a once-brilliant campaigner for a husband.” As people are slowly realizing that Hillary has based her path to the Democratic nomination on winning southern states that she doesn’t even plan to campaign in for the general election, she struggles to beat a cranky old socialist in states that will be essential in November (and where Trump is doing disturbingly well in his primaries). I’ve noticed a new line of defense popping up in the blogosphere, “reminding” people that HRC won “statewide election in a deep blue state by 12 and 36 points.”
One would need to be a child or an amnesiac, but certainly not a New Yorker, to believe that crap. The Republican party in New York state is an empty vessel. It’s available for rent for the occasional billionaire to run a vanity campaign, but otherwise puts up school board level candidates for high office. Hillary ran against, and handily defeated, nobody of substance in her two Senate campaigns. She didn’t even face a serious opponent in the Democratic primary, which is where elections are actually decided in New York. Her 2000 and 2006 Senate campaigns were coronations, much like her 2008 and 2016 presidential campaigns were supposed to be.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I think too much is made of Trump’s appeal to white working class voters. Two cycles of Obama elections (which were supposed to be close, but were won by millions of votes) have demonstrated that the racist white working class can be outvoted. But what is essential is inspiring and mobilizing the base. Hillary’s campaign of no se puede is actively demoralizing to the voters she needs to energize. And her propensity to make terrible campaign decisions will create opportunities for her opponent.
The people who are already calling for voters to fall in line behind HRC to prevent a Trump presidency would do well to wake up to the notion that Trump’s only possible path to the White House may well be in a head-to-head match-up with Hillary Clinton.
I don’t know. What’s probably more likely if it’s Donald v Bernie is the establishment Republicans — fueled by the Kochs and all the hedge funders (who won’t have Hillary to give to) run a candidate who only looks relatively moderate — compared to the orange-headed Peronist and the white-headed Red — capable of taking just enough electoral votes to throw the decision to the House of Representatives.
Trump was intended to be hillary’s distraction from her own issues but Bernie has kept her exposed. She was hoping to buy election under the table without anyone paying her much attention, all eyes on the dancing bear trump blocking other GOP candidates as well. Can you imagine what the political landscape would look like today if Trumps fans were not distracted, most would be Bernies supporters.