[almost president] [though not as "almost" as longtime friend of the Jackuzzi, Al Gore] Hillary Clinton gives us some timely, thoughtful advice
(that definitely isn't just a projection of her own issues)
For some reason, Jimmy Fallon was on tv here the other day, which is weird because I can’t imagine anyone in England being interested in watching that. (Or, for that matter, interested in any of America’s 700 late night shows. It would be like Coronation Street being shown in the US.) Maybe it was a bank holiday special thing.
Anyway, there was something weird about it; I never watched those shows (Leno, Jimmy Kimmel, etc.), but I know they start out with a few minutes of standup for the crowd - it’s a pretty formulaic setup: live band, banter with wise-cracking sidekick, etc. Then they take their place behind their desk and welcome that night’s guest(s). Anyway, there was something weird about the intro standup part. The camera was very zoomed in, with only his upper body in frame and a dark curtain visible in the background. He spoke straight to the camera, which never cut away to the audience (thereby failing to establish that he and they were in the same room, or even just that it wasn’t a laugh track). It was as if that section had been pre- or re-recorded. Maybe I’m out of the loop…Is that what they all do now?
It then cut to the more “natural” camera when he sat down in preparation for his first guest. He tried to do another monologue, a story about his daughters or something. But he was all over the place: slurring his words, fumbling his lines, etc. So I googled “jimmy fallon drunk drugs weird odd strange” (make sure to throw as many keywords in as you can), and yeah: turns out it’s a badly kept industry secret that he likes a drink or two. But that’s beside the point (although we will circle back to him in a future post or two, I think).
In my research, I saw a clip from another recent show of his, this one featuring Hilary Clinton. The topic of the US general election (which is happening later this year) came up. When asked about the candidates (Trump and Biden)/what she would say to anyone who wasn’t particularly inspired by either option, she had an answer at the ready, and it gave some revealing insight (not that we needed any extra data), as to the way in which people like her regard the “average,” working-class American. (Spoiler: it’s with disdain.) “Get over yourself,” she says, “those are your two choices.” She reasons that, although both men are certainly very old, Biden at least cares about people [unlike Trump]. “I don’t understand why it’s even a hard choice,” she continues, “Hopefully people will realize what’s at stake…it’s an existential question: what kind of country we’re going to have, what kind of democracy we’re going to have.” I’m not sure what she means by “what kind of democracy,” but, by the sounds of it, she’s advocating for one in which you’re guilted into coalescence under the implied threat of treason. Slightly confusing.
What kind of country do you want, peasant? Our future’s in your hands. (It’s not in my hands, though. None of this is my fault, thank god.)
“Get over yourself”
….!!!??
Can you imagine the audacity required to say that after you couldn’t even manage to beat Trump when you had the chance? She’s had 8 years to self-reflect and that’s the best she can come up with? It’s no different in tone to: “Go to your room. Why? ‘Cause I said so.” You could smell her bitterness through the screen - it’s clear she still blames the American public for her loss. Not that I can blame her. Losing to someone like Trump must have been incomprehensible for a strong, ambitious, self-assured person like her, who had likely been completely assured of winning. So it’s not that crazy to think her circuits are fried; it’s self-preservation. Think about it from her perspective: you’d never, not in a million years, have thought the universe would allow you to get humiliated even worse than you were with the whole Bill/Monica thing.
Enter: The Donald…
It’d be like losing the presidency to Hulk Hogan or something, or to an imaginary write-in candidate like “Harambe” (who apparently did get quite a few votes). For a career winner like her, that’s a result far too shameful of a resumé black mark to live with; your only option is to go on the offensive, and assume/behave as if the general public is a bunch of smooth-brained, misogynistic rubes who can’t help but vote against their own interests. (Whether or not that claim is based in truth is not the point of this post.)
Thankfully for her, millions of MSNBC viewers took the 2016 loss just as hard as she did and are happy to support her efforts (sure enough, as soon as she delivers her pious little rant, Jimmy (or the studio) cued an extended, whooping seal-clap ovation from the audience. Hell yeah! You tell ‘em, sister!!). But - as we know - these seal-clappers aren’t the people who don’t want to vote for Biden - I’m pretty sure nobody who’d still whoop at anything Hilary Clinton says in 2024 needs any convincing to “Vote Blue No Matter Who!”
It’s telling, though, that she doesn’t really bother to pretend that it’s not a shitty choice; that Joe’s mental faculties are completely intact. With Obama, we at least got a “good-faith” effort, what with all the “Hope” and “Change” branding. They had someone marketable, and took full advantage: here was your chance, folks, to vote for (among other stuff) the end of racism; for progress; for charisma and leadership and inspiration. That was a guy you could easily get behind. To their credit, Romney and McCain played their parts perfectly as the non-threatening, vanilla, white-picket-fence GOP guys. All those debates and campaign speeches were all very respectful and earnest. (Like when McCain defended Mr. [Husein] Obama when a woman at a town hall event called [the half-Kenyan] an Arab. “He’s not an Arab, ma’am… he’s a decent man.” Wow…. a national treasure; sorely missed. May he rest in peace, etc.)
With Trump, though, the curtain was pulled back - it became clear that a self-professed criminal/sociopath/compulsive liar/whatever else could more or less waltz in and do/say whatever he wanted about other politicians, about Washington, about the sacred “Office of the Presidency,” and about the American people (minority groups, women, the disabled, etc.); there was not only an appetite for his “refreshing candor” but also a total lack of mechanisms to stop him. Case in point: just eight years after the Obama Arab thing, Trump said of aforementioned [Good Guy] McCain: “He’s not a war hero… I like people who weren’t captured.”
(McCain’s plane had been shot down over Vietnam during the war and he’d been held as a prisoner for months; Trump had avoided serving in Vietnam by claiming that he suffered from “bone spurs.”)
Unsurprisingly, this didn’t cost Trump a single vote. Even better, many of the same people who applauded McCain for being so presidential were to be seen justifying Trump’s comments: “Well, he’s a ruthless competitor. I don’t know about you, but that’s the sort of quality I want in a president. He’s gonna put us back on top.”
Obviously, every other mainstream politician has the same self-serving tendencies as Trump - anyone who aspires to “climb the ladder” in Washington is guilty, regardless of party - it’s just that he gave the game away, cutting away the fat (as in, completely disregarding the pomp ‘n’ circumstance to which these try-hards had spent their whole careers in deference).
This is particularly interesting with regard to the Democrat elites, who’d risen to power being just as duplicitous as the Republicans in private while selling the public on a very different message (one of compassion, inclusivity, progress, and all that). The trouble is that they know, but can’t admit, that their Orange Nemesis was not an aberration, but rather a direct product of a status quo they’d teamed up with their buddies on both sides of the aisle to fight tooth and nail to protect. It must sting; they’d love to be as transparent about their will-to-power as Trump/the republicans, but blatant, unfeeling cynicism - of the sort evidenced by Hilary in that interview - isn’t really part of the Obama/Biden DNC brand, so it’ll be interesting to see what direction they go, i.e. whether the “Get over yourselves, [shit-heels]” stuff becomes a bigger component of their official platform as the election approaches.
More on this shortly.
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