Skip to main content

If Hillary Clinton had won, we’d be even worse

by Ted Rall

What if Hillary Clinton had won 114,000 more votes in four key states? Or, what if she’d picked up the two to three percent of the vote she lost because Bernie Sanders’ supporters sat on their hands on election day? She’d be “Clinton 2” or “Clinton 45” or “the second President Clinton” — and the world would look very different.

In terms of personnel and therefore policy, a Clinton Administration II would look and feel like a mash-up of Obama’s third term and a throwback to figures who populated her husband’s White House during the 1990s. Having moved to the right since Bill’s first term, progressive figures like then-Labor Secretary Robert Reich would be out in the cold. Rahm Emanuel and Timothy Geithner could expect cabinet offers. So could some Bush-era neo-cons like Robert Kagan.

Hillary didn’t promise much change to domestic policy during her campaign. Her biggest proposal was to spend $275 billion on infrastructure, which would have left us $1.3 trillion short of what’s needed. Not that she could have gotten it through the Republican Congress.

The alternate presidential history of 2017 differs most significantly in two respects: foreign policy, and tone.

Clinton’s liberal supporters always glossed over her long history of hawkish, arguably far-right, approaches to military matters. Those who mourn her loss to Trump today have completely forgotten that she convinced Obama to back military coups against the democratically-elected leaders of Honduras and Egypt. She also successfully advised advised Obama to arm and fund radical Islamist militias in Syria and Libya, plunging two modern Muslim countries into civil wars that have reduced them to failed states. Clinton’s famous cackle after a U.S. drone blew up Libyan ruler Moammar Khaddafi’s convoy, leading to his being sodomized by bayonet on video, is terrifying.

It’s impossible to know which national security crises she would be forced to confront, of course,” Micah Zenko speculated in Foreign Policy in July 2016. “But those who vote for her should know that she will approach such crises with a long track record of being generally supportive of initiating U.S. military interventions and expanding them.”

Two months later, another FP writer penned an astonishing look behind the Kremlin walls at the thinking of top Russian officials worried about the U.S. election: “Moscow perceives the former secretary of state as an existential threat… That fear was heightened when Clinton surrogate Harry Reid, the Senate minority leader, recently accused Putin of attempting to rig the U.S. election through cyberattacks. That is a grave allegation — the very kind of thing a President Clinton might repeat to justify war with Russia,” wrote Clinton Ehrlich.

Would Hillary’s tough talk have triggered World War III with Russia by now? Probably not. But it’s not impossible — which shows us how far right she stands politically on the use of the force.

More likely and thus more worrisome, Hillary might have leveraged the current U.S. presence in Iraq and Afghanistan into attacks against neighboring Iran. “I want the Iranians to know, if I am the president, we will attack Iran” if Iran were to attack Israel — even if there were no Congressional authorization or a clear and present danger to the U.S., Clinton said in 2008. “And I want them to understand that… we would be able to totally obliterate them [to retaliate for an attack on Israel].” Unlike Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran has a real military and thus a real ability to defend itself — which would mean a long, costly and possibly unwinnable war.

Like Trump, Hillary would almost certainly be authorizing the construction, deployment and use of more assassination drone planes.

The one arena where most people agree that President Clinton would have been better than President Trump is presidential tone. Yes, “she does yell into microphones and speak in an overly enunciated voice—two factors that may make her seem abrasive.” But this is a woman whose campaign assigned 12 staffers to compose a tweet; they went through 10 drafts over 10 hours. There wouldn’t be any Trump-style 3 a.m. Twitter diarrhea coming out of a Clinton White House.

When George W. Bush was president, there wasn’t one morning I didn’t regret that Al Gore wasn’t there instead. Gore wouldn’t have invaded Iraq. He might not have gone into Afghanistan either. Unlike pretty much every other president, he cared about the environment.

There isn’t a single moment I miss President Hillary Clinton, though. Trump is a disaster, a real piece of crap. But everyone knows it. Because Trump is so loud and stupid and cruel and greedy and corrupt, all liberals and not a few conservatives clearly discern the true nature of his administration, and of the system itself.

If Hillary Clinton were president, the left would still be just as asleep as it was between 2008 and 2016. First woman president! Aren’t we just the best.

Meanwhile, the drones fire their missiles and U.S. troops and spooks prop up tyrants, and the filthy rich rake in their loot.

Trump gives us clarity. That is no small thing.

Source:

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Trump’s Ukraine 'Peace' Trap EXPOSED: Putin & China CRUSH His Plan

Danny Haiphong   Geopolitical analyst and journalist Ben Norton exposes the hidden truth behind Trump's peace talks with Russia. In this video, Norton explains why this is all about China and weakening the BRICS-led multipolar world in fast emergence. Will the plan work? Watch until the end to find out.

Trump helps BlackRock buy Panama Canal ports, to weaken China & strengthen Wall Street

Geopolitical Economy Report   BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, is buying the ports on both sides of the Panama Canal, after Donald Trump threatened the Latin American country and forced it to pressure a Hong Kong company to sell its stake. Ben Norton discusses how the US government is trying to weaken China -- and strengthen Wall Street oligarchs. 

US imperialists finally got what they feared in Ukraine under Trump

globinfo freexchange   As we wrote back in 2022, a document by the top US think tank RAND Corporation was impressively revealing the goals of US imperialism regarding a Russian invasion of Ukraine.    It seems that the US imperialists managed to achieve some of these goals. For example, the RAND report revealed that the primary goal of the US was to make " Russia to overextend itself militarily ". A secondary pursuit in the geopolitical  battlefield was to intensify " NATO’s relationship with Sweden and Finland ", which was achieved beyond target, through the inclusion of both Sweden and Finland in the NATO alliance, as a result of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.  However, the RAND report was also identifying the dangers of provoking Russia to take military action. The US imperialists were acknowledging that such a development could also " increase the loss of Ukrainian lives and territory or result in a disadvantageous peace settlement. This would generall...

Owen Jones EXPOSES the Media’s Gaza Cover-Up, Political Hypocrisy & the War on Journalism

Dr Myriam Francois   Is the media hiding war crimes? Are journalists being silenced for exposing the truth? In this explosive, unfiltered conversation, Owen Jones reveals how Western media manipulates narratives, protects the powerful, and punishes those who dare to challenge it. 

What is a 'multipolar' world? China says equality; Trump & Marco Rubio say imperial rivalry

Geopolitical Economy Report   It's now widely acknowledged we are in a multipolar world, but the definition of "multipolarity" is not clear. Donald Trump and Marco Rubio think it means a return to great power competition with imperial spheres of influence, whereas China and much of the Global South say "equality among all countries regardless of size". Ben Norton explains the geopolitical divide.

“Controversial” Singer Iyah May Goes Viral For Lyrics About Vaccines & Gaza!

The Jimmy Dore Show  

Winner of Romanian Presidential Election ARRESTED!

The Jimmy Dore Show  

Το καθεστώς του χάους

globinfo freexchange   Αμέσως μετά τις εθνικές εκλογές του 2019 είχαμε γράψει ότι ¨ ... απ'ότι φαίνεται τελικά, ο "σοφός λαός" δεν είναι και τόσο σοφός. Είτε με την ψήφο του, είτε με την αποχή του, έδωσε το ελεύθερο στη χειρότερη δεξιά της μεταπολίτευσης να σαρώσει σαν 'οδοστρωτήρας' τα πάντα στο πέρασμά της. Μετά από τέσσερα χρόνια νεοφιλελεύθερης λαίλαπας, το τοπίο καταστροφής θα έχει κάνει τη χώρα κυριολεκτικά αγνώριστη. ¨   Στο μόνο που πέσαμε έξω ήταν η χρονική διάρκεια της Μητσοτακικής λαίλαπας, που κράτησε παραπάνω και συνεχίζει ακάθεκτη να ισοπεδώνει τη χώρα, μάλλον λόγω της απρόβλεπτης πανδημίας, που ήρθε ως μάννα εξ'ουρανού για το καθεστώς Μητσοτάκη.  Αυτό όμως που δεν μπορούσαμε με τίποτα να φανταστούμε, είναι ότι μετά από την παταγώδη αποτυχία της διακυβέρνησης Μητσοτάκη σε όλους τους τομείς, μετά από αυτή την πρωτοφανή στα χρονικά του τόπου και αδιανόητη απόπειρα συγκάλυψης του εγκλήματος των Τεμπών και την γενικότερη, πρωτοφανή υποβάθμιση τ...

Trump humiliates the liberal class again - appears as the global peace advocate!

globinfo freexchange   Imagine that. It was the "fascist dictator", the "danger for Democracy", the one who came suddenly with a "radical" peace proposal to Russia and China. Trump called for a mutual reduction of the military budget by half, as well as for denuclearization! He managed to make the pseudo-democratic liberal heads explode again, by attacking them from the Left!  

THIS Is How USAID Overthrows Governments Around The Globe!

The Jimmy Dore Show