The Divisiveness of Hillary Clinton

I've been called divisive more times than I can count, and for the life of me, I can't understand why. Politics is a divisive business, it's true, and out country has gotten more polarized with every passing year. . . Why am I seen as such a divisive figure and, say, Joe Biden and John Kerry aren't? . . . I'm really asking. I'm at a loss. - Hillary Clinton in What Happened

Is this woman so self-unaware that she doesn't see the differences between her own actions and other politicians? I can give a few quick examples of her divisiveness:

Let's start with the news that her husband had been having an affair with a White House intern in the late 1990s. When Bill ran in 1992 he and Hillary did an interview where he seemed to say "I've had affairs in the past but I won't have any if I'm elected president". Hillary knew of her husband's long history with other women better than anyone. She employed a staff just to quash these women from speaking out. So she had no reason to doubt that Bill had indeed been having an affair. But that's not how she reacted. She denied everything and (this is the relevant part) blamed a "vast right-wing conspiracy". To no one's surprise, the affair was real but Hillary never went back and admitted that she'd been wrong to claim that Republicans made it up.

But that's ancient history. Just two years ago there was this exchange at a Democratic debate:

ANDERSON  COOPER: Which enemy that you made during your political career are you most proud of?

CLINTON: Well, in addition to the NRA, the health insurance companies, the drug companies, the Iranians; probably the Republicans

So Hillary named Republicans as enemies that she was proud to have. She refused to back away from that statement when asked about it later.

In July She tweeted: The Republican Party platform is so hateful, you'd think Donald Trump wrote it himself.

Then at a public fundraiser Hillary said some things that she'd previously been only saying to small, private groups: If I were to be grossly generalistic, I would say you can take Trump supporters and put them in two big baskets," Clinton said. "There are what I call the deplorables -- the racists, you know, the haters, and the people who are drawn because they think somehow he's going to restore an America that no longer exists. So just eliminate them from your thinking, because we've always had an annoying prejudicial element within our politics.

She later backed away from using "half" but it was too little, too late. Republicans knew that she really thought of all of us as deplorable.

All of this is very divisive. Hillary sees the world as us vs. them with "them" being the Republicans. You don't see Biden or Kerry doing things like these.

Then there is her book tour. I can remember losing candidates going back to Humphrey in 1968. They all took their loss fairly gracefully. Humphrey and Gore tough college for a while. McGovern, McCain and Kerry returned to Congress. Gore eventually reinvented himself as an environmental profit and Nobel Peace Prize winner. Mondale, Dole, Romney and Dukakis pretty much bowed out of politics. Carter reinvented himself helping to build houses for Habitat for Humanity.

Absolutely none of these losing presidential candidates wrote a book complaining about how they deserved to win then went on a speaking tour contesting the election. Hillary is unique in being the worst loser in modern history. And that makes her divisive.

The Inevitability of the Current Sex Scandals

The past year or so seems to be a reversion to New England in the 1690s when the Puritans ruled. The Puritans divided the colony into the elect and the reprobate. The elect were already saved. They were guaranteed their place in heaven. The reprobate would go to hell. The problem was telling who was in which group. Unfortunately, when God saved someone, he did not leave a visible mark so the only hint was that the elect could do no wrong. I mean that literally - it would never occur to one of the elect to sin. So everyone was examining everyone else's behavior to see who sinned and who didn't. All of this lead to the Salem Witch Trials, among other things. Of course, it is impossible for anyone to be completely without sin so this lead to a very nasty environment.

The modern version has its own version of the elect and the reprobates - The minorities and their woke allies vs everyone else. And, as with the Puritans, no one can ever be woke enough.

During late Summer and early Fall it was historic figures who where being examined. Naturally, the slave holders were judged as inadequate but it goes further than that. Presidents Lincoln and Grant were also found wanting. Lincoln allowed some Indians to be executed after a major uprising and Grant owned a slave for a while (with no points given for Grant freeing the slave in 1850).

Now the witch hysteria has moved on to sexual harassment. This began with the airing of then-candidate Trump talking about being able to inappropriately touch women without repercussion. That died down for a while but started up again with 40-year old accusations against Harvey Weinstein. That mushroomed into accusations about many actors, directors, etc. Then it spread to politicians - first a Senate candidate who was  accused of being creepy 40 years ago and now sitting Senator Al Franken.

Personally I'd love for Franken to be forced to leave the Senate and live a life of obscurity but this would never have come up if we weren't in a sexual exploitation hysteria.

One beneficial result of the current hysteria is a reexamination of President Clinton's record of sexual abuse. That's long-overdue. And it may prevent Hillary from making another run for President. After all, she spent decades covering for Bill.

But in general, the current hysteria has gone too far. People's careers are being ruined on the basis of accusations, often with no corroboration. We have the Obama administration and the feminists to thank for that. They insisted that there be no presumption of innocence for sexual harassment. Ironically, most of the people hurt so far are from the left.

Hysteria is never a good public policy. There are reasons that we have presumption of innocence, statute of limitations and all the other things in our justice system. All of that's gone out the window along with any sense of proportion. Is a squeeze on the butt or being touched through your clothes the same as being beaten and raped? It shouldn't be and we should wait for some sort of corroboration before  ruining people.

But this is just the current phase of a general hysteria. Something new will come up in a few weeks and all the sexual allegations will be forgotten.

The real question is how long the general hysteria will last.

The Day that Trump Won

A year ago we woke up knowing that it was the day Hillary Clinton would become the first woman president. She had bragged more than a week before that she wasn't even thinking about Donald Trump anymore. Her campaign insisted that she'd run up enough of a lead in early voting in Florida to make it impossible for Trump to win that state.

But Florida went for Trump. So did Pennsylvania and several other states that Trump wasn't supposed to have a chance in. What happened?

For me, the election was s surprise but not a shock. I'd been watching the electoral vote carefully and I knew that Trump had a decent chance. All you had to do was make the assumption that the polling models favored Clinton. There were several states that "leaned Clinton" meaning that polls showed her ahead but within the margin of error. If you assumed that the turn-out would match the last two presidential elections then Clinton was ahead. But if you assumed that the minorities who turned out in record numbers for the first black candidate would not turn out for a rich, white woman who oozed entitlement then Trump would win. It was as simple as that.

Of course, the Democratic elite had no idea it was coming. They saw Trump as a clown who somehow managed to get on the ticket. They ignored the fact that he had already beaten the other political dynasty, the Bush family. Jeb was supposed to be the more accomplished version of George W. but Trump easily defeated him along with other governors and well-known senators.

After Clinton's loss in the 2008 primaries it was assumed that she would be Obama's successor. Her stint as Secretary of State was meant to flesh out her resume which was actually fairly weak (She had no real accomplishments in the Senate and she was the first woman to argue that being married to the President qualified her to replace him).

The primaries should have signaled the Democrats that Clinton was a weak candidate. Even with the DNC being under her control she had problems running against an ancient socialist who wasn't even a Democrat. She was well-known to the nation and at least half the population had a firmly-fixed dislike of her. To top it off, she spent all of her time courting minorities and ignoring the working-class whites who traditionally supported the Democrats.She also refuses to admit mistakes or take responsibility for her actions. This trait continues  as Clinton blames the Russians and the FBI for her loss rather than her own mistakes.

Every time she opens her mouth to deliver a rehearsed excuse I thank the voters that she's not our president.