Free advice from a conservative: Progressives should do everything they can to stop Hillary Clinton
Forget saving Obama. The left needs to save itself from Clinton.


So the 2014 elections were a disaster for liberals. The electorate that bothered to show up was one that wanted to keep the brakes on the president's agenda. It revealed the constitutionally enhanced strength of the GOP's congressional electoral coalition.
Liberals are sorely tempted to give the president advice. Think of the non-voter, they say. Or double down and "wage war for real."
I'm sure nobody on the left wants the advice of an Adams-admiring reactionary like myself. But I'm going to give it anyway. If I were a liberal or a progressive, I wouldn't waste my time on Obama anymore. I'd be working full-time to derail Hillary Clinton. She is a mortal threat to the next generation of social democratic reform — and liberals should dump her now.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Hillary Clinton appears to be the most likely successor to Barack Obama. She's much more popular than the president, and seems to have the admiration of both parties. She is also a fundraising powerhouse who will certainly break all previous records for campaign fundraising and campaign spending. So why give her up?
First there are the lingering doubts about her electability. She's popular now, and looks likely to be coronated rather than opposed within her own party. But she is an awful campaigner. The only winning elections in her career were for a safe Democrat seat, when she faced down Rick Lazio and John Spencer, not exactly household names. She blew her 2008 lead to Obama and only made it a race when he gifted her the Hubert Humphrey mantle with his bitter clingers gaffe.
Then there is foreign policy. Obama beat Hillary by pointing out that he had been right on the most consequential foreign policy issue since the Vietnam War, and she had been wrong. Amazingly, he appointed her secretary of State, where she pushed hard for military engagement in Libya, which quickly turned into a stateless region dominated by terrorist gangs — a dumpster fire along the Mediterranean.
Hillary Clinton was molded by the Cold War liberal's fear of looking soft on foreign policy, and she has become the John McCain of the Democratic Party. Already smarting from Obama's failure to close Guantanamo Bay, his eager embrace of drone warfare, and his expansion of the surveillance state, do liberals really want to lock all that in under Madame Smart Power?
Hillary will likely meet a Republican Senate and House. What lessons will Clinton have internalized from close observation of her husband's interactions with the GOP and Obama's? Obama and Republicans have been locked into a standoff for years, and Obama's presidency and his approval ratings are suffering for it.
Meanwhile, Bill Clinton was able to compromise with the Gingrich Congress on a balanced budget amendment, which the left viewed as a ceiling on social justice. They compromised on a welfare reform that was hated by the left, and on the repeal of Glass-Steagall, which the left blames in part for the financial collapse. Clinton and Gingrich got together on a number of tough-on-crime measures that the left viewed as a letter of marque against minorities. And for all that, Bill Clinton got credit as the guy who got things done and as a political genius, even while facilitating, in the left's view, the institutionalization of the neo-liberal revolution of Reagan and Thatcher.
Which way do you think Hillary is going to go? The Obama way? Or the Clinton way?
Finally there is the largest problem of a Clinton presidency for the left: the conflict of interest. Hillary Clinton is literally one of the last people in the Democratic Party to take on the wealthy. The entire post-presidency of her husband has consisted of a loot-collecting dash toward moneyed interests. Even the Clinton Global Initiative starts to look like a loss-leader for the Clinton Household Initiative, which has managed to make the family wealthier than the blue-blood Bushes. If Hillary Clinton were a judge on a panel investigating the dreaded 1 percent, the former Walmart board member would have to recuse herself.
Why in the world should the left resign itself to the role of discarded handmaiden, as Clinton completes her ascent to the top of the very class whose power they want to dethrone?
I don't get it. But then again, there's no reason to listen to me.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Michael Brendan Dougherty is senior correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is the founder and editor of The Slurve, a newsletter about baseball. His work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, ESPN Magazine, Slate and The American Conservative.
-
The best shows to see at Edinburgh Fringe 2025
The Week Recommends The world's biggest arts festival is back with an incredible line-up
-
Wonsan-Kalma: North Korea's new 'mammoth' beach resort
Under the Radar Pyongyang wants to boost tourism but there won't be many foreign visitors to Kim Jong Un's 'pet project'
-
The 5 best TV reboots of all time
The Week Recommends Finding an entirely new cast to play beloved characters is harder than it looks
-
The last words and final moments of 40 presidents
The Explainer Some are eloquent quotes worthy of the holders of the highest office in the nation, and others... aren't
-
The JFK files: the truth at last?
In The Spotlight More than 64,000 previously classified documents relating the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy have been released by the Trump administration
-
'Seriously, not literally': how should the world take Donald Trump?
Today's big question White House rhetoric and reality look likely to become increasingly blurred
-
Will Trump's 'madman' strategy pay off?
Today's Big Question Incoming US president likes to seem unpredictable but, this time round, world leaders could be wise to his playbook
-
Democrats vs. Republicans: which party are the billionaires backing?
The Explainer Younger tech titans join 'boys' club throwing money and support' behind President Trump, while older plutocrats quietly rebuke new administration
-
US election: where things stand with one week to go
The Explainer Harris' lead in the polls has been narrowing in Trump's favour, but her campaign remains 'cautiously optimistic'
-
Is Trump okay?
Today's Big Question Former president's mental fitness and alleged cognitive decline firmly back in the spotlight after 'bizarre' town hall event
-
The life and times of Kamala Harris
The Explainer The vice-president is narrowly leading the race to become the next US president. How did she get to where she is now?