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.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
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 debate about Biden's age and mental fitness
In Depth Some critics argue Biden is too old to run again. Does the argument have merit?
By Grayson Quay Published
-
How would a second Trump presidency affect Britain?
Today's Big Question Re-election of Republican frontrunner could threaten UK security, warns former head of secret service
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
'Rwanda plan is less a deterrent and more a bluff'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By The Week UK Published
-
Henry Kissinger dies aged 100: a complicated legacy?
Talking Point Top US diplomat and Nobel Peace Prize winner remembered as both foreign policy genius and war criminal
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Last updated
-
Trump’s rhetoric: a shift to 'straight-up Nazi talk'
Why everyone's talking about Would-be president's sinister language is backed by an incendiary policy agenda, say commentators
By The Week UK Published
-
More covfefe: is the world ready for a second Donald Trump presidency?
Today's Big Question Republican's re-election would be a 'nightmare' scenario for Europe, Ukraine and the West
By Sorcha Bradley, The Week UK Published
-
Xi-Biden meeting: what's in it for both leaders?
Today's Big Question Two superpowers seek to stabilise relations amid global turmoil but core issues of security, trade and Taiwan remain
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
Will North Korea take advantage of Israel-Hamas conflict?
Today's Big Question Pyongyang's ties with Russia are 'growing and dangerous' amid reports it sent weapons to Gaza
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published