So, Donald Trump improperly and illegally hung on to top secret and otherwise classified documents after he vacated the White House, and despite numerous requests from the National Archives and others that he return these items, which he was no longer entitled to possess, he ignored them when he wasn’t deliberately evading them. Allegedly. This will all shake out in federal court, as this pusillanimous simpleton is today going to be arraigned on 37 various counts involving the illegal retention of these records.
I have been around a long time, and I can remember the vile hatred and parade of lies that followed Hillary Clinton everywhere she went, with respect to everything she did when her husband was President. Then she became a Senator and then Secretary of State, and she was an accomplished, well-respected public servant in her own right. The cavalcade of libels and slanders abated only slightly. She ran for President in 2008, and again in 2016. Suddenly at that point, the noise and hatred grew to levels not seen before. The right has always had it in for her, because she embodied that which they hated most – a successful, professional, independent woman. She was haled before Congress to testify for 11 hours under oath about the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya, as if she had personally ordered it. She was all but called a witch.
But in 2016, it became a little different, as the parade marched not just down Clinton’s right flank, but the left, as well. Bernie Sanders die-hards went in on Clinton as hard as any Jim Jordan or Trent Lott or Tom DeLay ever could. They could not countenance the fact that Sanders lost to Clinton, so the libels and slanders grew louder and more ominous. After all, here were nominal leftists pledging to stay home or vote third party rather than select a Hillary Clinton over a Donald Trump.
As if Hillary Clinton would have separated refugee children from their parents at the border.
As if Hillary Clinton would have led a six-year-long pogrom against each and every possible socioeconomic or ethnic minority or marginalized community.
As if Hillary Clinton would have legitimized the North Korean regime by engaging in summit-level talks with it.
As if Hillary Clinton would have threatened nuclear war via twitter on any and all enemies – real and perceived.
As if Hillary Clinton would have banned an entire faith from entering the country.
As if Hillary Clinton would have denounced entire classes of immigrants as criminals and rapists.
As if Hillary Clinton would have shut New Yorkers out from the Trusted Traveler program.
As if Hillary Clinton would have downplayed the severity and threat of the Covid epidemic or praised China’s handling of it.
As if Hillary Clinton would have suggested you inject bleach into your body to fight a virus.
As if Hillary Clinton would have likened herself to be a tinpot wannabe dictator.
As if Hillary Clinton would have sided with George Floyd’s murderers.
As if Hillary Clinton would have sicced an army of cultists and idiots to end democracy and thwart the Constitution had she lost an election.
The list goes on, but capped off with Trump’s alleged illegality in New York, in Georgia, in Florida, the corrupt and malevolent acts that underlie his two impeachments, and his anti-American, anti-democratic, and faux-Christian nationalist tendencies, I think the country would have been much better served by a somewhat dull, technocratic, “neoliberal shill” like Hillary Clinton at the helm than some failed ex-reality-show host who was a disliked joke in his own hometown.
From about 1990 – 2016, the biggest political lie was that Hillary Clinton was some evil menace. The most damaging political lie ever told in my lifetime was that Hillary Clinton would have not been a substantively (or stylistically) different Chief Executive than Donald Trump. Like Brexit is doing to Britain, these pernicious waterfalls of libels and lies continues now to curse us with the shadow of the Trump cult, lurching and whining about score-settling. Who needs Hungary’s Orban or Russia’s Putin or Brazil’s Bolsonaro when we have our own anti-democratic authoritarian populist crook to whom fully a third of the electorate is in thrall.
The 2000 election was stolen from Al Gore and the 2016 election was stolen from Hillary Clinton. Nevertheless, Democrats keep plugging away and working hard within the context of the system we have. We don’t storm the Capitol or threaten elected officials with nooses or demand that these same officials ignore law, precedent, and the Constitution. We don’t marshal little armies of sycophantic brownshirt wannabes.
If Al Gore had won in 2000 we never would have invaded Iraq – a catastrophic blunder that continues to haunt us and the Middle East to this day.
If Hillary Clinton had won in 2016, we could have avoided all of the hate-filled, ignorant, reactionary sturm und drang of Trumpism and he would have been an afterthought by now.
And as for Hillary’s server and her emails, at least she didn’t store hard copies of America’s top secret materials in a chandeliered lavatory in her hotel/club/home.
