Here is today's @HillaryClinton speech about the "alt-right," in full. https://t.co/G7o8pDg0gJ
— Jamil Smith (@JamilSmith) August 26, 2016
In Case You Missed It, because not everyone has even half an hour free during the work week.
She may not be the “natural politician” of our Obama-fueled fantasies, but Hillary Rodham Clinton is willing to do the homewok. And we need a president like that, if we’re to keep President Obama’s gains from being chipped away at the hands of the Rethugs.
Email from Clinton staffer yesterday after I questioned their willingness to go after Trump. 'You are an idiot.' https://t.co/6zB9sGdWif
— Glenn Thrush (@GlennThrush) August 26, 2016
… It takes a lot of nerve to ask people he’s ignored and mistreated for decades, “What do you have to lose?” The answer is everything!
Trump’s lack of knowledge or experience or solutions would be bad enough.
But what he’s doing here is more sinister.
Trump is reinforcing harmful stereotypes and offering a dog whistle to his most hateful supporters.
It’s a disturbing preview of what kind of President he’d be…
Baud
I was never a hater, but Clinton has done a great job in making her case to be the next president. I’m very pleased. I hope the results reflect her hard work.
Truegster
On the internets, I noticed that the Alt-right went nuts and there were a few comments along the lines of “you gave them credibility/validity by naming them, bad strategy”. Which is basically the reason why the Obama administration doesn’t say the magic words “Islamic terrorism”.
Baud
@Truegster:
They own the Republican nominee. They have credibility.
Robin G.
This team really does know what it’s doing. It’s everything the Obama people developed and honed in the last eight years combined with the doggedness of the original Clinton Machine. I think they’ve probably got this.
jacy
For all the tired tropes of the Republican party being the sober, responsible “daddy” party, in my lifetime the only grownups in the room have ever been Democrats. Republicans are pants-pissing, whiny adolescents — terrified of everything (terrorists, change, women, people of color, immigrants, marriage equality) — refusing to do their homework, replacing facts with fevered dreams while they sit there with their fingers in their ears, screaming “la-la-la-I-can’t-hear-you.”
The older I get, the more I appreciate pragmatism. Obama is a pragmatist. So is Hillary. Hillary may not have Obama’s studied cool, his easy elegance, his natural charisma, but dammit, she IS the grownup in the room. Stein and Johnson are just other flavors of spoiled kid. I’m looking forward to her presidency.
gf120581
@Robin G.: Well, many of Clinton’s people are Obama’s former people, so they clearly know what they’re doing. And she’s obviously learned the lessons of 2008. No Mark Penn or similar types to be seen anywhere. (This year, the role of Penn was played by Jeff Weaver.)
dmsilev
It’s also telling that there were very few elected Republicans willing to stand up and say “no, Donald Trump is not a bigot”.
Matt McIrvin
The Associated Press is actually taking heat for their Clinton Foundation story.
germy
She left a little cat door open for any conservatives who are appalled at the behavior of the ferals in the yard, and a dish on the kitchen floor with some dry and wet food.
gf120581
@jacy: More like little kids. Adolescents tend to be fearless. Republicans are scared little brats hiding under the covers from all sorts of imaginary terrors.
Matt McIrvin
@Truegster: And John Kerry felt he shouldn’t dignify the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth by giving them any kind of targeted response.
gf120581
@dmsilev: It’s almost unheard of that a presidential nominee is attacked head on in a blistering speech by his opponent and he gets zero support from his own party in response. The silence from elected Republicans has been striking. They’ve all gone to ground and are hiding out until post Labor Day, when they’ve got no choice but to show up to their jobs. That should prove interesting.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin: Good. It was crap journalism. Proud that liberals pushed back hard.
Jeffro
@Robin G.: Clinton has that willingness to fight, that willingness to throw a hard right cross even before she shows up on day one … It’s a little like seeing NFLTG/2nd-term Obama, only knowing that the Republicans are going to get it straight in the year for eight long years.
I for one couldn’t be more thrilled
SiubhanDuinne
@germy:
What a perfect analogy! Especially for this crowd :-)
Anne Laurie, many thanks for putting up the video link to HRC’s speech. I did miss seeing/hearing it live, and look forward now to having that opportunity.
germy
@Matt McIrvin:
I’ve always wondered about that. Was it his decision? Or did he get bad advice?
jacy
@gf120581:
I guess I’m just focused on my current adolescent, who’s currently sprawled across his bed, refusing to do his one algebra assignment so he can go to the dance tonight, whining about how unfair life is because he has to take out the trash…
dmsilev
NYT just now: “No Vacancies’ for Blacks: How Donald Trump Got His Start, and Was First Accused of Bias”
Edit:
germy
@SiubhanDuinne:
Thank you. (The wet food is perfect for concealing deworming medicine)
Immanentize
“You are an Idiot” really sums up the political nattering class perfectly. The Clinton folks are really doing a great job AND projecting professional confidence.
Matt McIrvin
@gf120581: I think most adolescents are terrified of a lot of things. There’s just a subset of them who don’t yet have any common sense when dealing with physical danger.
gf120581
@Immanentize: I think a big part of the reason the Beltway press dislikes Hillary is that she doesn’t give them any special treatment or coddle them like many politicians do. She just treats them with amused disdain and goes on her merry way, leaving them to sputter.
Frankensteinbeck
@Truegster:
Obama avoids the words ‘Islamic Terrorism’ to avoid A) validating Republicans trying to paint all Muslims as evil, and B) being an asshole.
jacy
@dmsilev:
One thing that was telling is that, even though Republicans aren’t (yet) denouncing Trump en masse, the Republican establishment response to Hillary’s speech was…crickets. Chickenshit, but this is a fight they don’t want to get into.
Cacti
Happy news from California:
Anti-vax idiots denied request for injunction by U.S. District Court against new CA law requiring vaccination/physician waiver for enrollment in public school, private school, preschool, or daycare.
Link
MattF
@germy: Bruce Bartlett is not a Republican any more, but Hilz’s speech moved him from anti-Trump to pro-Clinton.
Anoniminous
@Truegster:
The President doesn’t say “Islamic terrorism” for the same reason he doesn’t say “Christianic Terrorism” when some deranged ammosexual shoots up a house party in Connecticut.
Shell
Jaysus, as if things couldn’t get more bizarre, that whole interview with Trumps supposed doctor who wrote his little medical note. I must have been one of thousands who immediately said “Hey, its Dr. Brakish Okun from ‘Independence Day!’ “
mike in dc
I’m guessing Dwyane Wade and his family won’t be voting for Trump.
gogol's wife
@Shell:
Wow, I’ve never seen that film but I just googled him and you’re right!
gf120581
@Shell: Spiner tweeted he’d be up for playing the “doctor” in any upcoming screen adaptation of this election.
Truegster
@Frankensteinbeck: I agree. I think it’s smart not to give status to basically YouTube/media trolls/terrorists that are weak overseas and thrive on outsized importance. It’s also smart to name actual pervasive domestic trolls that have taken over a presidential candidate rather than understate their potential.
MattF
@mike in dc: ‘Gloating over people getting shot’ seems to be a basic element in Trump’s behavioral repertoire.
Craggiest
@jacy: nicely put
mayyouliveininterestingtimes
@jacy: Fallow’s theory, or at least it’s taken from someone who wrote in to him, is that the silence is on purpose. They’re smothering it with silence, they do NOT want to talk about it. Instead they’ll continue to wax poetic all things Clinton, of course.
Betty Cracker
@Matt McIrvin: Saw that and was very pleased. It was a hatchet job from start to finish.
debbie
@dmsilev:
This (and a zillion other things) makes him unfit for office, but that wasn’t unusual behavior for NYC landlords.
MisterForkbeard
@Matt McIrvin: The AP’s response to that is awful. Basically a “the tweet about the story could have been clearer, but what we really need to do is focus on the inherent ethical problems Hillary has.” As in, we should have spent more time attacking Hillary because she ran a charity before becoming SoS. And we’re in the clear because we grudgingly said we didn’t find any proof of quid-pro-quo. But you should all wonder about her anyway!
It’s the Clinton Rules in a nut shell.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@MisterForkbeard:
like someone on twitter said – ‘a cloud of mistrust hangs over the Clinton campaign’ says the media running the smoke machine.
Ian
@Truegster:
I thought he didn’t say that because he founded ISIS and if the leader of ISIS said radical Islamic terrorism it would stop?
hovercraft
@Robin G.:
It’s a beautiful combination of two very good political machines, that have come together to form a death star. On Monday the media was all a flutter over the Clinton Foundation, by Friday they were reduced to having to say the CGI is a wonderful organization that is saving lives, but even though there is no evidence of corruption, but it looks bad, then you have won the battle. Trump was having the best week in forever on Monday, by Friday he was being ridiculed for softening then hardening, it’s been more than 4 hours, perhaps he should consult with his clown of a doctor. Hillary’s factual evisceration was such a thing of beauty that he was reduced to moronic you’re the bigot idiocy, that even the GOP wouldn’t come to his defense. There are still 10 weeks to go, what more do we have to look forward to? Wife beating anti-Semitic staffers, people fired for corruption, that’s already happened. I await the next move Mr Trump.
hovercraft
@gf120581:
Who has succeeded in blowing up Bernie’s revolution before it even began.
MattF
@hovercraft: And debates between Trump and Clinton coming up. I can’t even.
BBA
Let’s not give the alt-right the oxygen of publicity. They shouldn’t even get the oxygen of oxygen.
Weaselone
@MisterForkbeard:
My favorite part is where the AP editor is quoted at the end of the article as saying Hillary shouldn’t have met with any donors to avoid the appearance of being unethical. Denying donors meetings when they would otherwise merit the meeting would itself be unethical.
MattF
@BBA: But every Republican candidate should be asked what they think about Trump’s home team.
Mnemosyne
@BBA:
Sometimes you gotta turn on your kitchen light in the middle of the night to see just how bad your roach problem really is.
dmsilev
@hovercraft: Right now, I think next week’s story about Team Trump will be the incipient civil war among his campaign staffers. We were discussing a thread or two down whether his sudden cancellation of most of the upcoming rallies was collateral damage in this power struggle.
lurker dean
OMG – this is pretty funny – the white fragility video. (sorry, couldn’t figure out how to do direct link, or non-FB link)
“I went to Berkeley, Berkeley!”
https://www.facebook.com/ajplusenglish/videos/786655684809274/?hc_ref=NEWSFEED
(ugh, having probs with link function)
Lizzy L
@Weaselone: Why would anyone allow the Associated Press to arbitrate matters of ethics? I call this chutzpah.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@BBA:
They thrive in the dark. Naming them, exposing them, seeing them clearly is the antidote. That’s what they think they want, but they’re delusional. They believe they’re much greater in numbers because they’re used to only talking to and agreeing with each other . Flushed out, they get a reality check.
RaflW
@germy:
I’m sure it was.
Quite probable. The two are interconnected. Which is why it is so important that HRC has a very different campaign staff this time than 8 years ago…
Kelly
Drove some Willamette Valley backroads yesterday. The farmers are mostly strong Republicans that typically put up signs for the all the R candidates. I saw about the usual number of signs but only one Trump/Pense. I know signs aren’t a reliable indicator and Oregon will go Clinton anyway but I’m guessing there’s widespread embarrassment in the red leaning hinterlands.
Frankensteinbeck
@BBA:
On the contrary. I want them to get all the publicity they can get. The existence of hard racism in this country needs to be emphasized, as does its ties to the Republican Party. Publicity won’t make them more powerful, but it will motivate whites who want to think racism is over against them.
MisterForkbeard
@Weaselone: The important thing to remember here is that Clinton is wrong and there’s clearly ethical problems here, even if no one knows what they actually are.
hovercraft
@MattF:
If I’m doing debate prep with her, I’m trying to get her to stop laughing in his face when he says something totally stupid. Okay maybe just to confine the laughter to every fourth answer.
philadelphialawyer
@BBA: I totally disagree. The ground has shifted. As of now, it is not only the right thing to do call out racists, it is politically wise as well. Between POC voters and the at minimum sizable minority of white voters who do not like racism, racism, at least of the out and out, alt right, well beyond dog whistle, variety, is a political liability. I want Trump tagged with alt right and with their racism. If that gives alt right some oxygen, I don’t care. I want the damage done to Trump.
Forever, I have wished the Dems would stop pussy footing around and go hammer and tong at the GOP’s racism. It was always the right thing to do. But, for a long time, it may have been politically unwise; now it isn’t. Because the polity has changed, and because, with Trump, there is no plausible deniability, especially with an alt right POS as his official campaign manager.
Anyway, fresh air is a disinfectant. Hillary exposing alt right to it is a probably a good thing for that reason as well.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@BBA:
They thrive in the dark, and indulge in delusion that they’re some kind of gathering force who will alter US history, when really, they’re just a bunch of racist dumbasses who only talk to each other because everyone else knows they’re assholes to be avoided. Flushing them out into the spotlight will show them to be the fat assed mediocre crackers they all are.
RaflW
I watched the speech yesterday online. I have to say that I really liked that she did maybe 2/3rds of it in a more conversational style rather than her louder ‘speechy’ voice. It projected both self-confidence and seemed to make the accusations that much more biting. She didn’t have to raise her voice one iota to land every punch and jab.
I’d really like to see more of that style on the stump, personally. And no, I’m not just pasive-aggressive calling her shouty. I’m not terribly skilled at public speaking but my partner is a minister, and I watch him and many of his colleagues closely to try and understand why some connect better with audiences.
I think speaking style matters a lot, and in the 21st century microphones are fantastic, so speakers don’t need to throw their voices the way the too often do in a throwback to bad acoustics and crappy sound systems. OK, sometimes politicians have to speak in school gyms with bad P.A.s. Adjust as needed. And again, I thought HRC had excellent command of her audience in this speech because she seemed to be speaking directly to them, not orating to a big TeeVee audience. Well done on a critically important speech!
Mnemosyne
@lurker dean:
I think I pulled a muscle laughing at that. Why will no one think of my pain as a white person?
hovercraft
@dmsilev:
The whole softening hardening is the struggle, Kellyanne, you have to be gentler, kinder, softer, Bannon, you must be hard and tough. As to the schedule, he wants to go where he can get the biggest most rapturous crowds, regardless of whether it makes electoral sense or not. The fight will never be resolved because they say he listens to the advice of the last person he speaks to. And then puts that advice through the Trump filter and out comes out that hours Trump, which will change the moment he steps off stage.
mayyouliveininterestingtimes
@mayyouliveininterestingtimes: Edit – It appears I butchered that idiom (wax poetic). I think I can hear Orwell gnashing his teeth from the grave.
I meant they will continue to keep the beltway media’s attention on Hillary, at all times, even if that means ignoring the vicious attacks against their own candidate. “Oh look a unicorn, I mean an unsubstantiated report on the Clinton Foundation!”
Amir Khalid
@mayyouliveininterestingtimes:
“If we ignore it, maybe it’ll go away.”
Uncle Cosmo
@MisterForkbeard:
More like the Clintonian Hyperextension of 21st Century Clickwhore Urinalism at its foulest:
followed (2 days later) by
Urinalists {ptui!}: They piss against the wall & then complain that something smells bad…
MattF
@hovercraft: I’m thinking more on the level of equipping the moderators with tranquilizer darts.
yellowdog
@germy: His got that advice from the not-Weaver guy (I’ve forgotten his name) on Bernie’s campaign. At least he’s consistent.
Suzanne
@jacy:
Me too. I am just as lefty as I was as a teenager—maybe even more so—but now that I have experienced more leadership and have had to learn how to be persuasive and competent, I have come to realize that those skills are both really important and relatively rare. As a result, I am more likely to accept half-loaves than I used to be.
However, I take much more joy in the electoral defeat of my opposition. My biggest character failing is not a desire for revenge, but my schadenfreudeiness. I won’t do anything bad to anyone, but DAMN will I enjoy when bad things happen to shitty people. Wingnut tears will make me feel good for DAYS. Maybe even weeks.
sukabi
@Weaselone: if you distill it down you’re left with a Clinton, especially Hillary, should not meet anyone. She should stay home where she belongs.
hovercraft
More outreach to “the blacks”.
Ruckus
@BBA:
If you don’t expose them for what they are, they sit in the background and fester. They are a boil on the ass of society. You don’t get rid of that boil without pulling pants down and lancing it.
hovercraft
Pastor Who Said Pulse Victims ‘Got What They Deserved’ Arrested For Child Molestation
God don’t like ugly. Ha,
nastybrutishntall
This is why every time I heard a Berniebot complain about Hillary’s deviousness, I’d say, “Thank the fucking Lord or whoever.” I want Hillary angry as hell and ready to call in the pliers and blowtorch team to use on Trump and the GOP. I want them hurt. I want them afraid. I don’t want a fucking kumbaya, two hands tied behind his back Presidential candidate, or a President for that matter. I want a vicious harpy bent on revenge and rubbing liberal victory in the GOP’s face. I want names taken. I want all the bubblegum chewed up and run out. I want blood.
With votes!
Uncle Cosmo
I’m looking at the material uptop & scratching my head trying to figure out what this “Glenn Thrush” character meant by “I questioned their willingness to go after Trump.”
Question whether they were willing to go after Trump? Or question the wisdom of the campaign’s being willing (to go after Trump)?
IMHO the response (“You are an idiot”) works jess faaaaahn for both, but still…
lurker dean
@Mnemosyne: i had to watch it a few times, my wife was wondering why i was laughing so hard.
Ken
@dmsilev:
Not a hard call, since that’s been the cycle for a couple of months now – bring in new staff, they start fighting, fire them and bring in new staff. Lather, rinse, repeat.
The cycle seems to be about every two weeks. Were I a cynic, I’d suspect that payroll is on the first and fifteenth of the month, and he’s getting them out the door before he has to cut the first check. But I’m not a cynic, I’m a realist, so I’m sure that’s what’s going on.
Roger Moore
@BBA:
We don’t have the power to deny them the oxygen of publicity, since they’re already a big part of the Trump campaign and feeding on the oxygen the Trump campaign is sucking out of the room. The best we can do is to make sure they’re getting plenty of bad publicity we’re in position to dish out to go with the publicity they’re getting from working with Trump.
sukabi
@Roger Moore: agree, part of reason they’ve been able to grow is the cover they’ve gotten by NOT being called out by folks who have KNOWN what they’re about but have been afraid of “angering” the base.