Can Hillary Clinton Complete the Fundamental Transformation? - Bruce Thornton

by Bruce Thornton

The question, however, is whether these outrages against the spirit and the letter of the Constitution have permanently changed the U.S.

Just as they did after the first Democrat debate, the Public Relations and Marketing Division of the Democrat Party––otherwise known as the mainstream media––fell all over themselves declaring Clinton’s victory over her Democrat rivals and the Republican Party. Ignored were the damning admissions that were revealed, particularly the irrefutable evidence that Clinton knew the Benghazi attack was planned by terrorists and not a spontaneous reaction to what Clinton called “an awful Internet video that we had nothing to do with,” the big lie spun by State and the White House to protect Obama’s campaign for reelection.

So now a full year from November 8, 2016 the Dems have all but anointed Hillary to be our next president, based on this despicable display of mendacity, hauteur, and uncontrolled giggling. If they are right, then this country will have turned a dangerous corner on the road to abandoning our republican heritage of limited government, federalism, and personal freedom.

Some may argue that the two terms of Barack Obama have already taken us a long way down the road to fulfilling Obama’s promise to “fundamentally transform America.” The hypertrophic expansion of the federal government funded by $8 trillion in deficits, runaway entitlement spending in programs like food stamps and Social Security Disability Insurance, Obamacare’s highjacking of one-sixth of the economy, the out-of-control regulatory intrusions of federal agencies like the EPA and legislation like Dodd-Frank, and the tyrannical abuse of executive power through unilateral executive orders that usurp the powers of Congress­­–– all are developments that would horrify the crafters of the Constitution’s divided government.

The question, however, is whether these outrages against the spirit and the letter of the Constitution have permanently changed the U.S. Has Obama turned into reality the leftist dream that exploded in the streets of Chicago in 1968, then crashed and burned in the electoral debacle of 1972? Has the “long march through the institutions”––the highjacking of media, popular culture, and the schools in order to legitimize ideas and policies that a few decades ago would have seemed political poison for most Americans––been triumphant?

Obama’s two terms may make the answer seem obvious, but we shouldn’t forget the historical uniqueness of Obama’s election. Our dysfunctional racial narrative, one predicated on permanent black victimhood, indelible white racism, and the need for white America continually to atone for its racial sins, was the key to the 2008 election. Those highjacked institutions for decades had preached this racialist sermon, abetted by nakedly un-Constitutional preferential programs like Affirmative Action and other non-competitive set-asides. Millions of white people had become tired of the constant brow-beating and hectoring by race-hack politicians and “activists” who leveraged the white longing for redemption and absolution into lucrative careers and political power. The Democrat Party, moreover, institutionalized politically this simplistic melodrama, knowing that its spread to other minorities created a base that could swing an election.

This longing for racial absolution would seemingly be fulfilled by the election of Barack Obama, an undistinguished man of no achievements other than one speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention. Obama was the perfect racial redeemer­­––barely black, superficially articulate, “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” as Joe Biden said, about as threatening as Sidney Poitier in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. Obama spoke in the dulcet tones of reconciliation, orating that there are “no red states and no blue states,” and promising to discard partisan divisions in order to find common ground. And white America twice bought the snake oil of racial healing, so desperate they were to dull the incessant dunning about their racism and “white-skin privilege.”

Of course, there was more to it than that. Poor Mitt Romney made the mistake of speaking the truth about the 47% who will vote Democrat no matter who the candidate is, since the Democrats are the party of redistributing wealth, and voters will vote their interests as well as their ideological passions. It is another measure of how corrupt our political discourse has become that a truth of democracy known since ancient Athens, worried over during the Constitutional convention, acknowledged by James Madison in the Federalist, and confirmed by every election, could be considered a gaffe toxic enough to doom Romney’s campaign because 81% of the voters thought he doesn’t “care about people,” as the exit polls in 2012 reported.

Which brings us to Hillary, whose tack to the hard left and demagoguery about “fair share” and other redistributionist mantras suggest that she will govern in the Obama mode, strengthening and completing the “transformation” he has begun with the same method of executive overreach, as she promised recently about gun control. These pledges of further taxpayer lucre will no doubt lock in at least 45% of the electorate. But Hillary is facing headwinds a lackey media never made Obama navigate.

These can be summarized quickly. Despite 25 years in politics she has no real achievements, having followed an undistinguished Senate career with a stint at the State Department that we now know, given the foreign policy disasters she left behind, was primarily the mechanism for flying around the world to pose for photo-ops and to shake down foreign donors for contributions to the Clinton Foundation and business deals for cronies. She has a quarter-century record of sordid scandal, money-grubbing, vicious political attacks, and blatant lies about everything from how she made $100,000 on a $1,000 investment, to why she used an unsecured private server to transmit classified information. And unlike Obama, who at least could successfully feign warmth and charm, Hillary comes across as shrill, arrogant, mean-spirited, and insincere. And don’t forget the difficulty for either party to win a third consecutive presidential term, and the likelihood that the minority and millennial base will not turn out for the old bossy junior high vice-principal in the same numbers they did for the young, cool “brother” who hangs out with rap stars.

Finally, Hillary is heading into the campaign season with an on-going House investigation that will continue to supply media fodder despite the efforts of her mainstream media flacks; and with an FBI investigation that, though it is unlikely to lead to indictments (thank you, Senate Republicans, for confirming Eric Holder clone Loretta Lynch as Attorney General), will still cling malodorously to her campaign. And her current hard tack left, necessary for neutralizing the preposterous Bernie Sanders and locking in those on the dole, will come back to haunt her in the general, alienating those swing voters who hate Obamacare, like their guns, and aren’t quite ready for that fundamental transformation of America into a crony socialist paradise of foundation shake-downs and green energy boondoggles.

Every rational calculus suggests a candidate this tainted by scandal and this personally unattractive cannot win. But don’t bet on it. The Republicans could choose the wrong candidate (i.e. an old establishment white guy), and then run a “preemptive cringe” campaign of restraint and sensitivity guaranteed to make them lose. The economy could improve and the Middle East calm down. Worst of all, a significant number of voters will be seduced by the “first woman president” allure and the promise of continued government handouts.

A President Hillary is very possible, and very likely to complete the transformation Obama promised, at least until the progressives bankrupt the government, ruin the economy, and further erode our freedom. Then we very well may recognize the truth of Founder Fisher Ames’ gloomy prediction: “A democracy is a volcano, which conceals the fiery elements of its own destruction. These will produce an eruption, and carry desolation in their way.”


Bruce Thornton is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, a Research Fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution, and a Professor of Classics and Humanities at the California State University. He is the author of nine books and numerous essays on classical culture and its influence on Western Civilization. His most recent book, Democracy's Dangers and Discontents (Hoover Institution Press), is now available for purchase.

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