This is a big part of "why not Hillary?", at least for me...

[truebluegreen]

From the Atlantic Monthly, regarding her Daily Show interview:

For Hillary, America’s current problem is that once the Cold War ended, we “withdrew from the information arena.” As a result, across the world, a new generation no longer remembers the great things we supposedly did in the past, and America has stopped telling them about the great things we are still doing today. Her answer: “get back to telling” the story of America’s greatness, not only to the rest of the world but “to ourselves first and foremost.”
Is America’s biggest post-Cold War foreign policy problem really that we’ve failed to adequately remind others, and ourselves, how good we are?

Really? Is America’s biggest post-Cold War foreign policy problem really that we’ve failed to adequately remind others, and ourselves, how good we are? After all, George W. Bush told Americans endlessly that the “war on terror” was another grand American crusade for freedom, in the tradition of World War II and the Cold War. In his second inaugural address and other thundering rhetorical displays, he announced to the world that America would champion liberty far and wide, as in days of old.


I guess we just need to let the rest of the world know how exceptional we are....Read the whole thing:

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/07/hillary-clintons-bizarre-critique-of-us-foreign-policy/374618/

[arcane1]

1. I too am sick of the "we need to lead the word" crap.

It's just another way of saying "make the world bow to us" which is 99% of our problems in the first place.

[truebluegreen]

2. I agree.

I view the American exceptionalism / one essential nation / shining city on a hill meme as just manipulative propaganda that allows the war profiteers among us to enrich themselves at our expense. Throw in the fear-mongering and we get the spectacle of Americans begging to impoverish themselves.

[Wounded Bear]

7. The real problem is not that we should lead...

The real problem is how we lead. If we're the richest and most powerful, we have an obligation to lead, but to do so in a humanitarian and humble way. History is strewn with examples of empires that did it the other way, the "Bush" way if you will, and they all pretty much ended the same way, in destruction and ruin.

The classic style of "leadership" seems to be mostly a combination of bullying and greed, guaranteed to make the rest of the world rise up and join in on destroying us.

[truebluegreen]

30. +1

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

33. No question, and it's Hillary's style of leadership that's got us in all these wars and other conflicts that kill and maim innocent people.

[betterdemsonly]

3. I thought that interview would go down badly with anti-Iraq war democrats.

She is just coasting on name recognition. She impresses no one who pays attention to her and pretty soon people are going to start doing precisely that.

[Metric System]

5. Believe it or not but "America Kind of Sucks Sometimes" doesn't win over the average voter.

[truebluegreen]

6. So your idea is to pander to the average voter?

In my experience that always works extremely well.

[wyldwolf]

12. It works quite well if your goal is to win an election.

[truebluegreen]

15. Winning is everything?

What do we get if we just win, baby?

[wyldwolf]

16. in politics, yes

[truebluegreen]

17. So, what do we get?

[wyldwolf]

19. I don't understand your question. You have all this lofty policy ideals...

... you want to change the country... but unless you win elections, you're just raging on a keyboard on a left wing discussion forum.

[truebluegreen]

25. Raging? Really?

Seriously though, the last two Democratic Presidents have been massive disappointments. Yes, they were better than the alternative--or were they?

Clinton deregulated the banks, pushed and signed NAFTA, etc; Obama had a plate full of crap, no question, but all the way along he has bought into and utilized Republican framing, even going so far as to offer up Social Security as part of a Grand Bargain...."only Nixon could go to China". Without the cover of the Democratic label, those policies might have been seen for the WMD that they are.

My opinion, obviously, but I have to wonder where we would be if an Elizabeth Warren had been on the scene before now.

[wyldwolf]

34. so you're going to key in on my use of the term "raging" and then rage? LOL

Look, in the context of this conversation, I don't give a rat's ass what Clinton did or what you think Warren is doing or will do. There are TWO ways to get your ideals in place - bloody revolution or democratic election. Which do you work for? My guess is winning a fucking election.

[truebluegreen]

35. I think your Rage-O-Meter calibration is off, you should have that checked. LOL

Of course I prefer winning elections. I would also prefer a Democratic candidate that runs to the left of a center-right President, instead of to his right. Especially since this is a center-left country (according to polling done w/o the dreaded "liberal" label attached to positions). IMHO that is the winning position for the average voter.

The problem is twofold: a) Hillary Clinton is not that candidate; and b) our democratically-elected government doesn't do our bidding anyway.

But as for the "rage"....I freely admit to that feeling in the past, but with distance there is less and less each day. I certainly don't feel it now and if you think you have been subjected to some...seriously, have that thing checked.

[wyldwolf]

37. Well I'm glad you admit winning is key

It is, in fact, everything if your goal is change. This change may be incremental or it may be sudden but if a Democrat doesn't win the change doesn't happen at all. That's why I will support the candidate that I prefer in the primaries but wholeheartedly support the candidate with a 'D' next to her name in the general regardless of how I feel because the alternative is
far worse.

[truebluegreen]

38. Thanks for the insight.

[hfojvt]

22. well, we get things like

the Matthew Sheperd act
expansion of SCHIP
the Lilly Ledbetter fair pay act
two appointments to the Supreme court who are NOT like Roberts and Alito

and if we had won in 2000

we would not have invaded Iraq
we would not have the Bush tax cuts still with us, making our society more unequal.

stuff like that.

and probably a whole bunch of other stuff.

[truebluegreen]

27. Biden let Clarence Thomas off the hook, and onto the Court.

I loves me that Biden, but he was being all collegial, and a member of the World's Greatest Deliberative Body and stuff, and look what happened.

Yeah, we got an extension of SCHIP, and we got the ACA without a public option, 'cause our leaders gave that away to secure some cross-the-aisle support--that worked well, didn't it? And the tax cuts could have all gone away, all they needed to do was NOTHING, but nooooooo....

I recognize the need to win elections, and I accept that the Opposition is off the deep end, but is it too much to ask that our side actually points that out, instead of kowtowing to it? This is the conclusion of the above article:

"But the really weird part of Hillary Clinton’s claim that America must “get back to telling” the story of how great we are “to ourselves” is how much it echoes the right’s attack on Obama. Since Obama took office, a parade of conservative politicians and pundits have accused him of insufficient faith in America’s greatness. Mitt Romney entitled his campaign book No Apology: Believe in America. In 2013, Dick Cheney declared, “I don’t think that Barack Obama believes in the U.S. as an exceptional nation.”

For more than five years, the right has claimed the major problem with American foreign policy is that it’s not sufficiently grounded in the belief that America is an exceptional nation fated to lift up humanity by spreading its power, as it did in generations past.

Now, bizarrely, Hillary Clinton is leveling the same critique. Which still doesn’t make it right."

[conservaphobe]

26. Yeah. That's what should happen in a representative democracy. nt

[truebluegreen]

29. That would happen in a representative democracy.

Too bad we don't have one, and haven't for (apparently) decades.

"Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organised groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.

In English: the wealthy few move policy, while the average American has little power.

The two professors came to this conclusion after reviewing answers to 1,779 survey questions asked between 1981 and 2002 on public policy issues." (my bold)

http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746

[KT2000]

9. Absolutely right!

IMHO - One of the reasons the RW has so many followers is because they have expanded the "America is the greatest" to "you are better than those other people (fill in the blank)."
That is just the way it is - voters are not going to elect anyone who makes them feel bad about themselves or the country's actions.

[truebluegreen]

13. A talented politician could change the framing,

and a statesman would require it of himself...or herself. Imho, Hillary Clinton doesn't fit the bill on either count.

And given the current mood in the country--disgust re the Mess O'Potamia, bailouts of Wall Street with a still-shaky economy, plenty of homegrown problems, etc.--I don't think it is too much to ask, or too heavy a lift, to change the focus of our foreign policy.

[hfojvt]

18. anybody who said THAT

would just get blasted here for not saying "America TOTALLY sucks ALL the times".

"sometimes" Ha. Like our country ever does anything good.

[Prophet 451]

8. I don't know if you're aware...

...but an awful lot of your media is exported around the world and, as someone in another country (UK) watching that media, it constantly tells you that the US is the greatest, free-est, most wonderful nation on earth. You've heard that parody song "AMERICA, FUCK YEAH!"? That's how most of your media comes across to those outside the US.

[truebluegreen]

10. I am aware.

I find it ludicrous and embarrassing.

I remember the first time that came home to me: I was in New Zealand in about 1977 or '78 when the first Superman movie with Christopher Reeve came out. At one point Lois Lane asked him, "Why are you here?", and he replied, "To fight for Truth, Justice and the American Way." I wanted to crawl under my seat.

[Prophet 451]

24. I give Superman a pass

He's one of teh few characters who's supposed to be gosh-darn patriotic. He and Captain America get a pass from me. And yes, I'm a complete comics geek.

[truebluegreen]

31. In truth, I do too.

It just made a huge impression on me, how we must sound to the rest of the world.

[Prophet 451]

32. Yeah

Even with your news shows and especially with your fiction, there's such a glaring sense of American triumphalism that it's jarring to non-Americans who aren't used to it.

[L0oniX]

11. *

[truebluegreen]

14. I welcome your hatred.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

20. "When fascism comes to America, it will come wrapped in an American flag.." Sinclair Lewis

[pnwmom]

21. Where in this does Hillary say that this is "America's current problem" --

meaning "the current problem" as opposed to one-among-many problems?

[4now]

23. I wonder what stories we should be telling

Maybe the one about how we invaded Iraq for no discernible reason or how we destroyed the world economy and made the poor people bail out the the rich assholes that caused it.

[truebluegreen]

28. An inspirational one for me too.

My whole life we've been making the world safe for democracy...and yet it doesn't seem to be working. Not for us, and not for the world.

[elehhhhna]

36. We lead the world in supporting Israel, fucking our own people, and in lying about everything

and she's part of the problem, not the solution

[truebluegreen]

39. + a zillion Thank you.

[n2doc]

40. There are some great stories to tell

About how we built up the finest manufacturing base in the world, built an amazing infrastructure, best education system in the world, Righted a century of segregation. And then threw it all away. She could start by reminding us about what we once had, and how it got taken away, and how we could gain it back again if we repudiate Reaganomics, free trade boondoggles, antiunion policies and too big to fail banks.

I won't hold my breath on that. She's been well paid to keep the train going in the same direction.

[truebluegreen]

41. Those stories would indeed be an inspiration, and a battle cry.

I'm not holding my breath either.