The Voices on the Left Who Said Clinton Was as Bad as Trump Helped Get Us Fury and Fire

[kpete]

The world rooted in the conviction that Democrats and liberals, not Republicans and conservatives, are the real enemies of progress helped elect this guy president.

Michael Tomasky
MICHAEL TOMASKY
08.10.17 1:00 AM ET



...................let’s give a special little shout out to those brilliant people who argued that Hillary Clinton was more likely to start World War III than Donald Trump. I’ve been looking back over some articles from last year and am reminded that it was a surprisingly robust theme, this idea that Clinton was more dangerous than Trump. I doubt many votes hinged on this single issue, but it became a key talking point in the larger narrative that Clinton was corrupt and unprincipled and there really wasn’t much difference between her and Trump.


..............

A whole phalanx of journalists on the left spent most of 2016 in the following basic posture. Yes, Donald Trump is horrible. That practically goes without saying, but I’ll say it, just so it’s on the record and I can note in the future that I said it. But now that I’ve said it, what I really want to talk about is Hillary. She’s the real danger. The true evil. Look at how the neocons love her, rushing to support her over Trump.

.............

It’s bizarre logic that I daresay most people who hew to it in politics would reject in every other aspect of their lives. It holds Republicans and conservatives to no standard of behavior, and Democrats and liberals to a high standard that they will almost always fail to meet. And of course this mindset completely ignored Trump’s numerous personal traits that made and continue to make him dangerously unfit to be the commander in chief.


Last year, it was all hypothetical. Now it’s not. I don’t think any of these people could say in an honest moment that they’re reassured that it’s Trump who’ll be calling the shots here rather than Clinton.

.................

But of course, Clinton was the dangerous one.

Oh yes there is MORE:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/the-voices-on-the-left-who-said-clinton-was-as-bad-as-trump-helped-get-us-fury-and-fire?source=twitter&via=desktop

[tonyt53]

1. Those weren't voices from the "left". Those were voices following the word "free".

When they couldn't cast a vote for the "free" guy, they voted for Stein instead - who has Russian problems of her own.

[NurseJackie]

42. And the Susan Sarandon types who think "destroy to rebuild" & "burn it down" are good policies. But

... those types can (literally) AFFORD the luxury of "doing without" and making "small" sacrifices. They have such a warped "let them eat cake" world-view that they can't conceive of the horrors that will be visited upon the least of us and the most vulnerable of us.

Fuck that Stein-endorsing Susan Sarandon.

[calimary]

48. Get in line, NurseJackie.

I'm right behind you in that same line.

I won't EVER pay to see a Susan Sarandon movie again. Nor will I ever support ANYTHING in which she's involved. SHE HELPED US GET THIS SHIT-MEISTER.

I've been posing that question to people who just were "angry". Or they just wanted to "blow it all up." Or "burn it all down."

Okay - you want to just burn it all down or blow it all up. Alright, then. When you've managed to accomplish that, and everything's burned down and blown up, have you thought ahead to how you find food? Where you go to find food? Or to find a safe place to live? Or still count on your disability check or your Social Security check or your Medicare/Medicaid? That's all blown up and burnt down, y'know. That's what YOU wanted, and that's what YOU voted for.

I'm losing any remnants of sympathy and compassion for these imbeciles. "So you're okay with this. then? If you really are okay with all this, then WHAT DOES THAT SAY ABOUT YOU????

[Blue_true]

59. If a nuke hit her in the ass, her gambit would have failed miserably.

Hard to rebuild when you are a pile of smoking ash.

[Iliyah]

2. Yep. And there is no difference between DEMS and GOPers.

Okie dokie. The far left and far right in my opinion are basically the same and it seems like they both love them some Putin to boot.

[onit2day]

43. This post is unfounded. Certainly not why

Clinton was rejected by some dems. She was seen as status quo Wall street bankster cultivated DLC lobbyists backed corporate centrist by some dems but few voted for Trump. But don't forget, Trump ran as a democrat against trade deals, said he would not cut SS, Medicare or Medicaid and bring the manufacturing jobs back home and get rid of Wall street influence in the WH.
Please define what you mean by "far left" because this "both siderism" is a myth. Only one side is destroying the planet and the nation.
BTW...The group you write about is such a small group that your post is trivial begging the question why bother to write it in the first place

[PassingFair]

49. Excellent post.

The corporate clowns in our party have a vested interest
in cultivating a war against "purists" and "progressives" in
our own party. It's put up or shut up as far as they're concerned.

The only "leftists" I know are NOT democrats.

[Ninga]

3. Voting for the candidate that will benefit the greater good vs. voting

to send a message is what got us into this mess.

People will throw away their vote for the most inane and stupid reason...or just as stupid, won't vote at all.....

[not fooled]

7. Yep

dump was a stunt candidate.

And the invective against Secretary Clinton reached ridiculous extremes.

Still, anyone with two brain cells to rub together saw who was presidential and who was a fraud. Oops, apparently that criterion ruled out many 'Muricans, at least enough for the pukes to get the election within stealing distance.

[David__77]

4. Surely, one can blame someone for anything.

What I know to be true is that Trump is president because a majority of the electoral college voted for him. Now, how to win in 2020?

[iluvtennis]

5. But the votes were tainted by the Russian interference. I agree that is my speculation...

...but I think Mueller's investigation will validate it.

You can't tell me that over 15 vote counting machines in black/brown areas in Detroit/surrounding areas all going down simulatenously on election night wasn't orchestrated.

[LenaBaby61]

56. "But the votes were tainted by the Russian interference."

Agree with your above statement, and it's frightening that you still have Democrats acting like we'll make all of these "big gains" in 2018, when ALL of the past concerns of this 2016 GE has not been looked into or hashed out. It's like Dems don't know that the GOP is in control of all voter collections and of tallying ALL of our votes, and they're not giving that up anytime soon, as they want a permanent one-party system running this country--their party.

This past GE election was NOT a normal election. Yes, many sat out this past GE for various reasons. But for many Dems who voted in certain areas/states, MI., WI., PA., NC etc, their votes were either crosschecked, voter-purged or voter I'D off voting rolls, and God knows what else happened to make Dem votes "disappear" or not be counted at ALL. We're once again going to be voter-suppressed, gerrymandered and ruskie-interfered with, and nothing's been done over all about it that I know of. Our voting apparatus all across this country is STILL easy to hack, our voting apparatus is OLD and out-dated in many areas of the country, and we KNOW that the GOP is working on more ways to REALLY voter-suppress Dems now that they control all 3 branches of the government, and as far as I KNOW it's still "on" as far as the ruskies interfering with & meddling with our election/voting is concerned.

I actually have friends telling me to stop being so negative, because we have a huge advantage, because as Dems we have more people registered to vote than R's, and that if we as Democrats get out there and vote in numbers like never seen before, we can overcome any interference by thuglicans/ruskies etc. Oh really? We Dems have to come out to VOTE--BIG IF. Secondly, the GOP or ruskies can't "purge" or make all of those Dem votes "disappear" or "not be counted" in the first place? The GOP is in charge of collection and tallying votes all across this country--that's a FACT--and we know how dishonest and craven 99% of thuglicans ARE (Looking past tRumptin's treasons actions/crazy behavior up to very recently), we know WHO the Koch Bros. & who the Mercers are, and we know that they want one party (Theirs) running things in this country PERMANENTLY, and they'll do anything to achieve that. Hell, I'm scared that if that insane clown starts a war with North Korea, he'll suspend the 2018 & maybe even the 2020 GE--that's if he can't fire Mueller first, because as I see it, Mueller IS closing in on him--we can SEE how unhinged, crazy he IS and how he's really wilding out against members in his own party at the present time.

[iluvtennis]

61. Well stated LenaBaby - I AGREE [phone]

[ProfessorPlum]

6. I get Tomasky's anger, I really do

but most of the Democratic party didn't fall for that bullshit, and the majority of the country didn't either.

to the extent that "The Left" fell for the 30 year long demonization campaign conducted against Clinton, most people to the left of Genghis Khan saw through that propaganda and voted for her. The demonization of Clinton was far, far, far more effective on "The Right", enough of whom couldn't see straight enough not to elect the dangerous and delusional madman we are dealing with now.

If "The Left"'s perception of Clinton was skewed, "The Right"'s perception of her was completely beyond reality.

So let's focus our anger on hate radio and the fools who have allowed themselves to be propagandized, and what we can do about that.

[leftstreet]

10. +1

[Proud Liberal Dem]

34. The point is that ENOUGH people fell for it

that they voted for Trump, voted third party out of protest, or, in some cases voted for NOBODY at all and left the top line blank. All of the smearing and, more importantly, false equivalencies, helped bring Clinton down and Trump up just enough for her to lose and him to win in the EC. This isn't, of course, to deny or paper over all of the other issues with the election (Russian interference certainly being a contributing factor about which we are still learning the full extent of) but the fact is that the media and some on the left successfully managed to create enough doubt and fear on the left about Hillary and her more-hawkish-than-President Obama-tendencies and "reassurance" about Trump ("Sure, he'll be a flaming dumpster fire on most policies but he won't pick a fight with Russia" ) that she lost to one of the most supremely unqualified candidates possibly ever in our country's history.

[mcar]

8. They share responsibility for this

[louis c]

9. I Couldn't Agree More With This Post

K&R

[betsuni]

11. K&R

[librechik]

12. yes.

They didn't get the big picture. And rode their misogynistic biases into this mess without noticing what they were stepping into.

[jalan48]

13. Not only that, Trump has made conservative Republicans look more mainstream.

The political shift to the right is making a quantum leap these days. I would blame our corporate media for Trump's election myself. Hundreds of minutes of free air time for Trump throughout the primary and general election. Why? We were told ratings were the reason but then why not the same treatment for Sanders who was filling arenas with supporters with no nightly reporting of the event appearing in the corporate news cycles. In fact, Clinton, a well known and experienced politician received less press coverage than Trump. Why did the media continue to ignore Trump's shady past? The news was there, it just wasn't reported on while Benghazi continued to get top billing. Trump appeared to be the choice of our moneyed, media elites.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

37. Yup

Though some of the moneyed interests must certainly be having their doubts right now. We're still coasting on President Obama's economy but between getting into a p***ing contest with nuclear North Korea and facing a looming debt ceiling that Republicans haven't all come together on to resolve (because they all suck at governance), all bets may soon be off in terms of how stable the economy might be over the longer term.

[lostnfound]

14. Trite, boring and predictable. Blame left pols, blame left base, blame left pols, blame left base

But god forbid we blame the intellectually lazy, xenophobic, selfish right wing sheep that elected him.

[KTM]

17. Yep - all of this was predictable

But let's blame the left. Lets blame the Right. Lets not accept any responsiblity or look anywhere else.

[Foamfollower]

15. Let's name a few names

Nina Turner
Susan Sarandon
Cenk Uygar
Mike Malloy

The list goes on...

[calimary]

50. YEP.

They share the blame and the mortal sin. They share a very large part of the blame and the mortal sin. Because their voices had a bigger, louder, and more powerful pulpit, as public figures and public speakers/pronouncers/advocates. So they were able to influence more people and lead them straight over a cliff.

[samnsara]

16. i agree!!! They all gave us this madman.

[Blue_true]

18. The extreme left is dead to me. If I meet one I will grab his or her face

and plant a kiss on each jowl, then walk away.

[Lil Missy]

19. But ..... Hillary wasn't pure enough!

And Benghazi!!!!

[tiredtoo]

20. And the blame game continues

How about we start posting positive things that will help us take back our country. Use this as a thought starter, United we Stand-Divided we fall.

[ffr]

21. One vote away from having me and 24 million others without ACA

Now the world is on the precipice of nuclear war, here only 6 months into what Hillary said repeatedly might happen.

I wake up each day thankful that our ICBMs are still in their silos, shaking my head were really here and this is our reality.

[gratuitous]

22. Yes, Clinton could have won the popular vote by 2.9 million

An ill-defined cadre of phantoms is what swung the election to Trump. Not any Russian meddling, or suspicious-looking vote totals in, say, Pennsylvania, Michigan, or Wisconsin. Certainly nothing to do with the popular media (which, last I looked, wasn't exactly leftist - extreme or otherwise) issuing pass after pass to the Trump campaign for rhetoric and behavior that has sunk previous campaigns. And there is no way in the world we got to where we are by a coordinated campaign of misinformation, disinformation, and outright lies that was passed off as politics as usual.

Nope we've found Snowball, Comrades! Rejoice in the utter destruction of the Enemy of All that is Good.

[C Moon]

23. I still don't think he was elected...he was hoisted, illegally.

I think Hillary won by a huge landslide.

[zipplewrath]

24. Anyone asked her?

I am a bit curious about how either Obama or Clinton would have handled the current situation. This is a problem that has been growing for 20+ years and no one has ever figured out how to deal with it. Trump is ham handed as hell but I really have no idea what the "right" thing to do at this point is. Everyone wants to talk about nuclear war, but the reality is that NK would probably use "conventional" weapons, at first. We can't do much preemptively, and it isn't clear what China can or will do. If they start shooting, we'll be in a pickle in that we can't disrupt China, but we'll have to help South Korea. I don't see alot of good options even well before any talk of nuclear.

[oberliner]

26. I just asked a similar question

I am also curious to know what her approach would be at this point.

[yardwork]

27. It would be highly inappropriate for her or Obama to comment publicly during a crisis.

That's one of the many ways in which the Obama administration is so superior to Trump's band of fools. Diplomacy requires that previous leaders defer to the current president during a crisis.

[zipplewrath]

28. Yeah, I know

It was a bit more rhetorical than that. Surely in private she is discussing the situation with people.

[yardwork]

30. We can only imagine. They know things we don't. They must be appalled.

[oberliner]

25. What would Clinton be doing with respect to N Korea?

I know she would've supported the UN sanctions, and I know she would not have used the "fire and fury" language, but what do you think her approach would be at this point in the face of inevitable N Korean provocation and growing nuclear program?

[yardwork]

29. I don't think we would have this crisis with NK if Clinton had been elected.

From the moment of his election, Trump has made reckless, provocative statements, with the result that an unstable dictator like this has escalated.

Obama contained. Trump lit the fuse.

The way to handle a crisis like this is to use diplomacy wisely and strategically. It's a minute by minute assessment as the situation unfolds. I would have had full confidence in President Hillary Clinton and the people she would have had advising her.

[oberliner]

31. I think she would've pressed for and supported the UN sanctions

She said that she supported such measures during the campaign.

Right after those sanctions were passed is when N Korea ramped up its threatening language (and then Trump took it to another level).

My question is how would HRC have handled the post-sanctions bellicosity from N Korea.

[yardwork]

32. I answered your question.

[oberliner]

33. What would Clinton have done in response to North Korea's bellicose reaction to the sanctions?

That's what I am wondering about.

[yardwork]

35. Copied from my post above is my answer:

The way to handle a crisis like this is to use diplomacy wisely and strategically. It's a minute by minute assessment as the situation unfolds. I would have had full confidence in President Hillary Clinton and the people she would have had advising her.

[haele]

58. Bill Richardson, an DPRK expert, for one thing. And she would have gotten other countries involved.

Part of the current problem is that Drumpf and the Evilangelicals don't care about what's going on that causes this bellicosity from North Korea.
It's a mixture of "face" and famine. And NK's deals with Pakistan and Russia, which is where they've been getting resources and support to build their bombs and missile systems. Unfortunately, that weapons situation is long past resolution; the best strategy here would be monitoring and containment.

North Korea is facing some bad climate related issues right now, and part of the tactic to keep the peasants in line with their government is playing "Act Tough against The West".
The famine they're dealing with is only worsening. The Kim dynasty has to do something to keep a sense of national unity, or they are going to fall within the next 5 years.

Under a Clinton, O'Malley, Sanders - or hell, even a (gag) Bush or Rubio administration (if it was going to be GOP) - China (being the major trade partner and supplier of relief and political support for North Korea) would probably be more willing to work with us to find a better solution than the "Nuke 'em all and let God sort things out" strategy of the Drumpf mis-administration and his East Coast billionaire buddies.

We would not be in this position of sand-lot dick comparisons, that's for sure.

Haele

[Sunlei]

46. she would have continued as 2016 Admin recorded. Here are several late 2016 NK, eos & policies.

https://search.archives.gov/search?query=North+Korea&op=Search&affiliate=obamawhitehouse

[Sunlei]

36. no.Republicans who didn't stand-up for Democracy when they KNEW people in their party were traitors

[mdbl]

38. This statement from the cited op says it all....

"It’s bizarre logic that I daresay most people who hew to it in politics would reject in every other aspect of their lives. It holds Republicans and conservatives to no standard of behavior, and Democrats and liberals to a high standard that they will almost always fail to meet."

And how did that narrative happen? Could it be, right wing hate teevee and radio?

[Orsino]

39. There's plenty of blame to go around...even for those of us on the left who just failed to help GOTV

Let's not, however, obsess over a few pseudo-leftists who may or may not have actually voted. The bulk of the blame surely goes to sixty million Trump voters, to tens of millions of non-voters, to whatever hacking did for Trump, for the billionaires who only involve themselves in politics to cut their own taxes, to tame corporate media who failed us when they weren't actively working against us, and to the power of human gullibility.

The game really is rigged against us. Until voting is phased out, we have to be better at engaging people who might cast a ballot against the forces of StoopidEvil.

[NNadir]

40. Quoting Willie the Shake: What's done cannot be undone. Let's pick up the pieces and move on.

There's no point in excoriating them. They won't care anyway. They have a habit of not caring.

[Blue_Tires]

41. And everyone needs to be vigilant

because I keep telling you those same people who are supposedly on our side are just itching to ratfuck us in '18 and '20...

[Blue_true]

60. I agree.

We are going to have to win the battle without those assholes. It is tough when our leaders spend 8 hard years getting things back on track and then along come the Naders and Steins and idiots dumb enough to vote for them when ONLY the Democrat or republican will become President.

[lark]

44. I seriously doubt that were many true progressives who supported drumpf.

There was a ton of Russian lies and misinformation being spread and Stein was in lockstep with them, being a Russian tool herself. She's not a progressive, she's a fake. Anyone who voted for her is as guilty of sheer ignorance as the people that voted for Drumpf.

[LittleBlue]

45. Unfortunately this is a problem of our own making. President after president kicked the can down the

road, hoping something would change. Some sanction, convince China, blah blah blah. They hoped Kim Jong Un would be like his father, wrecking havoc in his little area but not becoming a threat.

We procrastinated until now, because they are developing a nuclear arsenal that threatens the world. Clinton, Obama, even Reagan and Bush solving this would have been better than allowing Dump to put us all at risk.

This didn't suddenly happen. It happened because for decades we went to sleep on a mad dictatorship, and now they have ICBMs. Dump or no Dump, it didn't have to be this way.

[Heartstrings]

54. So the "best deal maker" president

baits and taunts Phat boy?

That should work out well....

Granted I don't have the answer, but bloodshed is for last resorts imo.

[TheDebbieDee]

47. Were these actually voices on the left or

Were they Russian bots at work. I wonder the same thing about the Bernie Bros as well. Are we being played against each other by the Russians?

Their goal was to divide us for the last election and it looks as though they are well on their way to accomplishing their goal for 2018!

[dlk]

51. It's Always Been the Misogyny

Hard to believe, there are those who would risk nuclear war just so they can be "right."

[loyalsister]

52. I don't get why people get so much satisfaction out of demonizing people

I get that it is an old standard for the right to demonize people they don't like. But, seeing all of the op-eds that seem to encourage, usually well meaning Democrats, to jump into the same cess pool of hate, one might think that they like the idea of citizens hating their peers just as much those who used it for political gain.

[Gothmog]

53. A vote for Jill Stein was a vote for trump

A vote for Stein or the failure to vote in the last general election help to give us trump

[oasis]

55. No lame excuses. They drove the getaway car.

[L. Coyote]

57. It doesn't matter what is in the news, someone will use it to undermine party unity.

Don't give the assholes pushing internecine battles any oxygen.

[Tactical Peek]

62. Life comes at you something something . . .

Link to tweet