Hillary Clinton goes full-on ‘never Sanders’


It looks like Hillary Clinton is determined to inject herself into the election campaign and in the most negative way. She has issued a scathing attack on Bernie Sanders, showing once again that the Democratic party establishment is pulling out all the stops to prevent him from becoming the nominee, as the Iowa caucuses approach. She has even “refused to commit to endorsing Sanders should he win the primary this year”, which is pretty shocking. She is essentially saying that she would rather have Donald Trump win than Sanders.

“He was in Congress for years [and] had one senator support him,” Clinton said, going on to call Sanders “a career politician” and to dismiss his claim to represent the everyday American worker as “just baloney”.

“I feel so bad that people got sucked into it,” Clinton said.

She also pointed to a “culture around” Sanders that she said perpetuated sexism, racism and misogyny within the senator’s campaign staff.

“It’s his leadership team,” she said. “It’s his prominent supporters. It’s his online Bernie bros and their relentless attacks on lots of his competitors, particularly the women.”

Michal Moore in this podcast debunks many of the charges leveled against the Sanders camp. After the closely contested Democratic primary in 2008 in which Clinton lost to Barack Obama, Clinton appeared in just 12 campaign events for Obama in the general election. By contrast Sanders appeared in 40 events for Clinton in 2016. Similarly 15% of Clinton-supporting Democrats voted for the John McCain-Sarah Palin ticket in 2008 whereas only 12% of Sanders supporters voted for Trump. Nathan J. Robinson in this article points out how preposterous it is, given his outspoken history in support of women and explicit statements that they can and should win the presidency, to accuse Sanders of saying that he thought a woman could not win the presidency.

For Clinton, of all people, to attack Sanders for lack of authenticity in his advocacy for ordinary people, something that he has done all his life, is the height of disingenuousness and reveals a very bitter person who simply cannot accept that her time is past and insists on injecting herself into the current debate by whatever means possible.

This Clinton attack is not surprising when viewed in terms of her class interests which clearly are more aligned with Trump than Sanders. But it is surprising for her to openly come out and say so. Given the Clinton style, I would have expected her to have delegated it to her surrogates.

It also reveals that the Democratic party establishment will go all out to stop Sanders. I am just waiting for them to haul out the big gun in terms of Barack Obama.

Comments

  1. file thirteen says

    That’s great news for Sanders! The more vociferously Clinton opposes him, the better. If there’s one thing the Trump campaign showed, it’s that when voters are told who not to vote for, they push back hard.

  2. johnson catman says

    “He was in Congress for years [and] had one senator support him,” Clinton said, going on to call Sanders “a career politician” and to dismiss his claim to represent the everyday American worker as “just baloney”.

    I will take “Massive Projection” for $2000 please Alex.
    .
    Senators are mostly a bunch of rich assholes who care about promoting and enriching themselves and fucking over most US citizens. Why should I care if none of them support Sanders?

  3. says

    Hillary always seemed to me to want power; to do anything to get closer to the reins. Perhaps at one time she believed in a common good she could work for. But her post-defeat actions do not show her as an ideologue -- just another politician. We are well rid of such.

    PS- I see Buttigieg as Clinton 2.0

  4. says

    I also observe that the media does not report on Bernie’s best answer to CNN’s stupid question about a woman president -- “Hillary Clinton beat Trump by 3 million votes. Of course a woman can win.”

  5. M. Currie says

    It is, of course, true that Sanders is a “career politician,” having risen through the ranks over many years. It doesn’t necessarily make him less of a maverick, or more wrong or more right, but it does mean, one hopes, that if he’s elected he’ll have some clue to what the **** he’s doing, and that the business he serves is that of government. I’m not entirely sure Sanders would be my first choice as President, but I’d certainly vote for him if he’s nominated. My main concern at this point is that if he becomes President we Vermonters will lose one of the better senators.

  6. Holms says

    She really is a resentful politician, isn’t she. But then, who can blame her? It was her turn, dammit!

  7. mnb0 says

    “She is essentially saying that she would rather have Donald Trump win than Sanders.”
    Why is that shocking? In several respects I didn’t mind Donald the Clown beating Clinton. Were I an American citizen I would not have voted at the last presidential elections.

  8. says

    I don’t think Clinton would have repealed the voting rights act. And if I looked more like my Mexican American mother I’d probably start caring my birth certificate or passport to show La Migra like my grandfather carried his naturalization papers. Must be nice to not be from a targeted group.

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