Terrified of another eight-year Clinton presidency, the Right is slinging all the mud it can at the Democrats
Weiner as no more than a priapic cyberbuffoon and to ponder only what kept the couple together so long — apart from the love of their four-year-old son. Yet the politics of this sorry saga are more serious than one might suppose.
Consider, for instance, the response of Donald Trump to the couple’s separation. “I only worry for the country in that Hillary Clinton was careless and negligent in allowing Weiner to have such close proximity to highly classified information,” the Republic an nominee mused. “Who knows what he learned and who he told? It’s just another example of Hillary Clinton’s bad judgment.”
Even by Trump’s exacting standards, this is gibberish. Is he suggesting that Weiner was slipping top-secret material into his sexts? Or that, as “Carlos Danger”, he was passing on national security files to the foes of the West?
The key, however, is the final sentence. Trump’s clear intention is to fight this election on the terrain of his rival’s character and fitness for office: hence, his relentless tweeting about “crooked Hillary”, and the associated innuendo from the murky online Right that she is seriously ill, or that her emails are indicative of a devious and corrupt personality, or that her marriage to Bill is a sham, or that … fill in the gap as you please.
No presidential candidate in recent contests has been so remorselessly attacked on the basis of so little. But the objective of Clinton’s foes is less to make any particular charge stick than to envelop her in a fog of suspicion and doubt — sufficient to alarm the electorate.
As Clinton’s closest aide, Abedin is a natural target in this sleazy campaign. It is frequently hinted, without a shred of evidence, that she is her boss’s lover. Because of her faith, she is routinely accused of supporting Sharia, or being a “Saudi asset”, or of sympathising with the Muslim Brotherhood. None of these charges has been substantiated. But that has not deterred her detractors.
Living apart from Weiner, Abedin will no longer be personally embroiled in his next digital fiasco (for it is hard to believe that there is not more to come). But she remains a target, separated or not.
In 1998, Hillary identified a “vast Rightwing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president”. At the time, this remark was widely denounced as delusional. In the intervening years, its essential accuracy has become increasingly apparent, not least for those around the Clintons like Abedin, who have learned the hard way that they are regarded as fair game.
Nothing horrifies the American Right quite like the prospect of another eightyear Clinton presidency. Between now and November 8, expect this nexus of hate and disinformation to do its very worst.