Much as they would like to, Clintons can’t redo history

The snow is TORONTO — falling lightly.

My thoughts are racing darkly.

I’m feeling something foreign, something I’ve never felt before. It takes me a moment to identify it.

I’m feeling sorry for the Clintons.

In the 27 years I’ve covered Bill and Hillary, I’ve experienced a range of emotions. They’ve dazzled me and they’ve disgusted me.

But now they’re mystifying me.

I’m looking around Scotiabank Arena, the home of the Toronto Maple Leafs, and it’s a depressing sight. It’s two-for-theprice-of-one in half the arena. The hockey rink is half curtained off, but even with that, organizers are scrambling at the last minute to cordon off more sections behind thick black curtains, they say due to a lack of sales. I paid $177 weeks in advance. On the day of the event, some unsold tickets are slashed to single digits.

I get reassigned to another section as the Clintons’ audience space shrinks. But even with all the herding, I’m still looking at large swaths of empty seats — and I cringe at the thought that the Clintons will look out and see that, too. It was only four years ago, after all, that Canadians were clamoring to buy tickets to see the woman who seemed headed for history.

It’s a sad contrast with the sold-out boffo book tour of Michelle Obama, who’s getting a lot more personal for the premium prices. But introspection has never been within the Clintons’ range.

I can’t fathom why the Clintons would make like aging rock stars and go on a tour of Canada and the U.S. at a moment when Democrats are hoping to break the stranglehold of their cloistered, superannuated leadership and exult in a mosaic of exciting new faces.

What is the point? It’s not inspirational. It’s not for charity. They’re not raising awareness about a cause, like Al Gore with global warming. They’re only raising awareness about the Clintons.

It can’t be the money at this point. Have they even spent all the Goldman gold yet? Do they want to swim in their cash like Scrooge McDuck?

The Clintons’ tin cup is worthy of the Smithsonian. They hoovered more than $2 billion in contributions to their campaigns, foundation and philanthropies.

After the White House, the money-grubbing raged on, with the Clintons making over 700 speeches in a 15-year period, blithely unconcerned with any appearance of avarice or of shady special interests and foreign countries buying influence. They stockpiled a whopping $240 million. Even leading up to her 2016 presidential run, Hillary was packing in the speeches, and there was that infamous trifecta of speeches for Goldman Sachs worth $675,000.

In the era of Trump, greed is not only good. It’s grand. But watching the Clintons hash over their well-worn tale of falling in love at Yale Law School, I realize it’s not only about the money.

Some in Clintonworld say Hillary fully intends to be the nominee. Once more, in Toronto, she didn’t rule it out. She carries herself with the air of a president in exile.

The Clintons refuse to be discarded. It has been their joint project to be at the center of the public scene and debate. The way that the whole thing came crashing down in 2016 is too hard for them to bear. They would like to rewrite the ending, but there is no way to do that.

She writes for the New York Times.

I’ve spent much of the last year promoting, debating and — let’s just be honest — hawking my latest book, “Suicide of the West: How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism and Identity Politics is Destroying American Democracy.”

An interesting pattern has developed. Of the terms in the subtitle, everyone from my friends in right-wing talk radio to invariably polite liberal NPR hosts — and the audiences that listen to each of them — agrees that “tribalism” is bad. I think it’s because no party or faction has adopted the term, so each side thinks only their opponents are guilty of it. Similarly, liberals tend to be sympathetic to

He writes for the National Review.