Shockingly, voter’s disdain for Hillary turns to praise of Putin
Arecent caller on CSPAN’s morning show “Washington Journal” had a special political “thank you” that should shock us all. A woman named Mary-Lou from Connecticut called in to the national broadcast with a personal “thank you” to Russia for “interfering in our elections” in a way that prevented Hillary Clinton from becoming president.
That’s right. With conviction in her voice, she told the host, “I’ll try not to sound too awful, but I want to thank the Russians for interfering with our election to stop Hillary Clinton from becoming president.”
The danger of Clinton in the Oval Office to this woman?
Clinton’s “illusions of grandeur,” her alleged role in the deaths of Americans in Benghazi, and her infamous email server. But the icing on the antiHillary cake for Mary-Lou? Clinton’s decision to stand by her man after various alleged sexual peccadilloes, Monica Lewinsky included.
That reason for preferring to live in a world where authoritarian Vladimir Putin controls our president and our White House rather than have our country led by a woman who decided not to divorce her husband for breaching his marital vows might sound surprising, but it isn’t. I lost count during the 2016 campaign of the number of women of all generations who told me that while they admired Clinton for her policy chops and her experience as a U.S. senator and secretary of state, they said they couldn’t stand for her as president. They would never vote for her because, their voices often dripping with contempt, she “stayed with him.”
Not surprisingly Mary-Lou isn’t the only one who’s thankful that Russia most likely kept Clinton from the presidency. Twitter commenters have written they, too, believe Clinton is a bigger threat to our country than Donald Trump, and if Russia continues to interfere in our elections and MAGA succeeds in the midterms, “it wouldn’t be the end of the world.”
We should be terrified for what this means about whether there can ever be civil political discourse in America going forward. Voters are going further down the rabbit hole of believing it’s a positive thing for Trump and Putin to be pals, all the while using the never-ending demonization of Clinton as justification.
This is a moment beyond what Putin could ever have hoped for — when American voters turned their disdain for Clinton into admiration for a communist strongman whose goal is to bring down our nation. Our failure to comprehend could have us living in our own authoritarian country before we realize it’s happened.