The Star’s view
With spectre of a Trump presidency looming, stakes couldn’t be higher for Clinton,
In Donald Trump’s GOP convention-closing speech in Cleveland last week, the Republican presidential nominee sought to scare voters into supporting him. Trump described, apocryphally, an America in which crime and terror are approaching apocalyptic proportions and said, absurdly, that he alone is capable of bringing peace to the nation.
But whereas Trump attempted to lure votes by invoking a bogeyman, his political rivals needn’t invent a threat. Trump, with his exaggerations and distortions, his bullying and hate, his fomenting of fear and incitements to violence, has left little doubt that the quickest route to the dystopia he imagines would be a Trump presidency.
These are the remarkable stakes as Democrats gather this week in Philadelphia for their own convention, where they will anoint Hillary Clinton as their presidential nominee, attempt to heal the party after a bruising primary season and, most importantly, try to imbue their candidate with the likability that seems to elude her. For everyone’s sake, it better go well.
Yet, troublingly, the event’s start has been marked by stumbles, discord and other distractions that are already undermining its aims. Aleak of thousands of emails exposed that supposedly neutral Democratic Party officials worked against Bernie Sanders’s surprisingly resilient presidential run. The revelation prompted the resignation of a prominent Democratic leader, as well as large-scale pro-Sanders protests in the streets outside the convention. Not exactly the united front the party hopes to project.
Complicating matters further, some Democratic officials are now claiming the Russian government is responsible for the cybersecurity breach — an alleged attempt by one strongman, Vladimir Putin, to support another, Trump, by sabotaging the Democratic convention.
Whatever the source of the leaks, the controversies around them ought not to be seen as mere sideshows. They are indicative of Clinton’s crucial challenge: namely, that many in her party and beyond see her as an instrument of a corrupt status quo.
Polls show that Clinton is the second-least liked presidential candidate in U.S. history, behind only Trump. Many reasons have been suggested for this antipathy: from misogyny among the electorate to Clinton’s overexposure over more than three decades in the spotlight; from the candidate’s lack of oratory charisma to the widely held view that she is driven by political opportunism more than principle. But perhaps most compelling is that Clinton represents the sort of establishment figure that the populist insurgencies of Trump and Sanders have defined themselves against.
Some are saying that to combat a candidate like Trump, an extremist with high negatives, Clinton should play it safe, offer herself as the steady hand, run on competence and experience. But, as Trump’s triumph in the primaries proved, what normally works may backfire in this anti-establishment moment. Ask Jeb Bush or John Kasich, two of Trump’s vanquished rivals, how well that strategy works.
Nor can Clinton simply take on Trump’s evidence-blind, largely irrational policy platform, such as it is, with facts and reason alone. It’s not enough, as media commentator Clay Shirky has written, to bring “fact-checkers to a culture war.” Clinton will also have to offer a positive, progressive vision for her country that rivals the emotional appeal of Trump’s gloomy prognostications — and she must do so without ignoring that things are not all right for many Americans.
Trump and Sanders both tapped into voters’ widespread disaffection and disengagement, the growing sense that politics and economics are rigged by the few against the many. It’s no safe bet that Americans are more frightened of a Trump presidency than they are of the perpetuation of the status quo. Clinton’s instinct for moderation and rich experience in government are often cited as her strengths. Her challenge now will be to find a way to win the trust of those looking for change, lest they find it in the wrong place.
The spectre of a Donald Trump presidency looms as U.S. Democrats meet for their convention