Bribe her, distract her, but don’t let Hillary run again
Part of Hillary Clinton’s appeal was in who she wasn’t, i.e., Donald Trump.
If the so-called Hollywood resistance truly wants to dethrone Donald Trump in 2020, it should now lavish Hillary Clinton with lucrative development deals, publishing contracts, TV shows, film roles, standup gigs — anything that will keep her safely away from another presidential run.
Give her a late-night talk show. Give her Netflix specials. Give her a movie-of-the-week, every week, until the next U.S. election is over. Give her a popcultural platform with the WWE or Marvel or Hallmark: “Rowdy Rodham To Headline Washington Smackdown.” “Hillary Clinton is ... Captain America’s Mom.” “Special Edition HRC Condolence Cards, Perfect For Anyone Who Botched A Sure Thing.”
Do whatever it takes to distract her from public office.
You ever read something where, immediately afterwards, you feel compelled to call a scientist at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, just to make sure you haven’t tumbled through a crack in the space-time continuum? You ever contemplate a prospect so frozen in a hellish loop it makes you feel like you’re in Groundhog Day, only instead of Bill Murray and Andie McDowell, all you see is Bill and Hillary Clinton cackling from a porch swing in Chappaqua, vowing to regain power? You ever think: No, just no? That’s how I felt after reading an op-ed in Sunday’s Wall Street Journal.
Written by Mark Penn, a senior adviser to the Clintons from 1995 to 2008, and Andrew Stein, a former Democratic Manhattan borough president, the headline sounded like a threat: “Hillary Will Run Again.”
That’s like saying, “The Hurricane Is Returning” or “Ebola Cure Didn’t Work.”
It carries the staccato promise of disaster squared.
Opening WSJ paragraph: “Get ready
for Hillary Clinton 4.0. More than 30 years in the making, this new version of Mrs. Clinton, when she runs for president in 2020, will come full circle — back to the universal-health-care-promoting progressive firebrand of 1994. True to her name, Mrs. Clinton will fight this out until the last dog dies. She won’t let a little thing like two stunning defeats stand in the way of her claim to the White House.”
Hillary Clinton 4.0? Hillary Clinton 3.0 is where this buggy product should’ve been discontinued. Any upgrade two years from now won’t change the operating system — it will only crash the Democratic Party with a virus of hubris and entitlement.
No offence, but losing an election to Donald Trump is like getting beat by a grand piano at a swim meet. All Clinton had to do was float and freestyle. Move her limbs. Make a splash.
Instead, she got tangled up in her pantsuit and banged her head on the diving board and now she wants back in the water again?
Would you give matches to someone who burned down your house twice?
Look, I’m not a Hillary Hater. I’m Hillary Neutral. I actually feel sorry for her. As Dave Chappelle once observed of the 2016 election, “Somehow, she just missed the dunk.” That must sting. And it’s possible the hurt will never fade.
But if we’re going to be honest and embrace Hillary Realism, it’s clear she doesn’t deserve a third presidential run anymore than Lou Dobbs should lead the UN.
She had two chances and blew them both, in spite of odds stacked in her favour.
That’s more than enough, especially if you’re on her political side.
Say what you will about Trump, but at least he connected with his voters in a visceral way. To look at the faces at any Trump rally, even two years after he won, is to behold a sea of loyalists who’d gladly give him their life savings and internal organs. Given the deficit and health care, they just might. But that’s the thing: when Trump talks, his fans don’t hear the lies or incompetence; they hear a prophet.
If Trump instructed his voters to stop drinking water, 60 million Americans would succumb to dehydration before Thanksgiving. In Trump they trust.
By sharp contrast, when Clinton talked, her fans looked like they were being forced to eat Brussels sprouts while watching an airline safety video. Her appeal was largely about who she was not — namely, Donald Trump. Even the historic, glass-ceiling promise of the first female U.S. president got mired in the quicksand of blah.
This is why Hollywood needs to do whatever it can to nix Hillary Clinton 4.0.
Railing against Trump week after week is pointless if, in 2020, he’s up against someone with an even worse approval rating today, someone he al- ready beat when he had zero political experience. No wonder Kellyanne Conway reacted on Sunday to news of a possible Clinton 2020 run with: “Dear God, please yes.”
Clinton may believe she has a “claim” to the White House. But Hollywood should realize her only realistic claim is another swing and miss.
At this point, all Clinton is sure to do is give Trump a second term.