Clinton says Trump has ‘ugly, dangerous’ message
At Lincoln site, she calls opponent threat to Lincoln’s party
“Given what we’ve seen and heard, does anyone think he’d be restrained?” Hillary Clinton
Hillary Clinton said Donald Trump’s campaign represents “an ugly, dangerous” message that poses a threat to U.S. democracy. Her speech at the Old State House in Springfield, Ill., on Wednesday, was billed as a major address on healing race relations.
Clinton repeatedly cast Trump as contemptuous and ignorant of the U.S Constitution, hostile to women and minorities and so unstable that he might even use the powers of the presidency — including the IRS and the military — to pursue his own vendettas.
“Given what we’ve seen and heard, does anyone think he’d be restrained?” Clinton said.
“This man is the nominee of the party of Lincoln. We are watching it become the party of Trump,” Clinton said. “And that’s not just a huge loss of our democracy, it is a threat to it, because Donald Trump’s campaign adds up to an ugly, dangerous message to America.”
The venue for the speech, the site of Abraham Lincoln’s famous “House Divided” speech on slavery in 1858, was chosen for its historic significance. It is also where President Obama launched his presidential campaign in 2007 and where he introduced Joe Biden as his vice presidential choice in 2008.
The speech is an extension of an argument Clinton has delivered in previous speeches as she has pivoted to the general election, casting Trump as temperamentally unfit both to serve as commander in chief and to manage the nation’s largest economy. It is an attempt to draw contrasts with Trump in the aftermath of shootings in Minnesota, Louisiana and Dallas that have ignited racial tensions.
The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee devoted the first portion of her remarks to highlighting the need for racial healing, calling for criminal justice changes and more support for the nation’s police forces. She called for a greater effort to revitalize economically depressed areas where people have been “stripped” of their security and dignity, citing “a sense of dislocation and even pessimism about whether America holds anything for them or cares about them at all.”
Clinton said she “cannot claim my words and actions haven’t fueled the partisanship” at times, and “I recognize I have to do better, too.”
At its outset, her speech focused on the recent shootings. Clinton declared that America’s “long struggle with race” is “far from finished.” In addition to calling for criminal justice changes and more support for the nation’s law enforcement community, Clinton said the government must follow in Lincoln’s steps in using “the tools” of government to give everyone “a fair chance in the race of life.”
“Future peace and prosperity depends on whether we meet this moment with honesty and courage,” Clinton said, which includes taking a “hard look at our laws and our attitudes.”
“Yes, we do need to listen to those who say black lives matter,” she said, especially young men “who feel like their lives are disposable” and “worry every single day about what might happen.”
She also saluted the nation’s “dedicated, principled” police officers, especially those who were protecting a protest march in Dallas when they were ambushed by a gunman last week. “There is nothing more vital to democracy than that, and they gave their lives for it,” she said.
She extended an olive branch to Trump supporters. “Let’s put ourselves in the shoes of Donald Trump’s supporters,” she said. “I believe like anyone else they’re trying to figure out their place in a fast-changing America.”