Opinion by: Saagar Enjeti
Hillary Clinton is famous for a lot of things and one of them is holding onto a grudge and the other is refusing to take responsibility for her own failings.
She displayed both of those characteristics in fine form in a strange appearance on the Howard Stern show yesterday…
When she told the radio host that she is still quote “disappointed” that Bernie Sanders held off on endorsing her in the 2016 Presidential Primary.
She wouldn’t go so far as to say that she was upset with the Senator but noted that she hopes he doesn’t do it again to whoever gets the nomination because once is enough and we have to join forces. When Stern interjected that Bernie could have endorsed her quicker she said quote he could’ve and that he hurt me. There’s no doubt about it, he hurt me.
Not exactly a new soundbite for Clinton, who said just the same back in 2017. Let’s take a listen:
“I think a lot of what he churned up in the primary campaign was very hurtful in the general election against me. And I see him doing the same thing. I see him with his supporters. He doesn’t disown the things they say about some of my favorite Democrats. People like Kamala Harris, who is out there speaking up and speaking out and she’s being attacked from the left. Enough. You know if you don’t want to support Democrats, then go somewhere else.”
This is classic Hillary Clinton and it goes way beyond any beef with Bernie Sanders. Look at the hubris of somebody who thinks that her main opponent and rival should simply bend the knee and lend their organization to her disposal when so much of his campaign was centered on her failures as a candidate.
Hillary is a bitter, bitter person. She waded back into the Democratic primary to take a cheap shot at Tulsi Gabbard for daring to step away from the DNC and endorse Bernie, and she really can’t quite help taking another shot at Sanders for waiting a month to endorse her. The reality of the situation is that she has absolutely nobody to blame but herself for her failures.
Look, I don’t have a dog in this fight but the reason I even wanted to highlight this is because Hillary’s attitude represents a broader trend of the establishment here in D.C. after the 2016 Presidential election. Everything about the outcome is an aberration, a specific moment of time where some really crazy stuff happened that has nothing to do with the underlying problems of the American economy, and ergo who is to blame?
The people who had marginal impact on the election and doomed us to present circumstances. Hillary, the GOP, everybody thinks that James Comey had more to do with swinging the election than NAFTA, TPP, and 40 years of neoliberal economic policies. That’s what it takes for a bitter failed presidential candidate who has enriched herself dozens of times over to still sit there and nurse a grudge over how long it took for her main rival in the primary to endorse her.
This is actually a great lesson in how things are going to go if the Democrats put up Joe Biden as their nominee and he ends up losing to Trump. You’ll see a cacophony of cable news panels talking about how he lost because he was old, because of his gaffes, because in his campaign he did this or that, he didn’t campaign in this state or that, because of Russia, because maybe Bernie waited too long to endorse him.
They won’t think for a second that it was the vision that Biden himself offered up, that it was the same tired neoliberal economic policies again and again which got us to the very place that we are right now. My response is buckle up, that’s where it looks like things are trending. Just thank yourselves that Biden at least is a more agreeable person than Hillary.
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