Deplorable Return

Who will replace the young people that Hillary Clinton regards as dunces?

Jeet Heer

CONTEMPT FOR THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY’S PROGRESSIVE base is a sure path to Donald Trump’s return. A specter haunts the Democratic Party: the ghost of Clintonism, an ideology that’s been discredited at the ballot box yet still retains a mysteriously powerful hold on party elders. Hillary Clinton’s defeat in 2016, when she lost a winnable election to a political novice who scored the highest disapproval polling numbers in modern American history, should have sounded the death knell for her brand of politics. Clintonism is all about triangulation—which in practice means building elite comity with establishment Republicans while disdaining populist forces on the right or the left. Pioneered by Bill Clinton in the 1990s with his attack on the rapper Sister Souljah, this strategy initially enjoyed some success—but in the long run…

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The Nation (Digital) - 1 Issue, June 2024

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