The Ghost of Hillary Clinton Still Lingers

New details about how Donald Trump tried to subvert the constitutional process and remain in power despite losing the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden, especially the events of January 6, are chilling, especially when you realize the comparisons to Adolf Hitler making himself dictator of Germany after suspending basic liberties in the wake of the 1933 Reichstag fire or to Benito Mussolini marching his black-shirts on Rome to force King Victor Emmanuel III to name him premier in 1922.   The cause for all this can all be boiled down to one simple reason - a political party whose members were blindly devoted to one person and falling in line to give that person the party's presidential nomination and shunning and dismantling opposition to the nominee from the start.

And no, I'm not talking about the Republican Party's embrace of Donald Trump.  I'm talking about the Democratic Party's embrace of Hillary Clinton in 2016.

The Democrats developed a personality cult around Hillary Clinton, idolizing her so much that they needed only to refer to her be her first name.  It's not that they were hell-bent on making a woman President of the United States. It's that they were hell-bent on making this woman President of the United States.  Nobody seriously considered the possibility that she was beatable against the eventual 2016 Republican nominee - even if that nominee were to be Donald J. Trump.  They blindly accepted her and worshipped her as a feminist icon who would provide a powerful symbol for women and girls as President without asking if maybe, oh, I don't know, Elizabeth Warren might have been a better choice for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination.  The Democratic National Committee protected her from most challengers to her bid - like Joe Biden - for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, and those who did challenge her were ridiculed and punished for running.  Bernie Sanders wasn't, because he's not a Democrat. But his supporters certainly were ridiculed and punished.  

I was among the ones who said that Hillary couldn't win the Presidency, and all I heard in response was, "La la la, first female President!" A typical response from cultists such as Hillbots.  So I was not entirely surprised when Trump won the 2016 election. But I must say that I was surprised how megalomaniacal he would become and how Hillary's defeat allowed him to assume a position of power and exploit that power for his own personal gain - to the extent that he would even invoke the Insurrection Act or drop a nuclear bomb to keep it.

Although Hillary conceded the 2016 election and did not contest the result, she didn't do herself any favors by whining about her loss to Trump during his four years in the White House.  She could have done something constructive to help combat his authoritarian rule, but instead she acted a lot like he does when he loses, so convinced is she of her own greatness.  She mainly wasted that intervening time bitching about Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard, blaming them and others for her loss, while wallowing in self-absorption.  Dodging blame for an electoral loss isn't much different from denying such a loss.  As Kyle Smith of National Review wrote in January 2020, "Remember when Jimmy Carter published a whiny, self-serving book about his political downfall called 'What Happened'? Remember when Mike Dukakis pushed filmmakers to do a four-hour fan documentary about himself? Remember when George H.W. Bush mocked Bill Clinton at the Grammys? Yeah, me neither."

The 2016 election and the 2020 election had one thing in common - Trump insisted that both of them would prove to be rigged if he lost.  Had he lost in 2016, Trump, as a private citizen, would have had little leverage to sue to stop the certification of Hillary Clinton's election and would merely have challenged the results as a publicity stunt for his business ventures.  But as an incumbent with a lust for power, Trump took the idea of a rigged election seriously, convinced that he was so loved and idolized by his base - just like Hillary Clinton had been by hers - that there was no way he could have lost.  (And when he won in 2016, he was incensed that he didn't win the popular vote, blaming that vote shortfall on illegal immigrants voting illegally.) The bottom line is that Hillary's ego led to Trump, who, fueled by his own ego, then used the Presidency to attempt the establishment of a right-wing dictatorship and continues to poison the well with his control of a Republican Party that hopes to strike the final blow against democracy in America by 2024.

And we also got Trump's "leadership" to get us through a pandemic.

Soon after Biden was elected President, Hillary Clinton expressed interest in working for his administration.  But, considering how her wrongheaded quest for the Presidency worked out, it makes sense that we don't hear much from Hillary Clinton these days.   My only wonder is when her chief henchwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz will be made to answer for enabling the only candidate Trump could have defeated to get the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination.