For five months, Hillary Clinton stayed relatively quiet. If I’d lost the presidential election to the former host of The Apprentice, I would have gone to the woods, too. Yet, to some, Clinton’s silence and self-imposed exile were a disappointment—even if it was only mere weeks after the inauguration. At the time, I wrote that if I were Clinton and, by extension, former President Barack Obama, I would put the nation temporarily on “do not answer.”
As I noted then specifically with respect to Clinton: “While we are undeniably living in unique and increasingly dire circumstances, not only do I question the push for Clinton to more aggressively speak out against the antics of this amateurish administration, but I also worry about its ineffectiveness this early.”
We already had a sore winner who was constantly invoking the election he won. We didn’t need the person he defeated egging him on in the infancy of his presidency. Besides, typically, unless a defeated presidential candidate maintains public office, he or she is supposed to wait for whatever the political equivalent of Unsung is.
However, now that we are more than 100 days into 45’s first term—which seems to be permanently set at basic bitch level—not only is it the perfect time for Clinton to launch her “Bitch, I Told You So” tour, but she should keep adding dates.
On Tuesday, Clinton did an interview with CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour during a Women for Women International luncheon. While she acknowledged that “it wasn’t a perfect campaign” and that she did make mistakes, she noted, “I was on the way to winning until a few things happened.”
A few of those things would include Russian meddling in the election and, more pointedly, the controversial letter FBI Director James Comey released Oct. 28. Yes, Clinton is still wrong for not campaigning in the states Democrats didn’t win, and of course, she was a fool not to rally enough of “the blacks,” who usually save the Democrats asses. Nevertheless, analysis by FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver shows that Comey’s announcement that the FBI was reopening the investigation into her private email server affected her chances.
On Wednesday, Comey defended that action while speaking before the Senate.
“It makes me mildly nauseous to think that we might have had some impact on the election,” he explained. “But honestly, it wouldn’t change the decision.” I don’t like wishing ill on people, but if Comey leaves the next seven Taco Tuesdays with problems for each Wednesday and Thursday thereafter, oh well. Why should we all suffer alone?
Speaking of, one of Orange Moon’s greatest election-related insecurities is that he grossly lost the popular vote. “I did win 3 million more votes than my opponent,” Clinton recalled. When asked if her talking that cash-money shit would eventually draw a pointed response from 45 on Twitter, Clinton responded with, “Better that than interfering in foreign affairs.”
And like a moth to a flame burned by the fire, 45—a deeply insecure, narcissistic, misogynistic asshole who still cannot handle being less popular than a girl—took to Twitter to complain.
Then came an epiphany: Hillary Rodham Clinton should troll this stupid jackass until her very last breath.
Now, there are some annoyances that will come with that.
Say, the incessant need of cable news networks to draw false equivalences for the sake of presenting a faux sense of balance. Clinton gave one interview, whereas 45 has consistently referenced her and the election since being sworn in. Then there is pedestrian pundits’ habit of using Clinton’s legitimate complaint about the lack of access to affordable high-speed internet in rural areas and how that impacts employment as an opportunity to call her elitist. Thankfully, there are much smarter people around to highlight the asininity in such assertions.
There are also folks who have responded to Clinton’s resurgence by arguing that she should make another run for the presidency (fans and her haters alike). To quote Maya Wilkes, “Oh, hell no!” It’s not happening, y’all. Let that go. She has.
Still, Clinton did tell Amanpour, “I’m back to being an active citizen and part of the resistance.” According to a report from Axios, that may include her launching a PAC as a way of “acting as a quiet catalyst” for supporting organizations related to the resistance, in addition to 2018 Democratic congressional candidates.
As Orange Moon continues to be a clusterfuck of a president, Clinton’s popularity will only grow. If she can use that to elect more Democrats, so be it. When Republicans in Congress propose to make sexual assault a pre-existing condition, when the president signs a law to assist religious zealots to bastardize dogma to perpetuate bigotry and when the attorney general won’t prosecute law-enforcement officers who murder innocent black people, whoever can help should.
But on a smaller but still significant level, there is a delight in the idea of Clinton driving a crazy man crazier by speaking intelligently. Orange Moon never relents on sucking up all the space in the media zeitgeist, worsening our misery. Someone ought to give him what he doles out to us.
She should make it very plain that he is an incompetent nitwit in over his head. She ought to never stop talking about how much better she would have been as president. Granted, Baby Bop from Barney would have been a better president than the current one, but keep yapping anyway. Most of all, she should take the “Can’t stop, won’t stop” approach toward reminding that big bag of wet garbage that 3 million people voted for her over him.
Do it in the memoir about the election, the speaking engagements and whatever else may come.
And if someone close to Hillary Clinton is reading this, might I suggest she continue wearing leather jackets while doing all of this?