It’s easy to lose sight of this in light of his bevy of controversies, conceived hour after hour, but many folks seem to forget that Donald Trump never intended to go away.
Months before Election Day, Vanity Fair published a story asking whether that carrot-juice-induced, piss-colored con man’s end game was a television network. Moreover, only a few weeks before the election, the Financial Times reported that his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, had spoken to media executives about launching Trump TV in the aftermath of the election. Around that same time, Sweet Potato Saddam claimed that he would accept the election results “if I win.”
So, not only did he plan to be a sore loser of potentially historic proportions, but he also sought to join the ranks of Fox News and the Sinclair Broadcast Group and further soil our media climate with right-wing-slanted bullshit.
And yet, when Hillary Clinton announced that she would be going on a book tour last month, almost instantaneously came reports that Democrats were “dreading” it. These reports were curious for a number of reasons:
One, there are Democratic senators like Claire McCaskill of Missouri following Hillary Clinton’s path to losing an election by catering more to rural voters who don’t give a solitary damn about Democrats than to the black voters whose support typically keeps the Democrats in power.
With respect to failed presidential candidates like Sen. John McCain, who boasted in September to Politico that he never wrote a book about the 2008 presidential campaign, he never met a Sunday program that he didn’t want to appear on—which suggests that he wanted to continue courting attention, only by different means, after Barack Obama mollywhopped him at the polls.
There’s also the reality that in the case of McCain, who this week lectured the masses about the current state of the political climate, he probably didn’t want to address the fact that he gave us Sarah Palin, who helped pave the way for the very antics he now condemns.
Meanwhile, none of these people had this much to say when Sen. Bernie Sanders, who lost the Democratic presidential primary to Clinton, announced during the 2016 presidential campaign that he would be writing a book about his campaign.
In the case of Hillary Clinton, though, her critics have (presumably purposely) ignored the fact that even if she wanted to go away, as someone who has been a fixation of political discourse for decades, chances are that such a goal would be impossible.
People found her in the woods, and it made headlines. People found her at the grocery store, and it made headlines. I didn’t see a story about her making a liquor-store run, but I’m sure if she got caught in front of a bulletproof glass window trying to score some chardonnay and tequila (I don’t know what rich folks’ liquor stores look like, so I went with my version of normal), it would make headlines.
So, a proposed self-imposed exile has always been nothing more than a fantasy for foolish minds. She couldn’t get out of the spotlight if she wanted to. Why not let her do her book tour? People would be talking about her anyway.
This week, white folks’ president proved that in a series of tweets.
For the record, I do not want to see her name on a ballot again, and she has already made clear that she has no intention of ever running for public office again. Nevertheless, Real Estate Hitler would lose the election to Clinton if it were held on just about any day this year. The same can be said about the year after that, the one after that one and, likely, the next 17 after that, too.
Speaking of Fox & Fucking Fools and the de facto state TV network that produces it and, subsequently, 45’s timeline, if you turn on Fox News at any given time of day, chances are you will see Clinton’s name in the chyron.
A glutton for punishment, I checked out the Fox News site and its YouTube page—places I recommend no sane person go—and “believe me,” there are several Clinton-centered segments to be found this week alone. Let them tell it, she colluded with Russia to purposely lose the presidential election and protected Harvey Weinstein because she planned to invade America and rename it the Clinton Foundation Nation. Or something like that.
That said, there was indeed a story circulating that claimed Clinton wished death on various “Florida hillbillies” by way of Hurricane Irma—which Politifact’s Punditfact had to address.
I wish we lived in a smarter nation, but as this year makes all too clear, we’re not that fortunate. It doesn’t help that there are millions of people who continue to foam at the mouth at any story that seeks to humiliate Clinton, despite the fact that she has already suffered the great humiliation of losing a presidential election to a walking, tweeting, burning cross.
To quote Mariah Carey quoting Mean Girls, “Why are you so obsessed with me?”
Well, because Tangerine Mussolini and the real fake-news network need a villain, and Clinton remains a trusted one. As we inch closer to the 2020 election (God help us all), perhaps Fox News and the Colby-Jack Führer will find a new enemy to stalk. I highly doubt it, but nonetheless, this is why some of us never joined the chorus calling on Clinton to go mute. It wouldn’t have mattered because, whether anyone likes it or not, she will remain a fixture.
Clinton, who won the popular vote and faced unusual (to say the least) circumstances that contributed to her loss, has every right to tell her side of the story. I happen to have enjoyed What Happened because it’s probably the most honest thing she’s ever written.
Granted, she still owes the world explanations for her actions in Haiti, Honduras and Libya, but as for addressing her presidential loss as the first female presidential nominee of a major political party, she has the right, as other loser candidates do, to talk her shit.
Her book has nothing to do with the Democrats still not knowing what they are doing. If anything, I’ve heard her discuss voter suppression more than any of the prospective 2020 candidates or present members of the Democratic leadership in Congress.
By comparison, so many Democrats have spent all year chasing after white voters who paid them dust in the last dozen elections, acting as if it was truly “economic anxiety” that gave way to this moronic madman as commander in chief.
Obviously, Clinton doesn’t care because she continues to make the media rounds.
Even so, for every person who has wished her away, I want to extend to you the personal invitation to shut your silly self the hell up. No. 45 and Fox & Racist Thots are going to keep talking about her, as will Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson. So will Rush Limbaugh. So will Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ clownish father, who needs his Twitter account burned alive at the stake. So will the Russian bots. As will anyone else aligned with the white-hood wearers running the White House into the ground.
The only thing I recommend that Hillary Clinton do is to talk about 45 the way she speaks about him when she’s drunk at home with Bill Clinton, waiting to watch The Real Housewives of New York:
Talk about his li’l hands. Say he has a li’l dick that probably hasn’t been around Melania Trump since June 16, 2015. Sing Dave Chappelle’s “Piss on You” video the next time you’re on Maddow. Do whatever you can to further antagonize him the way he drives many of us insane day after goddamn day.
But for those who have been vexed about Clinton’s “Bitch, I Told You So” tour: She is not the problem. They are and always have been. Focus on them the way they focus on her.