Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Imagining an Alternate Universe
As we head toward the 100-day mark of the Trump Era, I think it’s fair to say we have elected the most interesting man ever to inhabit the White House. He has angered some conservatives; he has continued to enrage liberals; he has inspired marches replete with everything from vaginas to Form 1040s; he has caused major media outlets to explode with bile; he has bombed Syria and Afghanistan (in the latter case, finally allowing the MOAB designation to be removed from my 1989-90 CBS talk show); he has moved ships toward North Korea; he has upset his supposed BFF Vladimir Putin; he has shared Dover sole with Chinese President Xi Jinping, announcing, “We have developed a friendship” (with the President, not the sole); he has whiffed on Obamacare but homered on SCOTUS; he has — well, you get the idea. It’s been an interesting three months.
So while we pause and try to catch our breath, here’s a question: What would a Hillary Clinton administration look like at this point? Also, since this is strictly — and happily — a mental exercise, let’s assume the Republican Senate fell along with Trump (a reasonable assumption). What would be going on in the country and in the world? What would the media be writing and talking about? Who would be the power brokers? How would the Republicans deal with the internal warfare that contributed to the results? How would the next four or eight years be shaping up?
Of course, we can’t know any of this. Think of it as a Ricochet parlor game. Still, as we march closer to 100 days of Donald Trump, it might be useful to reflect on the alternative and think about what might have been.
Published in General
The left is bordering on “don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t look, don’t even think about it” for all forms of sexuality, across the whole of society.
They’re not very far away from outlawing any mention of public sexuality as it is, and Hillary’s admission would give them that last excuse.
I think the direction Hillary Clinton would have taken the United States would have been problematic for the country’s existence as a free country. But its possible the real problem might have been in getting her out of office when her term (or god forbid terms) in office was up. Hillary Clinton seems to be a corrupt old white woman totally obsessed with becoming president. So obsessed in fact that I wonder if she had been elected would we have had trouble getting her out of the White House? Can’t you just imagine her pointing to some sort of manufactured trouble in the world (possibly involving cyber security and the wiping of servers, she is after all handy with a cloth) and she offers, no demands, to stay president a “just little longer” because her experience makes her the ONLY person who can solve this issue (whatever this issue is going to be). The U.N. might have even spoken in support of her request to stay president a little longer to help all of us deplorable average Americans who are not capable of helping ourselves. The movers would have been peeling her fingertips off the front door as she fought with all her might to stay in the White House.
Say what? That seems to be the exact opposite of my observations. The left is obsessed with sex, and refuses to shut the hell up about it.
So I’m seeing lots of folks ruminating that Clinton wouldn’t have been as hawkish as Trump has been. I disagree. Consider her history:
Has there ever been an intervention Clinton didn’t support at the time of proposal? Usually Dems start out dovish and get more hawkish through their Presidency, but HRC already had that experience with her husband.
Consider also the North Korea situation- it was apparently what Obama pressed Trump on as important. If the Dem government elites were considering action under Obama, it would have continued under Clinton.
Consider also the praise for Trump’s Syria strike that has come from former Obama admin officials. The more that comes out about the Obama administration, the more it seems that everyone from the base-level analysts to the people in front of the President’s desk were arguing for more intervention. Switch the person behind the desk, and I think we see different actions.
Consider also Clinton’s post-campaign hatred of the Russians.
Consider, finally, the power of the narrative that the lefties could have pushed with Clinton as their “Iron Lady”, or Clinton-May as “Iron Ladies.” She could have artfully played the Wilson-FDR role, the reluctant Dem drawn into world conflict.
Not saying she would have been competent. But I think she would have been more hawkish than Obama.
Lamentations, you say?
It would also be nice to be taken in good faith by our fellow conservatives. Many of these comments say, essentially, “what you’re saying about your own motives is a lie.”
“caught in an elite bubble” does not require one to be an elite. Simply to identify with them and get all one’s trusted information from them. Numerous Ricochetti pleaded with the NTs to see what was plain to everyone else, and to vast numbers of non-Ricochetti. Your claim that this situation could only be identified in hindsight is patently false, thoroughly documented on the pages of Ricochet and all over the internet. You can dispute my contention that an elite bubble is to blame for one’s lack of foresight, but your claim that it wasn’t foreseeable is pure and utter [expletive].
You’re thinking about last decade’s version of the left. While they might tout gays and other alt-sex types, you’re supposed to tolerate them, not talk about their actual sexuality, and keep your own heterosexuality in the closet where it belongs.
Maybe happier is the wrong word, but I meant it in a comparative sense. Not that they’d be happy, per se, but not as sad as the podcasts were after November 8.
There seemed to be a class of commentator who thought they wouldn’t be affected by Hillary’s policies and in four years we’d be able to win with their choice, whoever that would be. They’d be able to, as you mention, rail against Hillary and those who voted for Trump in the primaries.
Except for that one strange alternate reality where everything is the same except everyone is the opposite sex. Of course that Bill is chasing slacks.
The converse is also true. A person with the demographic characteristics of the elite (e.g., Murray’s income/education measure of SES in Coming Apart) need not agree with their values and opinions nor sympathize with their aims. The conflation of having the superficial characteristics of a group with aligning with its values and objectives is commonplace and wrong.
Happier is exactly the right word. It is a comparative. A person can be happier without being very happy.
I couldn’t bring myself to vote for Trump, but there is no doubt that things would be horrible under Hilary Clinton and a Democrat Senate.
Following are a few of the not-so-prominent results:
Take your freedoms seriously, and never foregranted.
I have to say that I love your use of foregranted. That’s exactly how I feel on my course’s par 3 when I assume I’ll hit the green on my tee shot. I always take it foregranted. Alas, I am always disappointed.
It’s time I learned how to quote a specific line of someone’s comment. Please inform me. I thought I quoted this last line (and even erased everything above it so as to just quote the last), but it just quoted me. (Which I recommend to no one.) Please tell me the ABC’s of separating one line out of the multitude. Thank you much.
P.S. Pat, loved your old show.
Really.
I was the one who was watching it.
Keep dreaming, Ryan.
Hilight the bit you want to quote before clicking the “quote” link.
It’s back to ESL for me. My spell chequer needs an update as well.
Ive always heard that as one word, along the lines of Foreshadow, forewarned, foreboding and foreword.
We wouldn’t have Marxist (or is it Maxine) Waters calling for the impeachment of the president and then not calling for the impeachment of the president.
Heh heh, good one. I saw that. She basically (almost literally) called herself a liar. On National television, no less. Then she was like, “Oh I tweeted that? Well, what I meant was not what I denied what I said but what I said was not what I denied. Now stop making me call myself a liar.”
Yay !!
Thank you so much.
I thought it was even more mindless – Since words have no meaning – she can mean nothing she says – and therefore she has even stopped paying to the stuff that falls out of her face. Her staff give her the speech, she recites it like an automaton, and forgets it.
You know, that’s only going to get worse in the upcoming years, because all of the Democrats are starting to get old.
If you think it’s bad now, just wait until they all start getting dementia.
Start?