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Clinton Deploys ‘They Hate You’ Strategy
Hillary Clinton had one of the worst campaign rollouts in living memory. Her low-key (to the point of inaudibility) announcement video came in the midst of a months-long period of deeply damaging stories about her mania for secrecy (the private email server), which she indulged even at the expense of the law and national security, and her cavalier acceptance of favors in the form of donations to the Clinton Foundation.
As these stories mounted, Clinton seemed oddly disengaged. She neither answered questions nor attempted to change the subject. Some Republicans began to get smug. “She’s a terrible candidate,” they said (your humble columnist may even have let these words slip herself). “She doesn’t have the skills of her husband,” they said, even predicting that “This woman will never be president of the United States.”
This week, Mrs. Clinton demonstrated that Republicans should wipe the smiles off their faces. On Saturday, June 13, she’ll deliver a do-over of the announcement speech, and if it’s anything like the talk she delivered at Texas Southern University, it will be fierce and effective.
The Texas speech, tartly described by Democratic strategist Doug Schoen as a “clean hit” on her Republican opponents (meaning all upside and no downside for the candidate), was dishonest and divisive. She denounced the Supreme Court’s Voting Rights Act decision, falsely claiming that it invalidated laws permitting ballots to be translated into languages other than English. She implied that the decision, along with voter ID laws passed by a number of states, are intended to suppress voting by African Americans and other minorities. Hans Von Spakovsky, writing in National Review Online, points out that minority voting is up even in states with voter ID laws – and why shouldn’t it be? Voter ID laws prevent only non-citizens from voting.
Clinton’s task is to solidify the base that elected Obama twice. She has the woman angle, and for some identity politics fans, that’s a big advantage. As for the rest of the Democratic electorate – Hispanics, other minorities, the young, the single, government employees, union members, and African Americans – it’s less clear that her XX chromosomes can do the trick, particularly after eight years of a Democratic president. Even some African Americans, the Washington Post reports, are feeling disillusioned. A 23-year-old Jacksonville, Florida grocery clerk, noting the economic torpor of her neighborhood, told the paper, “What was the point? We made history, but I don’t see change.”
Clinton is deploying the “They Hate You” strategy that has worked well for Democrats for decades. Policy is almost irrelevant; the point is to convince key groups to turn out in large numbers for Democrats because they’ve been persuaded that Republicans are haters.
Quoting the late Barbara Jordan, Clinton told the black audience, “She famously reminded us that when the constitution was written it left most of us here out. But generations of Americans fought, marched, organized, and prayed to expand the circle of freedom and opportunity. We should be clearing the way for more people to vote, not putting up every roadblock anyone can imagine.” Note the word “us.” Multimillionaire, international celebrity Hillary Clinton claims membership in an oppressed class due to her sex.
Republicans often let this sort of thing go, scarcely bothering to contest the libels because they figure the black vote is lost anyway. Rand Paul and a few others have broken this mold, though in Paul’s case only to pander.
Republicans can deny that voter ID laws are about voter suppression until they bore everyone into a coma. It won’t have an impact. But that doesn’t mean they should surrender. What they should be concerned about is not any particular issue but rather their image as the party of haters.
I would love to see all of the Republican candidates staging multiple events in places like Detroit, Baltimore, and Cleveland. They should be asking what Hillary Clinton proposes to do about improving the climate for small business. They should demand to know what Democrats have done to improve the schools – or rather, draw attention to the fact that Democrats stand in the way of improving education for poor kids. They should demand accountability for the millions of taxpayer dollars intended for poor families that wind up in the pockets of the well-connected and the well-heeled, while praising the work of churches and other private groups. The shame of the cities belongs squarely in the Democrats’ laps.
Even if it doesn’t yield a single new African American voter, it’s worth doing for two reasons: 1) because it will improve the image of the Republican Party, and 2) because it’s right.
Published in General
I agree that this would be an excellent strategy for Republican candidates. In addition, the GOP should have Carley Fiorina follow Hillary around and give speeches pointing out all the lies and distortions she employs.
Unfortunately Hillary will be dangerous no matter how badly her campaign goes. Millions will vote for her just because of her name and her gender.
Yes, I think this is her strategy — the only one she has. It worked for Obama. It did not work for Mark Udall in Colorado, or Mary Burke in Wisconsin, or a dozen others whose names I have already forgotten.
So it is not inevitably successful. But it will take that kind of aggressive pushback, and a presidential candidate who knows how to communicate to voters his own reasonableness and his opponents’ extremism.
Mona, I thought about this yesterday… my working hypothesis is that when Hillary lies, it isn’t because she even thinks anyone believes her. Rather, it is almost a statement of dominance. She is willing to look you in the face and tell you that the sky is green; I wonder if she just expects that you’ll be too flabbergasted to say anything back.
What else could explain places like the NYT and NPR? I mean, Rubio’s traffic tickets, and I don’t remember much about Ted Kennedy’s vehicular manslaughter… Point being, they are lying, but they’re not lying so you’ll believe them (the bonus for them is that many people do). They’re lying because they can, and ain’t nobody going to stop them. It reminds me of the Soviet Encyclopedia. Like the living constitution, the truth changes. It takes backseat to the mission, and with truth, there is no holding accountable for people who simply don’t care.
This is not directly relevant to a presidential campaign, but this has been on my mind lately. Need they be so completely lost — if the Republican name were not in the way? In some of these communities, there are people who are deeply uncomfortable with some of the Democrats’ social agenda and are cynical about the party. They think Republicans hate them. They’re not ready for a full-blown small-government message. But a certain type of candidate — an independent with no “R,” and probably not one we’d agree with on everything– might win some support. Enough, if the Republican Party sat out, to put together a majority in some districts, or in some cities.
I keep thinking about David Clarke, the Milwaukee County Sheriff. Milwaukee County is a place where Democrats usually run opposed. But David Clarke is an outspoken conservative who says things that would make most Republican strategists shriek in horror, and he wins in the Democratic primary. And not because other Democrats weren’t paying attention. He knows how to reach some of those communities.
I don’t think we normally want to work through the Democratic primary process — but I’ve been wondering if the coalition Clarke has built could be modeled elsewhere.
Hillary Clinton is the next President.
All words written between now and then are used in vain.
You heard it here first.
Agree with your post. But I would like to wear my Rose Law Firm colored glasses (see what I did there?).
Is there a difference between the race voter and the gender voter?
It could be said the race voter is a smaller defined segment. It monopolizes the leftist corners from a perspective of historic and current persecution. Race voters are the ultimate victicrats and are generally indoctrinated through entitlements generally provided by Leftist ideologues who cracked the code on repeat voters. It’s a very hard segment to break. For example: How much of the Democratic race voter base would vote for a Ben Carson? I guess very little.
However, gender voters represent are a much larger segment. Certainly there are those that will only vote for a women because she is a woman. However, while many are pro-women, they also may not always remain faithful to one political ideology. Women represent the majority. They are liberal and conservative. They are young and older. The older, the more conservative. Look whats happened to Camille Paglia over the years. A staunch feminist has zero love for Hillary.
There are many conservative women who would love to vote for a female… a conservative female. But these women could not vote for Hillary, or Elizabeth, etc.
I believe Hillarys gender will get old (pun intended).
I agree in part. But I think Republicans need to be playing a much longer game. To swoop in for a few days during an election campaign and then leave for four years does no one any good.
One effect of identity politics is to “other” Republicans in the eyes of these communities. I think we both agree that being absent only furthers this. Republicans and conservatives need to set up permanent outposts in these communities, even if doing nothing more than small things short term. Enough to change things from “those strange distant racists” to “those guys in my neighborhood who mean well but don’t get it” to “those guys who I disagree with, but every now and then say something that makes sense”, etc.
The “They Hate You” strategy is all Hillary has. Policy is more than just irrelevant to her, it’s toxic. There are no progressive policies that will turn the economy around. The left has no policies that deal with the foreign issues that are piling up, and they have no policies that will heal the divides that Obama has so wantonly aggravated.
+1
I’m sorry, Republicans, conservatives, but when you smear the only candidate whose philosophy and actions are actually consistent with the Founders and the Constitution, you’re part of the problem, not the solution, and contribute to my willingness-bordering-on-desire to get out of the US.
Thanks for nothing.
If the voters choose Mrs. Clinton for President, the country deserves the corruption and depravity that is sure to follow.
Sad. Also true.
No, I didn’t hear it here first. Anybody who thinks this is the first place it has been said doesn’t get out much.
Tommy, are you trying to inspire mass suicide?
Am I the only person who points out that she represents the multi-trillion-dollar hate machine? That the Democratic party is a criminal enterprise motivated in this century mostly by hate? And we’re going to sit here and whimper because she calls us haters?
I saw one of the talks on video some time ago. He was focusing on non-interventionism and sentencing reform. To the extent that he was, he wasn’t tying it back to small government philosophy. There is nothing wrong with outreach on common ground, but I think it is a bit of a missed opportunity not to explain why his ideas lead to some of the outcomes they are seeking. I don’t expect mass conversions, but a little exposure to the idea that people share some of your goals for reasons they never expected would probably help.
I didn’t hear much about opportunity and enterprise in the talk I heard.
If he has improved since I heard him, I think that’s great. I think the idea that he is trying is great. But from what I saw, I felt the execution needed work.
No, the country doesn’t. I live here too and, while not perfect, do not deserve corruption and depravity. Neither do you.
Maybe. But sooner or later almost every political genius loses the touch, and the polls show that even the Clinton magic has hit, at the least, a speed bump.
In the past three months alone, Hillary Clinton has given the opposing team more attack ad material than all her Republican rivals combined. Now we know it doesn’t take material to construct an attack, and the media will happily report how Rubio has a few traffic tickets, or how Walker said the word “cool” in reference to an ultrasound. But Marco Rubio and Scott Walker aren’t shrinking violets. They’re skilled politicians well used to this game, and they’re better at it than Hillary Clinton.
Thats one way to lower carbon
Whether Carly Fiorina gets the nomination or not, she should be retained as the official Hillary attack dog. She is magnificent, and immune from “boys don’t hit girls” bit.
I agree that the Democrats have done this for decades. I think it goes even farther back than that. I could never quite figure out how the party that hates white Southerners used to be the party of white Southerners. But, now I don’t think it’s all that mysterious. The South used to be very backwards compared to the North. White southerners were a minority group towards which the Democrats could say, “The millionaires and the Republicans hate you, but we’re on your side, fighting for you!” As has been explained by Kevin Williamson and others, the switch in party support from white Southerners and blacks was not about civil rights. White southerners stopped supporting the Democrats gradually over the late 20th century, and it was urban professionals who led the way. I think white Southerners were just tired of being poor, which is what you get when you elect Democrats. Now if we can just get other minorities to do what white Southerners did.
Fifteen to twenty-five years ago Canada was farther down that road than the US: the road of isolating groups so they couldn’t hear each other, then poisoning the discourse about the outgroup. The Liberals had made it into an art, though I think Americans have surpassed them.
The man who personifies the move to end the hate-mongering and open up Canada’s minority communities to the broader Canadian world is Jason Kenney.
If you want to build up your own hero of public civility, the place to start would be with congressmen in safe seats. Get him to minority communities. He doesn’t even have to speak. He has to be there.
That is actually something Paul Ryan is trying to do.
My description of Paul as “pandering” had nothing to do with his foreign policy views. He does deserve credit for speaking to black audiences, I agree. Where I fault him is for suggesting that racism is responsible for the fact that “3 out of 4” people in prison are “black and brown kids.” For one thing, it’s actually not that high. It’s about 60 percent. And while it’s fine to argue in favor of changing the drug laws, there is no question that most of the people who are in prison are there for serious offenses. Many of those who get listed as ‘non-violent” are so designated because of plea deals.
Not to mention the magical thinking that insists that because someone is in prison on a “non-violent offense”, that means they are a “non-violent criminal” when they aren’t in prison.