Mayor of London Sadiq Khan tweeted excitedly: “Wonderful to welcome Hillary Clinton to London. Her strength and experience continues to inspire millions across the globe.”
Is that even true? Does her strength and experience continue to inspire millions across the globe? Seeing her book tour of the UK I cannot be alone in thinking of her, rather, as the candidate who was so ill-suited, after 25 years of public exposure with an inability to connect, that she somehow lost to Donald Trump. That being the case, when you think of Hillary Clinton do you feel inspired? Really?
Yes, the result of election 2016 was not solely her fault. There was Russian chicanery and Facebook fiddling. Still, a lot of what happened was Hillary’s fault. She was a liberal establishment figure in an era when voters wanted protest and change. The campaign her team oversaw was terrible, an expensive case study in arrogance and ineptitude. For the lack of 70,000 votes spread across three winnable states, she and they let Trump in.
What more is there to say? We’ve had three decades of the world according to HRC. It’s over.
Surely we should hear about the next generation of American politicians? Who – female and male – is going to emerge from either of the main parties who might restore some American pride after the Trump experience? Can the disturbing polarisation be reduced? Surely a fresh face will be needed if so? Or might a popular and unstupid celebrity such as Oprah Winfrey run in 2020 in a bid to stop Trump getting a second term?
Meanwhile, the wearying Clinton tour of the UK has encountered problems. As many as 2500 ticket holders at a book festival had to wait an hour for their audience with Clinton yesterday. Then, on Monday she missed her planned appearance on BBC Women’s Hour. This is just not done in Britain. It could only be worse if she had been a no show for Gardener’s Question Time.
Women’s Hour host Jenni Murray apologised to listeners in the manner of a well-meaning cult spokesman trying to explain why the moment of revelation and elevation to heaven has been delayed, again:
“Hillary Clinton has been delayed this morning, as I’ve already said. It does look like she’s not going to make it before the end of the programme. I’m really, really sorry about that. I think you can understand just how sorry I am. We’re working very, very hard to get this interview rescheduled and Hillary Clinton is very apologetic. So what can I say, that’s the situation.”
The situation is that Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump and he is in the White House. That is the situation.
