Hillary Clinton is, as she reminded audience in Kentucky, Louisiana and New Hampshire this weekend, a new member of “the grandmother’s club”. Many other new grandmas might spend their time daydreaming about the future of their grandchildrens – I’m pretty sure we were all destined to be lawyers, doctors, future presidents or well-remunerated sports stars, in the minds of most grandmothers – but Clinton’s reveries about Charlotte’s future are a bit more … dark.The Democrats are going to lose on Tuesday, and Hillary Clinton knows it. Her grim prophecy of a GOP takeover isn’t so much a last-minute appeal to Senate voters as an early bid for her own. Because doom and gloom may not be the new hope and change, but they might actually work.
Clinton’s campaign speeches aren’t each original works of creative genius. As Maggie Haberman reports at Politico, she does tailor her zings about Republicans neatly to each race where she’s stumping, but the foundation of her remarks in the US midterm election homestretch remained the same: equal pay (and GOP opposition to it), the minimum wage (and GOP opposition to it) and Republicans creating a climate of fear (“the last resort of those who have run out of ideas”).
But at the end of each speech, Clinton turned to her granddaughter and her own fears about the country Charlotte might face as a young adult if Republicans gain more power. At her appearance in Highland Heights, Kentucky, in a message largely repeated elsewhere, Clinton said:
What’s our country going to be like in 20-25 years when she’s an adult – like many of the students here [at Northern Kentucky University], when she is going to be starting her adult life? Is the American dream going to be there for her the way it was for me and my husband, and for Alison [Lundergan Grimes]? Is the education system from pre-K to university level going to keep the standing it’s always had as the best in the world, so that young people will find a place that can help prepare them? Is our political system, our democracy, going to represent our values and ideals? Or is it going to be captured by a very few who seem not to understand that the obligation of being in public service in a democracy is not to get captured by some small elite privileged group, but to be constantly working to give the same opportunities to everybody that gave you the chance to be in public service in the first place.
(That last bit is, of course, a reference to the Koch brothers and their reportedly cozy relationship with US senate minority leader – and Grimes opponent – Mitch McConnell.)
In her three-state swing, Clinton’s marked shift in tone and content – from stumping for the candidate by her side to warning about the America that her granddaughter might inherent – was almost disconcerting, especially given the overall upbeat tenor of the speakers at most pre-Election Day rallies. But even within the confines of Clinton’s themselves speeches, the abupt shift in gears halted her palpable momentum and mostly silenced her audiences.
It was as though Hillary Clinton felt more compelled to make dark prophesies than inspire voters.
Then again, you hardly need to read tea leaves to predict the Republicans will take control of the senate – and thus the entire legislative branch – after Tuesday. You don’t need a Senate forecaster to know which way the gridlock will go: the Congressional intransigence Americans claim to hate (even as they like or remain indifferent to divided control of the branches of government, the cause of said intransigence) will either continue or get worse, to the detriment of everyone, assuming that Republicans have legislative goals beyond dismantling Obamacare.
But especially here in Kentucky – where almost 400,000 workers make less than $10.10 per hour and a bill to raise the minimum wage and minimum server wages died in the GOP-controlled state senate – it’s not an unreasonable thought that the whole “American dream” thing is getting a little tarnished for more than a few low-income voters. And decrying a minimum wage increase for the next two years won’t exactly make Republicans popular – especially given that there were about twice as many people making at or below the minimum wage in 2013 as there were in 2006 (before Congress passed the last increase).
Clinton’s increasingly busy and impromptu travel schedule this election season – and the positive reception she’s gotten from die-hard Hillary fans sporting buttons and signs and local voters more concerned about Tuesday than 2016 alike – have not exactly tamped down speculation that she’ll start running for president in the next six months. And when she does, Clinton will be running against the (potential) dystopia she’s prophesying on the campaign trail right now: Republican control of the legislative branch and further political gridlock. Despite the overwhelming popularity of both, there almost certainly won’t be any effort to raise the minimum wage or guarantee women equal pay, and Republicans will almost certainly have a go at repealing the still-unpopular Affordable Care Act even as its effects are finally beginning to be felt by more Americans.
Clinton told her audiences this weekend:
You should not have to be the grandchild of a former secretary of state or a former president to be given the opportunities that you deserve as an American.
But she also asked them to imagine a future in which their children would have to be – and it wasn’t tough
olddogthoughts 