The 2016 Major Party Candidates Were Very Similar In Many Ways

The 2016 presidential featured a battle of the two worst people in America. While they have their differences, both are far more alike that supporters of either would admit. They are both corrupt. They both have a very similar disdain for civil liberties. They are both conservative on social/cultural issues–Clinton more ideologically, and Trump possibly more out of political expediency. Neither can be trusted on foreign policy. Both are tone deaf.

Doing a Google search for “tone deaf hillary clinton” I just received 228,000 hits. While he didn’t use the term, Joe Biden was getting at this when he criticized Clinton this week for failing to talk to middle class voters–a conclusion many others have come to. As I noted again earlier this week, data shows that a key reason Clinton lost was that large numbers of working class voters shifted from Obama to Trump.

Of course if you live in the fantasy land of Clinton apologists, where they are convinced that misogyny and not political incompetence and dishonesty doomed Clinton, this counter-argument was given: “Virtually every time I hear someone complaining about something Hillary Clinton supposedly failed to say, it’s not really a problem with her not having said it. It’s a problem with their having failed to hear it.” (Yes this really is a direct quote–follow the link if you doubt it.) To them Clinton managed to lose to a candidate as atrocious as Donald Trump, a man who probably would have lost in a landslide to a name randomly picked out of the phone book,  despite doing all the right things. Democrats certainly can no longer claim to be part of the reality-based world.

(Continuing ten minutes later, after I stopped laughing over that defense of Clinton.) While Donald Trump might have carried out the con of the century in convincing working class voters that his policies would help them, he is certainly not doing anything now to hide his love for the ultra-wealthy. The Washington Post reports:

Ahead of release of financial disclosures, Trump administration brags about how many wealthy people it has

Starting Friday evening, the White House will begin to release financial disclosure forms filed by about 180 members of the Trump administration who are either commissioned officers or paid more than $161,755.

Already, the administration is bragging that its members are way wealthier than those who worked for former president Barack Obama — a point of pride that doesn’t quite match the president’s campaign pledge to “drain the swamp” of wealthy GOP donors, lifelong political operatives and those who are simply out-of-touch with everyday Americans…

It’s no secret that Trump, who brags about his immense wealth, has filled his administration with fellow uber-wealthy people. The billionaires include Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, whose family started a marketing company; Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, a venture capitalist who has focused on buying businesses in distress; and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs executive, hedge fund executive and Hollywood financier.

That’s as tone deaf as anything to come from Hillary Clinton. Trump’s act was enough to beat a terrible candidate such as Clinton, but it is not working in the White House.  Democrats just might do very well in 2018 when Donald Trump is in the White House and Hillary Clinton is not on the ticket.