Victory is within sight.
Hillary Clinton can almost smell the finish line. Buoyed by polls showing a popular vote margin of anywhere from five to twelve points and an electoral college harvest of 330 – 430 votes, the former First Lady, Senator and Secretary of State seems poised to add one last title to a resume so thick one can use it as a door stop: President of the United States.
Her path to this moment was not a subtle one. Americans are not voting for Clinton because of her sweeping vision, motivational powers of inspiration, or even for the detail of her policies. She is going to be America’s first female president because this will be a vote for safety over risk, competence over recklessness, emotional stability versus undisciplined passion. If Donald Trump is King Lear, trapped in a slough of despond which he created and perpetuates himself, Clinton believes that she is Portia from ‘Merchant of Venice,’ all virtuous uprightness, valiantly defending her Antonio (or Barack, or Bill).
The truth, of course, is as always more prosaic, less valorous, and much more humanly complex. Hillary Clinton is a conventional politician. This year, being so will be sufficient as Donald Trump has singularly failed to turn his improbable candidacy into an insurgent bid that might have sustained itself on its very brashness. Had she faced a more conventional Republican such as Paul Ryan or Mike Pence, the current poll results would likely be reversed.
Whereas the dangers of Trump are more visible, being somewhat analogous to barbarians (or revolutionaries, depending on one’s point of view), storming the gates of power, those that potentially threaten to haunt a Clinton administration are already known and more insidious. These are the dangers of elitist groupthink, of power (interventionist government) worship and a cult of presidential action cloaked in the name of ideals. It is the danger of assuming that because an idea or potential action is mainstream and commonplace among the great, good, politically correct elites of the media, as well as those who preach rainbow-hued equality - and would legislate it into reality - then it cannot possibly be dangerous.
Call it the same march of establishment folly (to paraphrase Barbara Tuchman) as the royal pretentiousness which led to the Great War, the conventional wisdom espoused by the ‘Wise Men’ birthing the Bay of Pigs invasion, or the advice of the ‘best and the brightest’ which caused the initial intervention, then massive military escalation, in Vietnam – we’ve all been here before. The 2003 Iraq war, widely denigrated by present-day liberals as nation-building adventurism was certainly pushed hard by George W, Bush, Dick Cheney as well as a bevy of neoconservatives, yet also found consensus with centre-left politicians like Tony Blair, not to mention more than 50% of Senate Democrats (including Hillary Clinton and John Kerry).
The 2008 financial crisis was in much the same vein. Blame a surfeit of deregulation or laissez-faire housing policy or inadequate loan-to-valuation controls or bad loans, the policies that contributed to the creation and explosion of the financial bubble initiated under President Bill Clinton were equally caused by right and left wing politicians, all asleep at the switch. Likewise creations like the Euro (and subsequently the cult of ‘globalisation’) which has in turn contributed to a greater disparity of inequity than any other socio-economic concept in generations, led to economic policies which have largely been reactionary (how long have we been discussing creating the ‘jobs of the future’ without actually creating them?).
This litany does not even include Arab Spring, the ‘brush war’ of Libya and the disastrous non-intervention in Syria (when is a ‘red line’ not a ‘red line,’ Mr. President?). These events occurred on Hillary Clinton’s watch as Secretary of State. In no case was her presence felt in the shaping of strategy and policy which either predicted or subsequently put in place corrective actions or adjustments. Subsequently apologists from her camp have stated that Clinton did not enjoy as wide a scope of influence as her predecessors, though this rings somewhat hollow . The position of Secretary of State is arguably the most prestigious cabinet position, overshadowing even Treasury and Defence as it is the administration’s human face to the international community. Also, as the runner up in delegates to Barack Obama, Clinton would have brought to her role even more clout than other appointees. It seems Clinton was holding back on making potentially controversial tough calls in the (likely) event that she would one day seek the Democratic nomination again.
Essentially, American voters face a daunting choice more significant than a matter of trust – this goes beyond the temperamental risk and bluster-ridden nature of Trump’s character. They must also consider the blunder-ridden status quo as personified by Clinton and whose embodiment of these tendencies helped create the socio-political conditions which spawned him and his movement in the first place.
Clinton was for the second Gulf War when it was popular to be for it; she gave up on the troop surge when the Iraqi government appeared to be circling the drain; and then she reverted to hawkishness when the opportunity to intervene in Libya came about. Towards Russia she was a dove then hawk again, choosing first the mirage of engagement then calling for sanctions at precisely the moment when realpolitik is required to avoid the spiral of a second cold war. She is publicly against the Trans Pacific Partnership; to a more business-orientated audience she is privately more favourable. That is not leadership. That is leading from behind.
The best that can be said about Hillary Clinton is that she is unlikely to do anything outright knee-jerk stupid. As we have seen via the WikiLeaks-provided Goldman Sachs speeches, there are two sides to her, and that is not necessarily a bad thing. Americans yearn for a Kennedy or Reagan; they will settle for competent technocracy.
Across a long, and winding career, Clinton has evolved from an idealistic Governor’s wife to a hard-headed pragmatist with a preference for prose over poetry when it comes to governance. She is neither risky or radical. There's the rub, for the worry is that she is incapable of coming up with new and innovative solutions, while preferring to happily march happily in step with the drummers of folly.