A chara, – So Emer O'Toole is calling for support for Hillary Clinton ("The strong case for Hillary Clinton", Broadside, April 10th). But which Hillary Clinton is she talking about?
In 1964, when still 16 years old, Clinton was a “Goldwater Girl”. Being born into a Republican family, it is easy enough to see why she might support the man who opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act, despite significant opposition to his candidacy within the GOP at the time.
However, as the 1960s went on and the country moved left, Hillary travelled with it and became a Democrat, going on to campaign alongside her future husband Bill for the liberal Democratic candidate George McGovern in the 1972 presidential race.
Then in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the US began to swing back to the right politically.
Sensitive to this shift, Bill Clinton was a prime advocate in calling for the Democratic Party to do likewise, and his own election to the White House in 1992 signified the ultimate victory for conservatism, as he set about implementing a “tough on crime” law-and-order approach, neoliberal trade policies, and welfare “reform” that attacked the poorest in American society. “The era of big government is over”, Bill Clinton declared.
Throughout his presidency, the policy direction taken by Bill Clinton was enthusiastically and loyally supported by Hillary Clinton.
But now, as the political pendulum seems to be moving left once more, Hillary Clinton is again frantically changing her position, on North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta), the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), mass incarceration, same sex-marriage, and the Keystone pipeline, to name but a few issues.
How long she will stick to these positions is anyone’s guess.
On the campaign trail, Clinton likes to quote the words of Maya Angelou, who once wrote, “When people show you who they are, believe them”.
Unfortunately, Hillary Clinton has shown us who she is, or should I say, who they are. And that is why so many voters don’t believe a word that any Hillary says. – Is mise,
RODDY KEENAN,
Bromsgrove,
Worcestershire,
England.