She Told Us Day
On August 25, 2016, Hillary Clinton predicted that Donald Trump was giving voice to a horrifying streak of racism and hate in American politics.
She was right.
“From the start, Donald Trump has built his campaign on prejudice and paranoia. He is taking hate groups mainstream, and helping a radical fringe take over the Republican Party. His disregard for the values that make our country great is profoundly dangerous.”
“Now Trump’s lack of knowledge or experience or solutions would be bad enough. But what he’s doing here is more sinister. Trump is reinforcing harmful stereotypes and offering a dog whistle to his most hateful supporters. It’s a disturbing preview of what kind of President he’d be.”
“And that’s what I want to make clear today. A man with a long history of racial discrimination, who traffics in dark conspiracy theories drawn from the pages of supermarket tabloids and the far dark reaches of the Internet should never run our government or command our military.”
“Ask yourself, if he doesn’t respect all Americans, how can he serve all Americans? Now I — I know that some people still want to give Trump the benefit of the doubt.”
“They hope that he will eventually reinvent himself, that there’s a kinder, gentler, more responsible Donald Trump waiting in the wings somewhere. Because, after all, it is hard to believe anyone, let alone a nominee for president, could really believe all the things he says. But here’s the hard truth. There is no other Donald Trump. This is it.”
There is no other Donald Trump. This is it. He is the man who is banning transgender soldiers from serving in the military. He is the man who is cutting the funding to fight white supremacy while the Klan and white power Nazi groups march on American cities. He is the man who promised a wall Mexico would pay for and now holds the government hostage because he couldn’t live up to his promises.
She told us. She wasn’t the only one. Melissa McEwan makes the excellent point that we are still ignoring all the people who were right about Trump…
“I was right about Donald Trump from the moment he announced his despicable candidacy. While highly paid (and highly visible) political commentators were having excited conversations about how “entertaining” Trump was, I was writing pieces about how dangerous Trump is, warning against treating him like a punchline.”
…in favor of giving more space to the people still trying to spot a different Donald Trump who does not spend his time in the White House encouraging police officers to hurt people on purpose.
