Piggyback Demagogue
Why is Hillary Clinton acting like Trump… about Trump?
“One argument that I am uniquely qualified to bring…” is how Hillary Clinton began her answer regarding a question on Donald Trump, emphasizing how she is America’s One True Hope™. The answer is a branding answer, reminding viewers and audience members of experience and connection to other countries’ leaders. She takes opportunities to talk about how wrong-but-strong Trump is but how she is the answer. In fact, if you take the general message of what she says on Trump, distill it, and state it out loud on its own, it sounds like this: “If you don’t vote for me you’ll get Trump and that’s scary! AH!”
To me, that seems very similar to what Trump is doing.
Acting fairly to Hillary, she’s not inciting racism against orange people or violence in any way, but she is using people’s fear in the same way he does. Votes for Trump are votes against Mexicans, Chinese folks, Muslims, and black lives mattering. Votes for Clinton are “against Trump.”
You might say, “isn’t that good?” In some ways, yes. It’s a rejection of the bigoted principles Trump is travelling around and awakening in the United States. We do need that resistance. It’s just that branding yourself as the one choice in the face of something that the people who follow you fear, at least enough to ignore that your record and ideas could be inferior to your opponent’s… is demagoguery.
Clinton is using the nation’s fear of Donald Trump to look like the only choice you have. If Donald Trump is a demagogue (he is), then Hillary Clinton is a piggyback demagogue.
By now, you probably assume this means I support Bernie Sanders. If you’re familiar with me, you’re already aware. I do. The way he handles The Great Orange Threat is part of the reason I am most definitely behind Sanders rather than Clinton.
Bernie Sanders does not act as though Trump is not a threat. His stump speech has a section dedicated entirely to Donald Trump, but there’s a big difference between Hillary Clinton talking about him. When Bernie Sanders is talking about Donald Trump, it’s not about Bernie Sanders. It’s about the idea that the American people will not stand for the things Donald Trump is putting out there. Yes, there are people who agree with Trump. Yes, they are loud. Yes, we see them 24/7 because the news loves this shit. But we exist in much greater numbers than those folks. We care. We will overcome Trump and his bigoted supporters and their tiny hands. We will not allow the outright lies that constantly come out of Trump’s mouth to become our national rhetoric.
“We will not tolerate Trump.” Not “you need me to stop him.”
That’s an important distinction. For me, it’s one that matters a great deal. People who are voting out of fear are not voting for the betterment of people, they’re voting because something bad could happen. Here’s a piece of news that’s important: something bad is always going to happen. There’s never going to be a time when everything is perfect. There’s a big difference between how bad things affect us when all we are doing is concentrating on bad things and when we are concentrating on bettering the overall situation.
Even worse, if we are depending on a person to stop all the bad things — not empowering ourselves — we are essentially accepting whatever conditions that person puts forward to be our protector. This is, not coincidentally, why I don’t really like Batman or Superman if I really think about them. Sure, they are fun but ultimately they nurture a dependence that villains then build plans around. Eventually, the one link in the chain that you keep hitting over and over breaks. We may not know how ahead of time, but it’s the point.
Bernie Sanders is not attempting to create dependence on Bernie Sanders. In fact, he talks about how many of the changes he hopes to bring about require the American public’s continued participation and involvement. I’d dare say that’s even the point of his candidacy: to re-involve the American people in politics. Ultimately they are representing us and shouldn’t be making decisions without our backing — and that doesn’t mean “with financial backing from people who have significantly more than anyone else.”
In his speeches, Bernie Sanders does point out that he has a better chance of beating Trump (backed up with poll after poll), however he does that without making his election seem like a condition to beat Trump. In fact, the section of Sanders’ speeches on Trump is one of the more uplifting parts. It reminds us that it is us — and only us — that have the power to beat Donald Trump.
The point is to remind us that we are the only people who can put wind in Trump’s sails, while Clinton’s speeches attempt to position herself as the only candidate with more wind. That doesn’t strip power from Trump — it attempts to assert power for Clinton.
The problem is, we’re kind of sick of power.
Donald Trump IS scary. I wouldn’t pretend otherwise. What he has already done to this country is absolutely unforgivable. He’s re-energized bigotry and galvanized the worst of the worst. The environment he is creating is one where those with any mild difference to his base (read: straight white cis men feeling threatened by a changing world) are weak and deserve to be eaten (or perhaps just beaten) by “the strong.”
Funny thing about “the strong,” though. Their motivation for acting “strong” isn’t strength. It’s fear. Donald Trump’s power over his followers lies entirely in that fear. Every vote for him is a person saying “I’m afraid,” in an official capacity.
I don’t fear him. I loathe him. I believe whoever runs against him is going to beat him, regardless of what polls say now. This isn’t optimism. It’s knowing what Trump is: smoke and mirrors. In a real debate, Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton would both completely destroy Donald Trump. Yes, he’d bring up a lot of really uncomfortable stuff about Hillary Clinton, but he also appears to legitimately not have any plans or even honestly know much at all about shaping policy around issues — even from a conservative perspective. Do I think walking statistic machine, true moral high ground, no contradicting actions, roll-call amendment king Bernie Sanders will do better against him then Hillary Clinton? Yes, I do — in fact, a lot better (Fox News tried to get a debate between Sanders and Trump, but Trump backed out). Do I think Sanders is our only hope against Trump? No. I do not. But I do not buy into Clinton’s idea that she is.
I believe that people know what Trump is and any debate between Trump and a legitimate candidate (let’s not call the GOP crop serious, thanks) that would involve policy would make him look like a child. Not in the way he always looks like a child, either. What I mean is that it will make him look like a schoolyard bully entering the worst science fair project. Sure, he could probably beat the kid up that wins the fair, but it’s not his domain and he would lose. Judges don’t give first place to the shittiest science fair project.
The big issue I have here is that it seems like people are buying into the idea of fearing the fear vote. The piggyback demagogue — the one trying to get you to fear the fear vote — wants you to see this issue as the only issue. There exists a slew of other issues that exist that this candidate has a record that implies they would not do well with, though. In fact, it’s really not a stretch to say Hillary Clinton’s convoluted platform (seriously, here’s her post about it here on medium) exists for you to forget so she can move back to the right a ways in the general.
Both of these candidates are going to beat Trump. Why not vote for the one that is also going to help the American people beat all of our other problems, too?
