Meet the Democratic stars of 2020: a Clinton and a Kennedy.
Yes, the party of the people — the poor, the disenfranchised, the overworked and underpaid, the allies of Black Lives Matter and #MeToo — has two of its most entitled dynastic figures front and center.
Will they never learn?
Hours before President Trump’s first State of the Union address, Hillary Clinton dumped a lengthy, cover-your-ass statement on Facebook. This, four days after news broke that Clinton refused to fire a known sexual harasser on her 2008 campaign despite a top female adviser encouraging her to do so.
Initially, Clinton said she had been “dismayed” by the complaint, but encouraged by the young woman who came forward.
“I called her today to tell her how proud I am of her,” Clinton tweeted, “and to make sure she knows what all women should: we deserve to be heard.”
Hillary Clinton, would-be shatterer of the last glass ceiling: That is a low bar.
As usual, once public sentiment actually seeped in, Clinton addressed the issue in more detail. Hence the 18-paragraph-long disquisition on Facebook.
Seems someone’s thinking about running again.
Yet Clinton’s essay underscores what a terrible candidate she is and always has been. She offers nothing more than self-serving prevarications under the guise of explanation: She didn’t want to take away a man’s livelihood. The young woman who complained was reassigned (because the victim should be inconvenienced). She liked her new post! We’re in a different era now! How was Hillary to know, way back in 2008, that sexual harassment should never be tolerated?
“For most of my life,” Hillary wrote, “harassment wasn’t something talked about or even acknowledged.”
Except for the bulk of the 1990s, when her husband was accused by multiple women of harassment and by one of rape and Hillary worked to publicly discredit them.
Other than that, no knowledge.
This has always been the problem with Hillary Clinton: Nothing is ever her fault. She is congenitally incapable of saying the words “I’m sorry” — in fact, they are nowhere to be found in her Facebook post. She is somehow always the victim despite her own poor decision-making. She still blames us for losing the most winnable election ever.
Which brings us to Joseph Kennedy III. Until Tuesday night, he was unknown to most Americans, yet he was chosen to deliver the Democratic response to the State of the Union.
There he was, a grandfathered-in congressman worth a reported $18 million, product of Stanford and Harvard Law, standing in front of a gleaming car, an American flag and a Bengals banner at a vocational school — all those condescending, blue-collar signifiers. He wore a tie and shirtsleeves, the car’s hood open as though he’d just been tinkering with it.
Kennedy offered broad strokes and hit all the progressive talking points but was overshadowed by drooling lip balm. Oh, and he spoke in Spanish!
He did not acknowledge the irony of a third-generation Kennedy speaking to Americans caught in the throes of a seemingly irreversible widening between the haves and have-nots. It didn’t even seem to be a top concern — once again, Dems harp on identity politics while the working class is slowly killed off.
The only remarkable thing about Kennedy’s speech was his odd delivery: not reminiscent of his clan’s Boston Brahmin accent, but a cadence and an oratory meant to evoke Barack Obama — the last young Democrat to come out of nowhere, light up the electorate and slay a dynastic sure-thing.
It’s a lesson worth revisiting. But as long as the Dems keep putting forth their privileged elite, they can look forward to losing the second most winnable presidential election ever.