Hillary Clinton: more of the same, or much worse?

Hillary Clinton: more of the same, or much worse? June 27, 2016

In a column in which he coins the useful term “Hillaryism,”  Charles Krauthammer says that Hillary Clinton is offering the status quo in a time when much of the general public is desperate for change.  Thus the popularity of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders.  Clinton, though, offers nothing more than the old liberal bromides and a continuation of the Obama administration.  See Krauthammer’s argument after the jump.

I wonder, though.  Would a Clinton administration amount to a third term for Obama?  I don’t think it would.  She seems much tougher and meaner than he is.  Other countries would probably be less willing to cross her.  And I suspect she would be more willing than Obama to intervene someplace militarily to throw her weight around.

And a Clinton victory would seem to put the radical feminists, the pro-abortion fanatics, and the political correctness enforcers in charge of the whole country.

Her husband, you may recall, was considered a conservative or at least a moderate Democrat, ending welfare as we know it, supporting the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, supporting the Defense of Marriage Act.  She is not.  Despite what those who are nostalgic for another Clinton administration assume, that being the last time they had money in their pockets, Hillary does not have the same ideology as Bill.  And she and her party have been pushed farther to the left by Bernie Sanders, whose mark will probably be seen in her vice presidential choice and the party platform.

What do you think her administration would be like?  

From Charles Krauthammer, Hillaryism – The Washington Post:

Clinton is trapped by circumstance. She’s the status quo candidate, Barack Obama’s heir, running essentially on more of the same when, after two terms and glaring failures both at home and abroad, Americans are hardly clamoring for four more years. . . .

Defending the status quo today is a thankless undertaking. It nearly cost Clinton the Democratic nomination. Bernie Sanders campaigned loudly and convincingly against the baleful consequences of the Obama years — stagnant wages, income inequality and a squeezing of the middle class. Clinton was forced to echo those charges while simultaneously defending the president and policies that brought on the miseries.

Not easy to do. She is left, therefore, with a pared and pinched rationale for her candidacy. She promises no fundamental change, no relief from the new normal of slow growth, low productivity and economic stagnation. Instead, she offers government as remediator, as gap filler. Hillaryism steps in to alleviate the consequences of what it cannot change with a patchwork of subsidies, handouts and small-ball initiatives.

Hence the $30 billion she proposes to soften the blow for the coal miners she will put out of business. Hence her cure for stagnant wages. Employers are reluctant to give you a wage hike in an economy growing at 1 percent. So she will give it to you instead by decreeing from Washington a huge increase in the minimum wage.

Hillaryism embodies the essence of modern liberalism. Having reached the limits of a welfare state grown increasingly sclerotic, bureaucratic and dysfunctional, the mission of modern liberalism is to patch the fraying safety net with yet more programs and entitlements.

Her line of argument is quite straightforward: I’m the devil you know — experienced, if flawed; safe, if devious; reliable, if totally uninspired. I give you steady incrementalism. Meanwhile, the other guy is absurdly risky. His policies on trade, immigration and national security threaten trade wars, social unrest and alienation from friends and allies abroad.

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