A mind-bendingly painful new piece in the New York Times showcases the fears of hand-wringing liberals who worry that somehow, if Hillary Clinton prevails in November, she won't have won the “right” way and will thus taint any claims to have earned a “mandate.” This is nonsense.
These arguments center around complaints that Clinton’s outreach to Republican voters disgusted by Donald Trump means that any victory she earns won’t be a “progressive” one. Nevermind that this year’s Democratic platform is the most liberal in history; nevermind that Clinton hasn’t budged one inch from the unwaveringly progressive economic program she laid out during the primary. Somehow, these complainers say, if Clinton wins under these circumstances, it’ll undermine her ability to advance a progressive agenda.
You know what would really undermine Hillary Clinton? A Republican majority in Congress.
The notion that presidential candidates can earn a “mandate” is a hoary concept premised on the absurd idea that if everyone agrees that a particular contender’s victory can be attributed to a particular message, lawmakers on Capitol Hill will cower before the occupant of the Oval Office and do her bidding, lest they provoke the wrath of the same voters who provided this mandate in the first place. But do you really think Republicans give a damn how Clinton wins?
Of course not, and that’s why Clinton is trying to take advantage of Trump’s unique toxicity to run up the score as never before. Clinton doesn’t need to do this—after all, a win that puts her in the White House is still a win. But there’s a very good reason why she’s doing it: The bigger her margin at the top of the ticket, the more Democrats she’s likely to sweep into Congress on her coattails.
And that is how you advance a progressive agenda: with Democrats holding power at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. Even before Trump’s latest meltdown-driven collapse in the polls, there was a good chance that Democrats might retake the Senate. But the House had long seemed out of reach—until now. If Clinton can somehow capitalize on Trump’s radioactive unpopularity and return the speaker’s gavel to Nancy Pelosi’s hands, then an extraordinary world of possibilities that few of us had ever dared to dream about will open up.
And if, on Jan. 20, we wake up to a world that features a President Clinton, a Speaker Pelosi, and a Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, it won’t matter how we got there. It’ll matter that we’re there. And that’s all that matters.
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