I know, I know, some of you “don’t trust her,” but given opportunities to backtrack from primary promises, Hillary Clinton is actually doing the opposite—she’s doubling down. Some choice bits from her speech today:
I believe we can compete and win in the global economy. And reject any agreements like the partnership that don't meet my high bar for rising wages.
“The partnership” is obviously TPP. Clinton took too long during campaign season to come out against it (a factor in Bernie Sanders’ rise, I believe). I still believe it had more to do with trying not to embarrass the president than any real support for the trade deal, but whether cynical or not, her new position has held.
[Trump] has no ideas how to strengthen medicare or expand social security and his tax plan.
The campaign to expand Social Security appeared to be a pipe dream when a handful of bloggers (really, Atrios) started pushing it four years ago. It was an idea that was anathema to the Third Way crowd as recently as late 2015. And yet here we are, barely six months later, with our “establishment” presidential nominee proudly supporting it.
He wants to repeal the consumer financial protection bureau, the watchdog that senator Warren helps create to protect families from unfair and deceptive business practices. They have secured said billions of dollars in return for people who have been ripped off. Donald Trump wants to get rid of it.
Trump would take us back to where we were before the crisis. He would rig the economy for Wall Street again. That will not happen on my watch, I can guarantee you. I would veto any effort to weaken those reforms. I will defend and strengthen them both for the big banks and shadow banking system and I will vigorously enforce the law because we can't ever let wall Street wreck main street again.
Obviously, this isn’t “break up the banks,” but it’s further than President Barack Obama has gone, and presents a continuous leftward shift on her part while dealing with Wall Street. In fact, she mentioned Wall Street negatively eight times. Of course people don’t have to “trust” her to follow through, but the fact is she’s pushing this anti-Wall Street narrative outside of the Democratic Party primary and into the general election mass audience.
In other words: Our top, most high-profile Democrat is not afraid to stick with the same populist tone that was perfectly at home in a Democratic primary. And it isn’t because Clinton or Democrats are out of touch the way, say, Donald Trump and his GOP are. It’s because we are in sync with the American people.
This speech isn’t the first sign that there is no “pivot” in Clinton’s rhetoric. How about Clinton’s Planned Parenthood speech a couple of weeks ago, in which she mentioned the word “abortion” 18 times?
Let’s repeal laws like the Hyde Amendment that make it nearly impossible, make it nearly impossible for low-income women, disproportionately women of color, to exercise their full reproductive rights.
You know what that means, right? It would eliminate the prohibition on federal funding for abortions. Or how about guns, where she called for a new assault weapons ban?
Well, in Orlando and San Bernardino, terrorists used assault weapons. The AR-15. And they used it to kill Americans. That was the same assault weapon used to kill those little children in Sandy Hook. We have to make it harder for people who should not have those weapons of war.
These are not the sorts of things Democrats used to talk about and propose while in “general election mode.” They used to be more fearful. But here we are with a nomination sewn up—and zero change in Clinton’s rhetoric. That’s not a bad thing. Quite the opposite, actually.