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Hillary Clinton © Trevor Collens

It’s Time to Move On, Hillary

While the nation is reeling under natural disasters and self-inflicted presidential wounds, Hillary Clinton wants us to understand what happened to her in 2016.

Much of America is wondering what is happening to the country with a despot for its leader whose behavior and decisions continue to leave everyone flummoxed. There are 800,000 “Dreamers” worried about their future after Donald Trump repealed the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Thousands of refugees and Muslim nationals from seven countries were literally left hanging high and dry when Trump tried to implement his first travel ban soon after taking office in January. With his fingers on some of the strongest weapons of mass destruction, Trump is engaged in an unwise war of words with a bellicose North Korea and its enigmatic leader, Kim Jong-un. Even Republicans lawmakers are left wondering what happened when Trump struck a deal with the Democrats, extending the debt ceiling along with funding for the victims of Hurricane Harvey.

Amidst all this, the loser of the 2016 presidential election, Hillary Clinton, wants us to focus on what happened to her and why she lost last year. There is a time to dwell in the past. However, when the country is facing incredible challenges, both natural and self-inflicted, it is certainly not appropriate to do so. Not in the least for someone who professes to care for the country. Yet Clinton has spent her time on authoring a book lamenting on her failed presidential bid and people to blame her failings on.

Lasting impression on American voters

In her book, What Happened, Clinton blames Senator Bernie Sanders for causing “lasting damage” to her campaign as a reason for her losing the presidential election. Anyone who followed the Democratic Party nomination process would appreciate what the Democratic National Committee, then-chairperson Debbie Wasserman Schultz and even former President Barack Obama did to tilt the scale against Sanders and in favor of Clinton.

Senator Sanders’ beliefs may be grounded in socialism, but he ran an issue-oriented campaign that he continues to fight for even today. His strong voice on single-payer universal health care, raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour, tackling the growing income inequality, combating climate change, addressing gender equality and racial justice, and tackling big money in politics challenged the ugly status quo in America that neither established party was willing to take on.

For Clinton to state that the issues Senator Sanders talked about caused “lasting damage” to her campaign reaffirms the disingenuous person that she is. Sanders’ campaign did not cause lasting damage to Clinton’s campaign. On the contrary, it has succeeded in creating a “lasting impression” in the minds of American voters, especially the next generation of them. During his campaign against Clinton, Sanders kept his message focused on issues. In a recent interview with Stephen Colbert, when confronted with Clinton blaming his campaign for her loss, Senator Sanders refused to get dragged into a blame game and instead concentrated on what is important.

A recent opinion piece in The New York Times takes a close look at the impact that socialist leaders like Sanders are having on millennials.

America needs leaders who are problem solvers

The Republicans have demonstrated time and again that they have little political will to govern effectively, whether they have a majority in the House and Senate or not — regardless if America has a Democrat or Republican in the White House. American people have a responsibility to elect those who are capable of governing in Congress. We need elected officials who can rise above party politics to deal with the innumerable issues facing the country.

The Senate ought not to have room for people like Jim Inhofe, who tried to debunk climate change theory with a snowball in the Senate floor. Worse, a president who thinks climate change is a hoax and pulls America out of the Paris Accord, joining Nicaragua and Syria as the only countries not committed to the deal. An Earth defiled will cause catastrophic storms and disastrous droughts, sparing no one.

A nation of immigrants ought to have compassionate and empathetic policies treating every human with respect. Not throw the lives of nearly a million people in disarray by retracting DACA without having a comprehensive immigration reform plan in place.

The country is being torn asunder with its racial wounds. Instead of helping bridge the divide, President Trump’s tweets and words have only widened it. His sympathy for racist, white supremacists has emboldened right-wing groups like the Ku Klux Klan to come out in the open and spread their message of hatred.

If Hillary Clinton really cares about America, she must find a way to contribute positively to these and more issues the country is grappling with. It absolutely serves no purpose to dwell into what happened in 2016 that caused her to lose the election to Donald Trump. It is also highly irresponsible of her to blame Bernie Sanders and his issue-oriented campaign as a reason for her defeat.

Clinton’s actions only portray her as a poor loser and a mendacious politician. It is time to move on.


Photo Credit: Trevor Collens / Shutterstock.com