Glen Ford of Black Agenda Report says Hillary Clinton views this election as an opportunity to build a ‘big tent’ for the Democrats, welcoming Republican refugees from Trump
Story Transcript
SHARMINI PERIES, TRNN: It’s the Real News Network. I’m Sharmini Peries coming to you from Baltimore, and welcome to this edition of the Glen Ford Report. As you know Glen is the Executive Editor of the Black Agenda Report and he’s joining us today to talk about the Clinton pivot. Glen, you’re on. GLEN FORD: Oh, I’m glad to be on. Thanks for having a place for me. Of course Hillary Clinton is trying to regain her place in the White House, only at that big desk this time around. The Hillary Clinton machine. And when we talk about the Clinton machine, we’re not just talking about the corporate sectors of their party but also the media. They see the Donald Trump candidacy as a historic opportunity for them to build a big tent party; one that will include millions of what they hope to be, Republican refugees from Trump and also an opportunity to unite the corporate world around a defense of neoliberal austerity at home and endless wars, imperialist wars abroad. When you’re talking about that, Hillary and Bill are the couple. Hillary was the chief advocate of the regime change war that overthrew Muammar Gaddafi. We all remember her saying we came, we saw, he died. And she is the person most responsible, outside of Obama himself, for the death of hundreds of thousands of Syrians. Her husband was the president who sent the bankers free to wreck the world economy finally in 2008, and she says she will rely on Bill for economic advice. So there we have it, the Wall Street imperialist war couple, and they are going to unite the corporate world around Hillary’s candidacy. It’s already happening and that’s why Donald Trump is having trouble getting the big bucks from the usual suspects among the wealthy contributors. They are already or will soon be sending that money to Hillary. The Republican party thus has already been destabilized and that means the duopoly is quite wobbly. Hilary Clinton and her husband Bill and the rest of the corporate Democrats want to capitalize on that destabilization. But it will destabilize their part of the duopoly as well. Right now Hillary is chomping at the bit to pull in the Republican voters that she wants to pull under her big tent. She talked about her frustrations on Sunday as she said that Bernie Sanders’ campaign is preventing her from talking to those good thinking Republicans as well as Democrats and Independents and she wants to attack Trump as being a not so good business man that doesn’t show his tax returns. Her campaign is going to be essentially a defense of the status quo and she’s going to talk about Donald Trump’s craziness and his unpredictability. I believe, and the polls do not show this, but I think Hillary Clinton is going to win this election by a landslide and attempt to build this big tent. But I don’t think that this is going to save the duopoly system. Donald Trump’s white nationalist rights represent I think about 30% of the white electorate. The leftish voters who have supported Bernie Sanders represent about the same portion of people among white folks. Both of these groups need and want their own political parties and I think they’re going to get them in the aftermath of this election. The Republicans, that is the Donald Trump Republicans, already think they have theirs although that is likely to be taken away from them, who knows how that will go down. But Bernie Sanders is not going to run as an indie so these leftish voters are not going to have a major party alternative, they’ll have to vote for the Green party if they’re serious about not being Democrats. But after the election we will see some kind of social democratic formation coming together. However, most black folks will not be in that new constellation that replaces the duopoly. They will remain loyal in the main. Although young black folks are show that they’re not so lopped in with the party. But mainly blacks will remain loyal to the Democrats until they perceive that the Republicans have been so wounded that they are no longer such a monolith and that they are not an overarching threat and then they as the real social democratic voting constituency in the United States will also move to these new formations. So in the long run, the duopoly is doomed. PERIES: And Glen, many fans of Bernie Sanders and those who supported his candidacy within the Democratic party are still wanting to fight it out as he’s leading the charge into the Democratic party convention. What fate awaits them? FORD: Well they will be absolutely frustrated. Hillary Clinton, no matter what lies emanate from her mouth, is set on this new big tent party. And that means not just the usual turn to the right that Democrats always do after the convention, that’s [disregard]. We’re talking about a real pivot. A pivot that is designed to permanently put millions of Republicans in the Democratic camp. Moderate Republicans who actually died off, went extinct decades ago will be resurrected. A moderate Republican will be any Republican who rejects Trump and they’re being wooed into the party. She’s very frustrated because she can’t put on the whole show because Bernie is still putting on his show and talking about issues and that is what they don’t want to talk about in the Hillary camp post-convention campaign. They want to talk about how crazy Trump is, and of course how racist he is compared to her. Not that she doesn’t want to make a defense of corporate trade policies which have been shared with the previous Republicans, of course for decades. She knows they’re unpopular. She rather talk about old crazy Donald. PERIES: And this is a typical Clinton campaign as Bill Clinton also twice ran on a platform moving to the far right as possible into the Republican camp. FORD: It’s the only kind of campaign they know. And the Clintons, remember, were founders of the Democratic Leadership Council along with Al Gore which was set up by white southern democrats in the ‘80s specifically to curtail the rising electoral power of blacks in the Democratic party in the south and labor and lefties. So he is a foundering member of the right wing of the Democratic party. This is his kind of campaign, there is no reason to think he will do different. This old dog has only one trick. PERIES: Glen Ford, I thank you so much for joining us today. FORD: Thank you. PERIES: And thank you for joining us on the Real News Network.
End
DISCLAIMER: Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program. TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
