jgn's review
5.0
I'm giving this book a 5-star rating not because I think it's particularly compelling in its claims, but because people should read it as a reminder of the compromises that were made to find a Democratic standard-bearer (I have no claim about Clinton - I'm thinking broader, about why there would be only three candidates in the primaries, for instance).
Now that Trump has been elected, many Democrats and people of good faith are wondering: How could that happen? This book is not about Trump's electoral strength but rather about Clinton's problems as a candidate and as a politician: The critique of Clinton is very negative but supported by facts, and could probably be applied to any leading candidate with a background in the Democratic Party as we have known it for thirty years. Consistently, we learn that Clinton was over many decades self-serving and self-dealing and inherently conservative in a way that didn't fit some voters' desires in 2016. Here "conservative" means: favoring elites and corporations, coupled with a lot of "blame losers" rhetoric that aligned with 90s ideas of replacing welfare with work, stiff sentences for petty crimes, and assumptions among the techno-political establishment that "we know best." In short, the book claims that Clinton was a candidate who didn't provide much of a strong positive message -- she was always encumbered by history and the dank smell of sleaze. I am not sure that claim is really correct for HRC herself but I think it easily applies to the party.
Along the way Henwood says that Democrats were blocked criticizing Clinton by the idea that Clinton had become "all women" so any critique was inherently sexist (p. 117). I saw this quite a bit on Facebook and Twitter; it's still hard to critique HRC without getting attacked. Meanwhile, Henwood picks out moments when Clinton was brutally honest that political correctness is boring but changing laws has consequences (p. 127): But this is a Clinton we didn't hear very often.
In any case, even though this book is about Clinton, I think it's really about the diseases in the party.
There's very little "what to do next" advice in this book, but near the beginning Henwood has a bit that resonated with me: Might we have elected Bernie? Well, that would have been "just" a President, incurring the eternal quarrel with Congress. Henwood says: "Anyone who wants seriously better politics in this country has to start from the bottom and work their way up. So while I may have some good things to say about Bernie Sanders and his campaign, magical interventions from the top won't change much" (p. 9). Right. The Democratic Party needs a complete refresh and need to start growing great new candidates from the soil of specific communities, locales, and interests.
Now that Trump has been elected, many Democrats and people of good faith are wondering: How could that happen? This book is not about Trump's electoral strength but rather about Clinton's problems as a candidate and as a politician: The critique of Clinton is very negative but supported by facts, and could probably be applied to any leading candidate with a background in the Democratic Party as we have known it for thirty years. Consistently, we learn that Clinton was over many decades self-serving and self-dealing and inherently conservative in a way that didn't fit some voters' desires in 2016. Here "conservative" means: favoring elites and corporations, coupled with a lot of "blame losers" rhetoric that aligned with 90s ideas of replacing welfare with work, stiff sentences for petty crimes, and assumptions among the techno-political establishment that "we know best." In short, the book claims that Clinton was a candidate who didn't provide much of a strong positive message -- she was always encumbered by history and the dank smell of sleaze. I am not sure that claim is really correct for HRC herself but I think it easily applies to the party.
Along the way Henwood says that Democrats were blocked criticizing Clinton by the idea that Clinton had become "all women" so any critique was inherently sexist (p. 117). I saw this quite a bit on Facebook and Twitter; it's still hard to critique HRC without getting attacked. Meanwhile, Henwood picks out moments when Clinton was brutally honest that political correctness is boring but changing laws has consequences (p. 127): But this is a Clinton we didn't hear very often.
In any case, even though this book is about Clinton, I think it's really about the diseases in the party.
There's very little "what to do next" advice in this book, but near the beginning Henwood has a bit that resonated with me: Might we have elected Bernie? Well, that would have been "just" a President, incurring the eternal quarrel with Congress. Henwood says: "Anyone who wants seriously better politics in this country has to start from the bottom and work their way up. So while I may have some good things to say about Bernie Sanders and his campaign, magical interventions from the top won't change much" (p. 9). Right. The Democratic Party needs a complete refresh and need to start growing great new candidates from the soil of specific communities, locales, and interests.
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