Hillary's New Deal

Hillary's New Deal: How a Clinton Presidency Could Transform America

This is the choice Americans face – between alternatives as starkly opposed to each other as in any election in our history, excepting the one in 1860, which led to the Civil War.

There on the convention stage was Sanders himself, railing against "the 40-year decline of our middle class" and "the grotesque level of income and wealth inequality that we currently experience." There was Sen. Elizabeth Warren, explaining how the system is rigged for CEOs and predators like Trump. And there, too, was Hillary Clinton, proclaiming that "Democrats are the party of working people," but the party needed to show it better; then saying, "Our economy isn't working the way it should because our democracy isn't working the way it should"; and touting a government program funded by targeted tax hikes on the rich, the "biggest investment in new, good-paying jobs since World War II," to rebuild America's infrastructure.

Clinton's program for battling economic inequality is another series of reinventions in the broad New Deal tradition. Her proposals include middle-class tax credits to be covered by raising taxes on the very wealthiest Americans and by closing tax loopholes; raising the federal minimum wage by 66 percent to $12 an hour, while supporting a $15 minimum in individual cities and states; protecting labor unions' collective-bargaining rights; and reducing child-care costs. To address the problems of climate change unimaginable to earlier generations, she has called for the installation of half a billion solar panels by the end of her first term, with the goal of providing clean renewable energy to every household in the country by 2027.

Unfair Coverage

Unfair To A Woman

Running for president is both exhausting and stressful; in 2004, John Kerry also came down with pneumonia during his presidential campaign. 

Clinton's e-mails now rival the Watergate scandal as one of the most reported stories in political history.

The offensive against Hillary Clinton fits into the context of a much larger cultural and political assault: the Republican-led "War on Women," a term that's been maligned and in some ways overused, but nonetheless speaks to the lengthy and concerted effort on the part of the GOP to control women's bodies and wages in order to reduce women's power. It's mostly forgotten that Republicans, not Democrats, were the original champions of women's rights: leading the charge for women's suffrage and also backing the Equal Rights Amendment from its inception in 1923 to its proposed ratification in 1972. This changed toward the end of the Nixon administration, which seized the opportunity to exploit cultural fears of women's liberation – much in the way it embraced racism in the South – for political gain.

If the State Department e-mails reveal anything, it's evidence of the kind of garden-variety access and favoritism that, unappealing and corrosive as it may be, is not only what Washington runs on, but what most industries run on, including journalism. Perhaps a more damning example of favoritism would be what Vice President Dick Cheney showed for Halliburton, the company he once ran, which went on to become one of the main profiteers of the Iraq War that Cheney so aggressively pushed for. Halliburton, dogged by allegations of corrupt billing practices, made $39 billion off Iraq. Cheney, accused of many things, including pay for play, rarely saw his capacity to lead called into question.

Feminist psychologist Carol Gilligan is fascinated by the dislike that young women, in particular, seem to have for Hillary Clinton. "They project on her the same kind of contempt they used on each other in seventh grade," she says. "And when you ask why, you hear, well, it's e-mails. It's that she stayed with Bill Clinton. But the reasons they give never explain the intensity of the dislike – and what's more, there's permission for that; they don't have to explain it."

"This entire race is about gender," says Gilligan, who continues to marvel at how many obstacles exist for women in America. "Those are the issues that are playing out now, through Hillary Clinton."

Bono Is Not Excited About Trump

Bono on Charlie Rose

Turn

In a four-way match up of likely voters, Clinton leads Trump by 5 points—45 percent to 40 percent. Libertarian Gary Johnson now has 10 percent support and Jill Stein maintains 4 percent.

Debates

There's No Debate 

Lauer seemed to think Clinton’s emails were worthy of more questions than, say, nuclear war, global warming or the fate of Syrian refugees.

have turned the campaign and the upcoming debates into profit centers that reap a huge return from political trivia and titillation. A game show, if you will — a farcical theater of make-believe rigged by the two parties and the networks to maintain their cartel of money and power.

“Debating,” Jill Lepore writes, “like voting, is a way for people to disagree without hitting one another or going to war: it’s the key to every institution that makes civic life possible, from courts to legislatures. Without debate, there can be no self-government.” But the media monoliths have taken the democratic purpose of a televised debate — to inform the public on the issues and the candidates’ positions on them — and reduced it to a mock duel between the journalists who serve as moderators — too often surrendering their allegedly inquiring minds — and candidates who know they can simply blow past the questions with lies that go unchallenged, evasions that fear no rebuke and demagoguery that fears no rebuttal.

Remember that it was CBS CEO Leslie Moonves who whooped about the cash to be made from the campaign, telling an investors conference in February, “The money’s rolling in and this is fun. I’ve never seen anything like this, and this going to be a very good year for us... Bring it on, Donald. Keep going. Donald’s place in this election is a good thing.” Oh, yes, good for Moonves’ annual bonus, but good for democracy? Don’t make us laugh. Elaine Quijano of CBS News will be moderating the vice presidential candidates’ debate on Oct. 4, with Moonves looking over her shoulder.

Remember, too, that both Lauer and Trump are NBCUniversal celebrities who have earned millions from and for the networks. (Vanity Fair magazine even reported that NBCUniversal boss Steve Burke had spoken hypothetically with Trump about continuing The Apprentice from the White House.) Moderating the first presidential debate on Sept. 26 is NBC anchorman Lester Holt, a nice and competent fellow, but facing the same pressure as his fellow teammate Matt Lauer to not offend their once-and-possibly-future NBC star Donald Trump.

And remember that Anderson Cooper of Time-Warner’s CNN, the all-Trump-all-the-time network, and Martha Raddatz of Disney’s ABC News will anchor the second presidential debate (to her credit, Raddatz did a good job during the 2012 vice presidential debate) — and that the final, crucial close encounter between Trump and Clinton will be moderated by Chris Wallace of Fox, the very “news organization” that joined with Donald Trump to gleefully spread the Big Lie of Birtherism that served Trump so well with free publicity (and Fox so well with ratings) and that Trump now conveniently and hypocritically repents.

Wallace has already admitted he is in no position to hold Trump accountable for the lies he tells in the “debate” — that “it’s not my job” to fact check either Trump or Clinton during the course of their appearance with him. That should be pleasing to Roger Ailes, who was fired as head of the Fox News empire for scandalous sexist behavior but who is now giving Trump debate tips. Wallace is on record saying how much he admired and loved Ailes, to whom he owes his stardom at Fox — “The best boss I’ve had in almost a half a century in journalism,” Wallace said.

A Tight Race

NPR Battleground Map: A Path To The Presidency Opens Up For Trump 

The debates are the last best chance for either candidate to change the trajectory of the race. And, right now, they could be key in determining who wins, because the election looks to be at an inflection point.

Grrl, Interrupted

Why Hillary Clinton Gets Interrupted More than Donald Trump 

Lauer behaved toward the presidential candidates in a way that was consistent with much of the research about gender stereotypes and discrimination. Specifically, he interrupted Clinton more often than Trump, asked her more challenging questions, and questioned her statements more often.

Harvard MBA students evaluated the same case study of a successful entrepreneur. Half the class read a version in which the entrepreneur was male; the other half read a version in which the entrepreneur was female. The students who read about the male entrepreneur identified him as having positive traits, such as leadership and direction, while students who read about the female entrepreneur characterized her as being bossy and overly direct. The responses reflected the students’ hidden biases about how male and female leaders should act.

the more convinced we are of our own objectivity, the more likely bias is to creep in and influence our judgment and decisions.