Monday, August 29, 2016

Clinton’s Crazy Conspiracy Theory

Hillary Clinton’s recent “alt right” speech marks a new and dangerous low in what has become race to the bottom – and, should she be elected, it has ominous foreign policy implications as well.

Alarmed that Trump is reaching out to the African-American community, Mrs. Clinton tried to make the case that the GOP candidate is a apologist for such groups as the Ku Klux Klan (do they still exist?) and an obscure amalgam she dubbed the “alt right.” As she named this latter group, there was a significant silence, a pause in the cheering: perhaps her audience thought she was having a senior moment of the intestinal variety.

In any case, none of this is anything new: it’s a variation on the “Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy” theme that she has been dragging out ever since the 1990s. There is, however, a new dimension to this tired boilerplate, now that she’s running for President: the Vast Right-wing Conspiracy is being portrayed an international cabal with its headquarters in the Kremlin.

As her peroration on the “racist” sins of Trump reached a climax, she hauled out Nigel Farage, the former leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), who was instrumental in leading the Brexit campaign to victory. Farage – who is, in her view, a “racist,” a “sexist,” and god knows what other unsavory “ists” – “has appeared regularly on Russian propaganda programs,” she yelled “Now he’s standing on the same stage as the Republican nominee.”

What is she talking about?

Read the entire article