The Hunting of Hillary: It's Not Just About Hillary

 

The Hunting of Hillary: It’s Not Just About Hillary

Peter Schultz

 

            The full title of Michael D’Antonio’s book is The Hunting of Hillary: The Forty-Year to Destroy Hillary Clinton. There is certainly no adequate reason to suspect those who were hunting Hillary Clinton were not out to destroy her. But these “hunters” weren’t only after Hillary; she wasn’t the only or perhaps even the real target. The real target was any political reform, any political change that could be plausibly deemed significant. And because this is the case, the “hunters” don’t care if their charges against Hillary successfully destroy Hillary or not. Because she’s not their real target, even if she were not destroyed, their campaign could still be considered successful. As a result, the truth or accuracy of their charges against Hillary is irrelevant.

 

            Also, as a result, attempts like D’Antonio’s to refute the charges made against Hillary – which is quite easy to do – are irrelevant. D’Antonio does a decent job of exposing most of the lies told about Hillary, her husband, and her life. But, actually, this exposure doesn’t really matter because what is being conducted is a political campaign disguised as a personal attack on Hillary. In other words, those “hunters” who appear to be targeting after Hillary are political operatives practicing a kind of politics aimed at undermining the possibility of any significant political reforms and, thereby, preserving the status quo.

 

            And, of course, because this is a kind of politics, it shouldn’t be seen as the preserve of the right wing partisans, as the result of “a vast right-wing conspiracy,” as the Clintons have charged and as D’Antonio asserts time and time again. Right-wing politicians can and do employ this political strategy, but it is a kind of political strategy than can be and has been employed by left-wing types, for example, with regard to Donald Trump. And left-wing politicians employ this strategy for the same reasons that it is employed by right-wing politicians, viz., to undermine the possibility of significant political reform and to preserve and even fortify the status quo.

 

            Each in the same way, left-wing types and right-wing types are pursuing the same political strategy, a strategy that aims at preserving and fortifying the status quo. Which helps explain why, as so many people have noticed, nothing or so little changes issue forth from Washington D.C. It’s not so much that “the system is broken” as it is that our politicians, both those of the left and those of the right, don’t want significant change. They are satisfied with the status quo. Of course, given the fact that most Americans are not satisfied with the status quo, to say the least, our politicians must practice a kind of politics that reaffirms the status quo. Hence, the “politics of personal destruction” that has been and is practiced by our elites. They may pretend to be offended by such a politics but they continually practice it because it serves to preserve their power. It also preserves the political order, which has elevated them to their elite status. As a means of personal destruction, it doesn’t even work, as illustrated by the fact that despite all the attacks on Hillary Clinton, she still go three million more votes than Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election. But as a means of preventing any significant change in our politics, this kind of politics has worked admirably well. Therefore, don’t expect it to be abandoned any time soon.