Hillary 2016: Recycled Lines and Clichés
Clinton revives old lines, her 1990s biography, to restart her campaign
by PoliZette Staff | Updated 29 Jul 2016 at 12:24 PM - SOURCE LINK
QUOTE:
“It Takes A Village.” We’ve all heard it and frankly, it’s getting pretty stale.
Hillary seems to be running out of lines, as she dug back into the archives Thursday night in her speech to the Democratic National Convention, bringing up things we’ve all already heard.
She fondly reminded us that it still “takes a village,” a shameless plug for her book and a flashback to her 1996 DNC speech.
“Twenty years ago I wrote a book called ‘It Takes a Village.’ A lot of people looked at the title and asked, what the heck do you mean by that? This is what I mean. None of us can raise a family, build a business, heal a community — or lift a country — totally alone,” Clinton said.
Compare this with her famous “It Takes a Village” speech during the 1996 Democratic National Convention. “And we have learned that to raise a happy, healthy, and hopeful child it takes a family, it takes teachers, it takes clergy, it takes business people, it takes community leaders, it takes those who protect our health and safety. It takes all of us,” she said. “Yes, it takes a village.”
The message is exactly the same 20 years later, and it seems that the only way for Hillary to refresh her campaign is by going back to the past.
"Hillary Clinton's speech was an insulting collection of clichés and recycled rhetoric. She spent the evening talking down to the American people she's looked down on her whole life," said Stephen Miller, Donald Trump's senior policy adviser.
In addition to the repetitive line about the village, Clinton was sure to include everyone's favorite clichés as well.
A few one-liners sprinkled throughout her speech included, "your cause is our cause," and "no one gets through life alone." If that wasn't enough, Clinton urged, "but we are not afraid" and "it truly is up to us."
We've all heard these lines before, and it's becoming insulting. "It's a speech delivered from a fantasy universe, not the reality we live in today," Miller said in a statement.
Her campaign is blanketed in unrealistic comparisons and warm sentiments that aren't tangibly fulfilled in the political climate in which we live. One such comparison drew on the Revolutionary War comparing our situation with that of the Founding Fathers.
After discussing the courage of the Founders standing up to King George III, she said, "America is once again at a moment of reckoning. Powerful forces are threatening to pull us apart."
The comparison seems rather far-fetched as she uses a powerful historical example to supplement her "Stronger Together" slogan that feels tired in a hard-pressed country. Part of Clinton's modus operandi is to rely heavily on generalized statements, that don't convey a message. Trump can undoubtedly be abrasive but he's hardly ever unclear.
"The thing that appeals to people about Donald Trump, the reason why I'm so incredibly honored to have the opportunity to run and serve with him as vice president of the United States, is because the man speaks his mind," vice presidential nominee Mike Pence said Thursday on "The Laura Ingraham Show."
In a last notable cliché, Clinton said, "So don't let anyone tell you that our country is weak. We're not. Don't let anyone tell you we don't have what it takes. We do."
The sentiment is nice, but tangible options and actual solutions are a lot more comforting than warm platitudes that don't mean much.
