The Trump/Project 2025 administration and its allies have given us more cause for disgust and fear than merriment this holiday season.
Donald Trump sounds more deranged each day. His playmate Pete Hegseth’s barbaric acts are pushing us ever closer to a vanity war. The White House and GOP Congress are hellbent on decimating public health, safety and human rights.
No one knows what to expect next. Will Trump and his Project 2025ers succeed in rigging the midterm elections? How far can they go to stop legitimate opposition to their evil agenda? And will public dissatisfaction be enough to defeat it and repair the damage it’s done to our country?
In dark times, we all find ways to cope, and like Donald Trump, I sometimes dwell on the past. But while he’s obsessed with rewriting it and punishing those who hold him accountable, I’m fascinated by alternative history (not to be confused with his “alternative facts”).
I recently read “Rodham,” a reimagining of Hillary Clinton’s life if she hadn’t married Bill. This prompted me to buy an online ticket to historian/current events chronicler Heather Cox Richardson’s interview with the real-life woman and “Hamilton” playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda.
I watched this event, appropriately titled “History Has Its Eyes on Us,” just a few days ago, during a week when Trump managed to outdo himself in shamelessness.
He tried to make the tragic murder of Rob and Michele Reiner about him. He interrupted prime-time TV to rehash his medley of lies and half-truths about Democrats, immigrants and his faltering economy. He put plaques laced with childish insults under his predecessors’ portraits.
Clinton, who’s only a year younger, appeared far more intelligent, articulate, stable and, yes, presidential.
And better-intentioned. While Trump saw a presidential campaign as a way to promote himself and his businesses, Clinton said she got into politics in the ‘60s because she was inspired by the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, as well as meeting Martin Luther King.
I was impressed when she discussed her attempt to bring health insurance to all Americans during her husband’s administration.
When scare tactics by groups invested in the status quo derailed her plan, she responded by pushing for what could be salvaged. “What I decided,” she said, “was if I can’t convince the Congress to guarantee health care for children, then, you know, there’s no hope.”
The result was the Children’s Health Insurance Program for families with incomes too high to qualify for Medicaid but too low to afford private or group coverage.
Clinton was well-liked as a senator, but her 2002 vote to authorize the invasion of Iraq disappointed many people. In 2008, I had a hard time deciding between her and Barack Obama, whom I eventually chose after witnessing the enthusiasm he generated during an appearance in Jersey City.
I had far fewer qualms about Clinton when I saw who she was up against in 2016.
Maybe she shouldn’t have called Trump’s supporters a basket of deplorables, but it is deplorable for anyone to tolerate what he says about people who don’t happen to be straight white nondisabled Christian males.
No one knows how a Hillary Clinton administration would have turned out, but her victory might have led Trump to give up politics and stick with private-sector grifting.
Moreover, I think it’s safe to say she wouldn’t have persecuted people for their skin color or beliefs and that our constitutional safeguards to democracy would have remained intact.
And she would have pressed for stronger, not weaker safety nets and worked for “everybody, not just the few” (which she told Richardson is needed to “knit the country back together.”)
It may seem pointless to think about what might have been, but a qualified leader dedicated to the common good instead of a band of would-be oligarchs was well within our reach in both 2016 and 2024.
I haven’t given up hope that we might still get one. And despite everything, Clinton remains optimistic.
“I always believed that there was a better tomorrow if we didn’t give up and give in and that we didn’t let those who wanted to turn the clock back get anywhere near the clock,” she said.
“Now, unfortunately, they got close to the clock. And so now it’s very apparent that they don’t know how to tell time because it’s still moving forward.”
Canary note: Opinions expressed in any Op-Ed column appearing on this site are the views of the writer and are not necessarily the opinions of Coal Region Canary.
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Image: Nano Banana
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