Former secretary of state, Democratic presidential candidate and first lady Hillary Clinton suggested in an interview published Friday that Democrats should not treat the transgender issue as a priority.
Clinton made the remarks about transgender issues in an interview with the Financial Times. In the interview over lunch with FT’s Edward Luce, Clinton also discussed her recent trip to the United Kingdom and an upcoming Supreme Court decision that could overturn Roe v. Wade.
I cannot allow the lunch to end without questioning the direction of her party. I say that Democrats seem to be going out of their way to lose elections by elevating activist causes, notably the transgender debate, which are relevant only to a small minority. What sense does it make to depict JK Rowling as a fascist? To my surprise, Clinton shares the premise of my question.
“We are standing on the precipice of losing our democracy, and everything that everybody else cares about then goes out the window,” she says. “Look, the most important thing is to win the next election. The alternative is so frightening that whatever does not help you win should not be a priority.”
Another instance is the “defund the police” campaign, she adds. “You need accountable measures. But you also need policing. It doesn’t even pass the common-sense politics test not to believe that. Some positions are so extreme on both the right and the left that they retreat to their corners....Politics should be the art of addition not subtraction.”
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As for the SCOTUS abortion case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Clinton said that she voted against the confirmation of Justice Samuel Alito, the conservative-leaning justice who penned the leaked majority opinion for the case. In the opinion, the justices were poised to overturn Roe.
“I found Alito was the kind of young man who when he was at Princeton railed against coeducation, railed against letting women into the eating clubs, and that was all in the background that I read,” Clinton told FT. “He honestly struck me as one of those very self-righteous types seeking to remake society.”
Clinton added that Margaret Atwood, author of “The Handmaid’s Tale.” is a “prophet.” Pro-abortion protesters often don outfits resembling the handmaids from the book to protest pro-life laws.
Clinton's comments come after the Biden administration has pushed their agenda of transgender health care for minors. On “Transgender Day of Visibility” on March 31, the Biden administration released guidance promoting “gender-affirming” health care for minors, as Townhall covered. This includes social transitioning, puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and sex reassignment surgery.
In an interview in December, Clinton told MSNBC that progressive Democrats could lose elections in the 2022 midterms.
"I think that it is a time for some careful thinking about what wins elections, and not just in deep-blue districts where a Democrat and a liberal Democrat, or so-called progressive Democrat, is going to win," Clinton said in the interview. "I understand why people want to argue for their priorities. That’s what they believe they were elected to do."
"Look, I'm all about having vigorous debate. I think it’s good, and it gives people a chance to be part of the process," she added. "But, at the end of the day it means nothing if we don’t have a Congress that will get things done, and we don’t have a White House that we can count on to be sane and sober and stable and productive."
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