As we inch closer and closer to November 8th, one thing has become increasingly clear to me. This election will be viewed by voters as a referendum on the status quo’s itself. While it’ll definitely be a referendum on Obama specifically, it’s much bigger than that. It’ll be about whether the American people want to continue along the path we’ve been on for decades, or if they’re willing to try something entirely different.
Indeed, Hillary Clinton clearly highlighted the choice herself earlier today with the following tweet:
Not a single living president has endorsed Donald Trump. https://t.co/nGXxXTo3NI
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 26, 2016
The message from the above tweet says it all. She’s not running merely as a continuation of Obama’s last eight years, she’s running as a continuation of the last 40. A period during which median wages in real terms have barely budged, while income inequality has exploded. A period during which financialization has hollowed out America’s economy, while a handful of people reaped enormous wealth via labor arbitrage as they shipped manufacturing overseas. A period during which we have seen pointless war after pointless war, all in the pursuit of an enemy largely created by America’s imperial foreign policy in the first place. In other words, it hasn’t been a very good forty years for the average American. Nevertheless, it took a very long time for the public to figure it out, just like the boiling frog doesn’t get that it’s cooked until too late.
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