It wouldnt have taken much for Hillary Clinton to prevail on Election Night. Donald Trump won the presidency with razor-thin margins of less than 1 percent in three states that had gone Democratic in the previous five elections Michigan by 10,000 votes, Wisconsin by 22,000 and Pennsylvania by 34,000.
Yes, if only she hadnt run what was likely the worst presidential campaign in our lifetimes, Hillary Clinton could have stitched together around 80,000 votes and could have been sitting in the Oval Office right now.
The interesting question is: How would America in July 2017 be different under a President Clinton rather than a President Trump?
The astonishing answer, if you really think it through, is: not all that different when it comes to policy.
Lets face it: With the exception of the Supreme Court appointment and confirmation of Neil Gorsuch, Trump has astoundingly little in the accomplishments column especially for a president whose party controls both houses of Congress.
Were nearing the end of July without a health-care reform bill. Theres no tax cut. Trump has his Cabinet in place but hundreds of sub-cabinet positions have yet to be filled. His flashy effort to restrict immigration from Muslim countries ran afoul of the courts and is only now being implemented in part.
Yes, Trump struck Syria in response to the use of chemical weapons in April but President Hillary might well have done the same.
So Trump has gotten very little done. The same would have been true if Hillary had won.
She would have taken office with Congress in exactly the same configuration that Trump founda four-seat Republican majority in the Senate and a 24-seat GOP advantage in the House of Representatives.
What would the Republicans have done in the Hillary era so far? They would have sought to stymie her, or challenge her.
They would have rejected any effort she would have made to revise ObamaCare in favor of outright repeal a repeal she would have vetoed.
They might have sought to block some of her Cabinet appointments and slowed down the process of filling the departments, but she would certainly have sent far more nominees up to Capitol Hill for confirmation than Trump has and would have gotten most of them through.
Once again, the sole major difference would have been in the composition of the Supreme Court. But its very possible that by this point, Hillarys nominee would not yet have been confirmed and Gorsuchs first few votes on the court did not result in critical policy changes that will affect Americas future.
The most significant case on which he sat, a religious-freedom issue, was decided seven to two, so if he hadnt been on the court and a more liberal person had been, the vote might have been six to three instead.
Gorsuch did rule on Trumps travel ban, but all the liberal justices ruled (at least partially) in Trumps favor anyway.
In the case of Hillary, her own ethically compromised self would have been sharing living quarters with her ethically compromised ex-president husband.
So what would have been different? For one thing, we would not be living through the insanely overheated Trumpian political atmosphere in Washington and throughout the culture.
Hillary is many things, and many not good things, but she is not a sower of chaos or the subject of infighting so constant that no one can even catch a breath before one weird story is displaced by another. Shes far too boring for that.
Of course, since we wouldnt ever have had to live through the insanity of the past six months, we wouldnt be aware of what we were missing.
And in one respect, the Hillary White House would very much resemble the Trump White House in that there would be an ongoing melodrama surrounding the high jinks of Hillarys family.
With Trump, we have his son and his daughter and his son-in-law conducting themselves in an unprecedented manner at the highest reaches of power. In the case of Hillary, her own ethically compromised self would have been sharing living quarters with her ethically compromised ex-president husband.
Given how readily he (and she) were willing to raise money for their foundation using her position at the State Department, would it really be the case those efforts would have ceased on Bills behalf at least when the Clintons returned to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?
Liberals are obsessed with the possible violations of the emoluments clause with the continuing existence of the Trump Organization and conservatives would have been just as consumed with the question of the behavior of Clinton Inc. during a Clinton administration.
The corporate donors and wealthy donors and foreign donors who filled the coffers of the Clinton Foundation would all be hovering around the Hillary White House. Their quest for access, the successes they scored in winning that access and the jobs they secured as a reward for their loyalty would be grist for media mills and congressional committees.
We would have been awash in a scandal narrative that would not be quite as breathless or bonkers as the Trump White House helps to generate but would have been disturbing and unpleasant.
Moreover, the questions raised about the unprecedented nature of the Trump presidency would have been raised by the dynastic Clinton White House, featuring a candidate who got elected despite her e-mail scandals and the spouse who was only the second president in history to have been impeached.
In the end, then, this what if scenario suggests July 2017 under a Clinton presidency might have been distressingly similar to what were living through right now. In either timeline, the United States evidently has a rendezvous with destiny it doesnt deserve but which it has visited upon itself.
See the rest here:
Hillary's White House would be no different from Trump's - New York Post