So Long, Willy

Sometimes it’s just hard to call it a day.  To know when to say “when.”  To, to coin a phrase, “Just say ‘no.’” 

Take, for example, Johnny Unitas.  One of the National Football League’s all-time greats.  Records, rings, Hall of Fame.  From 1956 to 1972, Unitas was a Baltimore Colt. 

And then he became a San Diego Charger.  For about a disastrous minute – four games.  To this day, his fans must close their eyes tight and shake their heads to get the image of Unitas in a Chargers uniform out of their minds. 

You can close your eyes airtight and shake your head until you pass out, but there is no chance of losing sight of Bill and Hillary Clinton. 

The Democratic National Convention once more offered America what has become an odd formality — an event less political than ecclesiastical, with Bill and Hillary Clinton as the High Priest and Priestess of a cult that just won’t die.   As the Clintons took the stage, one could almost hear the collective sigh of weary delegates asking, "Again?"  

Yes, again.   

For Bill, it was his 12th Democrat National Convention.  12.  A span of 44 years.  It’s not hard to imagine that a huge swath of the delegates on the floor weren’t even born when Clinton first took to the podium. 

Still, by this time, we’re all more than used to the ol’ Bill Clinton routine.  And that’s what he delivered.  The folksy charm, the well-practiced empathy – he’s felt a lot of pain over the years.  He stood, again, reminding us of the good old days when the budget was balanced, the economy was booming, and the Oval Office was one good time after another.  Heh heh. 

Hillary stepped up and gave a speech that rivaled the best of Disneyland’s animatronics, if Disneyland had a Hall of Almost Presidents.  It was polished, it was pointed, and it was utterly disconnected from the realities of the political landscape in which the Democrats find themselves. 
 
The Clintons, particularly Bill, it seems, are not so much political figures as they are relics – artifacts of a not-so-distant era when the Democratic Party could rely on the charisma of its leaders to sell the content of its policies.  It was, after all, Bill Clinton who could claim he reformed welfare.  Thirty years ago.   

The Democratic Party of 2024 is far, far from the Party of Bill Clinton.  It’s not really much of the Party of Hillary, either.  Much like the Republican Party of Donald Trump is far from the Party of George W Bush. 

DemVersion 2.024 remains tethered to a political operating system that, to some extent, has become more a liability than an asset. The Clintons, feet anchored solidly in the past, are idolized by a faction of the party with a fervor that rivals the GOP’s devotion to Trump.  Bill can still raise money.  That folksy schtick. 

But Bill Clinton spent eight years in the White House – memorable, to be sure – sounding more Trump-like than Harris/Walz.  He made a habit of defending America’s right to have borders.  He “cut spending” and actually created a budget surplus.  Marriage, Clinton oft repeated, was between a man and woman.  These are ghosts of Democrat platforms past.  

Yet, while Trump’s grip on the GOP is fueled by a base that has rewritten the party’s DNA, the Clintons’ influence is a more nostalgic affair, a kind of political mythology that keeps the party anchored to a version of itself that no longer exists. 

One can only wonder why the Democrats can’t seem to let go.  Or if they even should? The party is more Barack and Michelle Obama than Bill and Hillary, honestly, and the Reagan Democrats that Bill worked so hard to reclaim have been shoved into the ether. 

The Democrats, in their struggle to move on, are stuck in a kind of political purgatory, endlessly replaying the greatest hits of the 1990s while the world has moved on to new challenges. 
 
The difference between the two parties’ battles is stark.  Trump’s hold on the GOP is a raw, almost primal force – a reflection of a base that has remade the party in his image.  Although, a great chunk of Trump’s base, it should be remembered, was looking for someone like him.  MAGA grew to a great degree out of the Tea Party movement.   

The Tea Party sprung whole cloth as a reaction to Obamacare – specifically the edict of the government mandate.  The idea of Washington dictating Americans to join or be fined was unprecedented, and the Tea Party folks took to the streets in protest.  For most, it was the first time they had ever been involved in a vocal political movement. 

They were vilified by the media and Democrats, and, unfortunately, the Republican establishment.  Perhaps Republicans thought they’d go away.  They didn’t, and by 2016 a larger, more vocal and more conservative Tea Party was waiting at the bottom of the escalator for Trump to descend. 

 The Clintons, on the other hand, are the political equivalent of a legacy software system -- outdated, prone to glitches, but too embedded to uninstall without significant IT work orders.  The GOP, at least, has the excuse that Trump still energizes a large swath of its electorate.  The Clintons?  Their appeal is confined to a shrinking segment of the faithful unwilling to accept that their party – once the voice of blue-collar, middle-class America – has pushed itself to the far-left end of the political envelope. 
 
Over the next 70 days, both parties face a similar dilemma: how to move forward when the past refuses to stay buried. For the Republicans, the answer lies in whether they can find a way to channel Trumpism into something more sustainable.   

For the Democrats, media talking heads believe they must break free from the Clintons’ grip and find a new direction.  But the Democrats have been on a new path for years.  From the moment Barack Obama declared in 2008 that the party was about to “fundamentally change” the United States, Democrats have determinedly charted a course hard left.   

Once the party’s saviors, there is really no room at the Inn for the Clintons.  It’s time for Bill and Hillary to wave so long.