Hillary clinton

Win or lose, the Trump phenomenon isn’t going away

I felt for the first time on Sunday that Donald Trump might actually win the US presidential election. I’m not the only one moving in that direction. Hillary Clinton looks in bad shape, and while it’s one thing to be seen as dishonest, to be dishonest and sickly is not a great combination. More mostly bad news in polls this AM for Clinton, whose chances are down to 63%. https://t.co/WLXtJodIzD pic.twitter.com/ptYAT144mC — Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) September 15, 2016 September 11, 2016 was, as Damian Thompson says, the day the conspiracy theorists were proved correct, for once. Conspiracies about Hillary’s health were popular not just because the Clintons have consistently been dishonest throughout their

Long life | 15 September 2016

It’s been a very patriotic weekend, ablaze with Union flags. In London there was the Last Night of the Proms at the Royal Albert Hall, and in South Northamptonshire there was the ninth annual ‘Village at War’ festival at Stoke Bruerne on the Grand Union Canal. I watched the first event on television but attended the second in person, because Stoke Bruerne is where I spend my weekends. These events, of course, were rather different in scale, but both evoked times of Britain’s greater glory and both took place under the shadow of the Brexit referendum in June. My own vote was in favour of remaining in the European Union,

Portrait of the week | 15 September 2016

Home Schools in England would have the right to select pupils by ability, under plans outlined by Theresa May, the Prime Minister. New grammar schools would take quotas of poor pupils or help run other schools, a Green Paper proposed. ‘We already have selection in our school system — and it’s selection by house price, selection by wealth. That is simply unfair,’ Mrs May said in a speech. Sir Michael Wilshaw, the chief inspector of schools, said the idea that poor children would benefit from a return of grammar schools was ‘tosh’. Oversubscribed Catholic schools which wished to expand would be able to choose all their additional pupils on grounds

Trump’s forgotten people

The fit, or fugue, that Hillary Clinton suffered during a 9/11 memorial service in Manhattan on Sunday left mysteries in its wake. One concerns Mrs Clinton’s apparently serious medical problem. Another concerns her opponent Donald Trump, who appears eager to run her campaign for her while she convalesces. When felled, Mrs Clinton was two weeks into a public-relations blitz designed to tar Trump as a bigot. In August, she accused him of making the Republican party a vehicle for racism and the ‘hardline right-wing nationalism’ of Vladimir Putin and Nigel Farage. At an open-to-the-press dinner for gay donors two days before her incident, she used vivid and memorable language. ‘To

Hillary Clinton’s health crisis was a victory for conspiracy theorists – on 9/11, of all days

‘Can we just stop talking about Hillary Clinton’s health now?’, snapped Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post on September 6. The whole discussion was ‘totally ridiculous’, a smear campaign by conspiracy theorists, and to believe otherwise you had to assume that her doctor was lying. Five days later, and even Cillizza thinks it’s permissible to talk about Clinton’s health, having now published a piece with the headline ‘Hillary Clinton’s health just became a real issue in the presidential campaign’. Because yesterday – September 11, of all days – the conspiracy theorists got something right. Only after the Democratic candidate was forced to leave a national 9/11 commemoration – and just think how desperately ill she must have

Hillary Clinton, and other unhealthy presidential candidates

If Hillary Clinton is still unwell and proceeds to the Oval Office in November, she will not be its first incumbent suffering imperfect health.  She will not even be the first newly-elected president with pneumonia, nor the first requiring antihistamines to control their allergies.  HRC will be merely the latest in a very long line of US presidents who were much less healthy than they liked to let on. You might not even recall the first US president with pneumonia, because it killed him so very rapidly.  That was William Henry Harrison, who had difficulty adjusting to the hectic pace of the White House after his election in 1841.  Just

After Hillary Clinton’s collapse, is it time to consider the possibility of President Tim Kaine?

What if Hillary Clinton can’t run? It’s a question that must be asked, even if the New York Times and much of the American mainstream media has been unwilling to ask it. Until now, that is. Clinton’s collapse – or ‘medical episode’ – during a 9/11 memorial service has brought the issue of her health to everybody’s attention. Americans will be asking themselves how, if she can’t make it through a memorial service, she will cope with the rigours of four years as Commander-in-chief. Moreover, the conspiracy of silence surrounding her health troubles does add to the general idea that the media and the Washington elite are willing to cover

Katy Balls

Hillary Clinton leaves 9/11 memorial after suffering ‘medical episode’

Hillary Clinton has made an early exit from a 9/11 ceremony today after suffering a ‘medical episode’. The 68-year-old Democrat presidential candidate is said to have left the event abruptly, with Fox News reporting that she appeared to faint just before 10am as family members of the 2,977 victims were reading through their names. According to a witness at the scene, Clinton’s ‘knees buckled’ and her security team rushed her to a nearby van. Clinton’s campaign have since released a statement putting her departure down to her feeling ‘overheated’. Leaving her daughter Chelsea’s apartment this afternoon, Clinton told reporters she was ‘feeling great’. However despite her words, this situation will play into Donald Trump’s

Are Isis Islamic? Hillary Clinton seems to think so

Here’s a strange thing. In a TV interview on Thursday morning, Hillary Clinton said that Isis want Donald Trump to become President of the United States. In her words, Isis are currently saying, ‘Please, Allah, make Trump president of America’. Personally I have no idea which ticket Isis will be campaigning for, come November. But I do find this all very confusing. We all learnt from President Obama that Isis have absolutely nothing to do with Islam. Indeed, when the group decapitated the American hostage Peter Kassig a couple of years ago, the Commander in Chief insisted that ‘Isil’s actions represent no faith, least of all the Muslim faith’. But

High life | 8 September 2016

I have a question for you, dear readers: is it me, or is there no newspaper or network in America that tells it like it is any more? Take, for example, the Anthony Weiner case. He is the pervert who keeps sending pictures of his penis to women over the internet, more often than not while in the company of his four-year-old son. If a man like that were married to Donald Trump’s closest assistant, The Donald would have been forced out of the race by now — no ifs or buts about it. But over on the other side, Hillary confirmed her trust in Huma Abedin, a Saudi-raised Muslim

Trump’s ‘Summer Meltdown’ is over. Is Clinton’s ‘Autumn Horror’ beginning?

Donald Trump’s ‘Summer Meltdown’ appears to be over. The latest CNN poll puts him two points ahead of Hillary Clinton, which must come as a surprise to the many pundits who have been saying ‘it’s over’ after Clinton’s polling improved over July and August, and the Donald’s deteriorated. It’s never been over. Hillary’s ‘Autumn Horror’ could be just beginning. How could this be — when every headline about the US election screams that Trump has taken his extremism too far? Well, as I wrote in the magazine last week, never underestimate the power of Hillary Hate, which is a national pastime in America. It waxes and wanes like a tide.

The Donald Trump phenomenon is nothing new in American politics

It’s hard to find someone who doesn’t have a strong opinion about Donald Trump. But it’s worth lowering the emotional temperature for a moment, taking a step back, and looking at him through the eyes of history. Has there ever been a presidential candidate like Trump? Here I’ll confine myself just to the last twenty-five elections (1916-2012), during which time the Democrats ran eighteen different candidates for president, and the Republicans seventeen. So apart from the soundbites is there anything really different about the Donald? First, Trump has never run for office. The last time a major party ran a candidate who had never entered an election was in 1952

Long life | 1 September 2016

Americans want a president with the steadiest possible finger on the nuclear button, which is why they worry about the state of health of their presidential candidates, and why nowadays candidates often try to quash doubts about their health by releasing their medical records. Sometimes they overdo it, as in the case of Senator John McCain, who published 1,173 pages of medical records when he was the Republican presidential nominee in the 2008 election. There was too much there for anyone to absorb, but Barack Obama, who won that election, made do with just a brief letter from his Chicago doctor saying he was ‘in excellent health’. Doctors of potential

Freddy Gray

The Clinton problem

′Love Trumps Hate’ has become one of Hillary Clinton’s official campaign slogans. It’s a clunky pun but you get the point. Hillary stands for love — i.e progressive global values, equality, that sort of thing. Donald Trump represents white nationalism, bigotry, all the nasty stuff. Love is good; hate is bad. Trump must be trumped, so that history can keep marching in the right direction. The trouble is, Americans don’t love Clinton. The feeling they have for her tends more towards hate, actually. Clinton’s ‘favourability ratings’ are famously bad. Between 30 and 40 per cent of Americans say they have a ‘highly unfavourable’ opinion of her. To give you a

Is Hillary Clinton the new Bob Geldof?

So far in the course of the presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton has been labelled ‘crooked’ and had her political rival Donald Trump suggest that she ought to be in jail. However, has the worst insult only just arrived? Following Nigel Farage’s speech in support of Trump, Clinton took the unusual step of speaking out to discredit Farage. The Democrat candidate described Farage as a man who had ‘stoked anti-immigrant sentiment to win the referendum to have Britain leave the European Union’. Farage has since hit back. He has suggested that Clinton should spend more time speaking to normal people as  ‘she sounds rather like Bob Geldof and can’t accept Brexit.’ If

Conrad Black joins The Spectator’s Trump vs Clinton debate

A subscription to The Spectator buys you more than just full access to the world’s greatest magazine. It also means a ticket to our subscriber-only events and debates, and our next one is in a few weeks: a debate about Clinton vs Trump, moderated by Andrew Neil, on Tuesday 18 October. Conrad Black, formerly publisher of The Spectator, will be making the case for voting Trump along with Bob Tyrell, founder and editor-in-chief of The American Spectator. The FT’s Gideon Rachman will make the case for Hillary, joined by the playwright Bonnie Greer. It’s a pretty good line up: my hunch is that this one will sell out in a couple

Trump holds the aces

Last week, the New York Times ran the page one headline ‘Pence Supports Ryan, Showing GOP Turmoil.’ There was turmoil in the Republican party because Mike Pence, its vice-presidential nominee, had endorsed the candidacy of Paul Ryan, its most powerful congressman. One wonders what the Times would have called it had the two men actually disagreed about something. The Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump had waited days before endorsing Ryan, a signal that he had not forgotten Ryan’s slowness to back him in the spring. And the whole press is now in a frenzy of negative reporting about the Trump campaign. These have been ‘weeks of self-inflicted controversies and plummeting

Hillary Clinton is a more sinister personality than Donald Trump

Watch this clip of Donald Trump suggesting yesterday that gun-rights enthusiasts might kill Hillary Clinton, and tell me, seriously, that you think he is being serious. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czvVbdmP0bk Now watch Hillary Clinton in 2011 joking about the death of Gaddafi, and tell me — honestly — who is more sinister? ‘We came, we saw, he died!’ LOL! And tell us, Hillary — what happened after that? Didn’t Libya descend into chaos? Didn’t the country become a jihadist hellpit, as well as a springboard for the refugee crisis? Yes, it did. How hilarious! Leave aside the politics for a moment: people are going to insist that Donald Trump’s awful crudeness makes him unfit to

Tom Goodenough

Did Donald Trump urge gun owners to use their weapons to stop Hillary?

Just when it looks as though Donald Trump couldn’t go any further with causing outrage, he opens his mouth. This time, the Republican candidate appeared to suggest that gun owners could do something about Hillary Clinton if she picked Supreme Court judges in favour of gun control. Here’s what he said: ‘If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do folks. Although the second amendment people, maybe there is. But I tell you what, that will be a horrible day.’ The backlash was immediate: Clinton’s campaign manager, Robby Mook, said that what Trump was saying is ‘dangerous’; even the Secret Service popped up (on Twitter of all places)

Was Britain banking on a Chris Christie presidency?

A fun game for football fans involves trying to recall players who were earmarked as future Premier League stars and fell hilariously short. There was a balletic Manchester City midfielder – I can’t remember his name – who was slated as a future England captain, only to be photographed by fans eating a takeaway a few years later, bloated and out of work. You can play the same game with this year’s presidential election. Diplomats posted to the US make it their business to work out which big beasts of American politics are most likely to become president years in the future, like football pundits predicting England teams but with slightly more riding