Hillary Clinton is pushing the envelope of patience with her chronic griping about her failed 2016 presidential bid, Democratic campaign insiders told The Hill. They say it’s time she shut up and put up about her defeat to Donald Trump because the sour grapes are bad for the Democratic Party.
“She’s annoying me. She’s annoying everyone, as far as I can tell,” a former Clinton backer said Tuesday. “Who lets her say these things?”
Clinton was revisiting her favorite topic last weekend as she visited India for a conference, this time saying states that supported Trump were of a lower socio-economic status than the ones that supported her. It was the “basket of deplorables” remark all over again.
She was also suggesting that if a woman votes for Trump it is largely because some dominating male in her life “believes you should.”
But a raft of unnamed Clinton allies reportedly told The Hill that this kind of talk has to end because it’s killing the party.
“She put herself in a position where [Democrats] from states that Trump won will have to distance themselves from her even more,” a former senior aide to Clinton told the Hill. “That’s a lot of states.”
Apparently Democratic strategists were prodding Clinton to cease the anti-Trump diatribes — and then she released her book “What Happened” and the cycle of resentment just increased tenfold.
As a former senior aide to Barack Obama told The Hill, “If these statements are a form of catharsis, it would be in the Democratic Party’s best interest for her to get these out of her system soon.”
The aide suggested it was time To “look forward to 2020 and how to unify the party, not continue to re-litigate the past.”
One Democrat who did speak to The Hill on the record suggested people may have voted for Trump because they liked his message.
”And I understand — I’m not terrified — but I understand why he may win again in 2020,” said Philippe Reines, a stalwart Clinton communications aide.