HRC took, and will likely to continue to take, some heat for saying “we are going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.” She later apologized to a protestor for the comment and explained herself.
This is HRC’s “you didn’t build that” or “cling to their guns” moment – a sentence taken out of context from a statement that was unarguably sympathetic to the people who will be protesting it.
To clear it up, the larger context of the line was that: 1) moving to clean energy needs to happen; 2) making that move will dislocate a lot of coal miners; and critically 3) we need policies to make sure that clean energy jobs replace the coal mining jobs in those areas. If you don’t believe it, watch the full clip.
Did you watch it? You need to, because the problem isn’t what she said, but very subtly how she said it, and how she phrased it.
There are many reasons people are deeply suspicious of the New Democrat/Clinton approach to income equality, economic opportunity, and growth in general. One of the fairest is that the approach is too technocratic. Clinton solutions (from husband, wife, or the Ivy League think tank) are typically: more education, and market forces. “Change is inevitable” as WJC reminded us during NAFTA and rather than fight it, or hold the line on certain issues in the face of it, we should re-train our workforce and nudge market forces with incentives (credits) and disincentives (taxes called something else).
To affluent voters who appreciate elegant solutions, took microeconomics, and have (seemingly) unthreatened careers, this is yummy brain candy (“win-win-win”!). However, if you’ve got an education but are struggling, don’t put a lot of stock in micro-economic wizardry, and have no idea what’s in store for your profession, you’re suspicious of the fancy talk. Break up the banks sounds clean and likely to work without hurting you. Risk profiles on shadow banks sounds like “wha?” and maybe misdirection. No more trade agreements which sends jobs overseas, hurray! Education grants, economic zones, change management policies . . . f*!# you.
If we assume that the Clinton/Schumer Dems are in fact committed to helping poor and working families, then “close your eyes and listen” to the clip again, or at least that fateful sentence: “We are going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.” I hear a proud technocrat: “we are going to do such a kick-ass job at clean energy, that we’re going to wipe out this industry.” Wiping out fossil fuels is a good outcome, but the construction and delivery of the sentence borders on gleeful. (There’s almost an exclamation point.)
Compare that construction to this: “We need clean energy for a lot of reasons: independence from foreign oil, public health, the water our children drink and the air they breathe, and protection of our environment. But switching to clean energy is going to have the unintended consequence of dislocating coal miners and disrupting communities dependent on mining companies. We need to ensure incomes for those people and communities who depend on coal.”
(I used “unintended consequences” because it’s already comfortable language for HRC. More to the point, it highlights language that she could have used, knows how to use when talking about the crime bill, but didn’t use here – her technocratic side comes through.) (I’m aware that there’s a tangential connection to clean energy and Flint, but, hey, play the game, right?)
This sounds like parsing, but the differences run deep. Rather than putting people out of business (ha, look how we crushed it!), you’re dislocating and disrupting (“and that’s bad”). It’s a very human-centered way of talking about economic problems without being a wonk.
This is the kind of thing that scares me most about HRC in the general. If she takes up the fight on income inequality and economic disruption, which I think she must, can she do it in a credible way that reaches humans and not just well-educated liberals? Say what you will about Sanders’s lack of subtlety and Trump’s lack of substance, neither candidate leaves room about their belief in what they’re saying.
God, I hope she can pull this off.
In at The End of The World 
Yes. If this election is a national referendum on technocracy and expertise–populism against liberalism, in the broadest sense of both terms–we may be toast. Then again, there’s nothing worse than a technocrat trying to sound human, and that’s always sounded especially bad to me on HRC. Nobody should ever follow my political advice, which is always “be who you are and come out swinging,” because it never works. During the WJC-Gingrich struggle, I kept saying “OK, that’s it, take the gloves off, address the nation, use the bully pulpit, slap this clown down.” Like I wanted Bill to give a Carter-like malaise speech. But Bill, being smart, just kept doing rope-a-dope until he won. Still. If I had advice for HRC, I’d say embrace the expertise, make the case for ability and experience, connect it to being the first woman to ever get here. Don’t be all triumphalist about it, but if that’s what you’ve got, use what you’ve got. Then again, to me, failure is always an option. Not to these people.
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Now I’m freaked out again. Even at his most, WJC and his strategy never got him a majority. She can’t fake things (CPT springs to mind), but maybe it’s dialing down stuff (see woman card). Oi.
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Watched the clip. Even worse, after she makes the comment about putting coal companies out of work, she kinda smiles and looks at someone off stage and says, “right, Tim?” The rest of it was fine. Look, she’s not going to win West Virginia. Or Kentucky. Coal is not that big a constituency anymore in PA or OH. She should either go all in and say, look, history and technology are passing coal by, but we are hear to help. Or, she should just something like, “coal will continue to be an important part of our energy mix for the foreseeable future” and leave it at that.
Agree with your larger point. WJC would have had the room in tears with his empathy about their pain, even while he and Tim were working up clean energy policies that will cost miners their jobs.
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And anyway, what’s she supposed to tell coal miners? That they can look forward to the “high-quality jobs of the 21st century”? That was Bill’s line. Nobody will believe it now. She’s not getting the coal-miner vote.
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Just saw a clip of her this morning. Back in WVA, telling a group of coal miners that she’s not necessarily expecting to win their votes. She said something like, “let’s be honest. This is not a part of the country where Democratic candidates for president have won a lot of votes” and then went on to talk about how, regardless of that, she was there to support them. The clip was too short, but it seemed sincere, honest, and probably effective. It also wasn’t her up on a stage, but rather in a room just talking to people,
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Well, that’s sort of encouraging. She’ll never be able to do Bill feeling the pain, but “let’s be honest,” isn’t so bad.
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Doesn’t have to be Bill, she has great moments (check out the first ten and last ten minutes of “Another Round”. She’s likable, impressive, wholly inspiring in her strength and intelligence and commitment. The middle part not so much. I often wonder (really, I do, wonder often) what she would have been had she had a career without WJC.
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Yeah, I think she’s always super impressive, and genuinely likeable, when making real points, in debates, etc. But I always find her efforts to be relateable, pander, etc., notably cringeworthy. I’ve been wondering if I find *her* efforts to do that stuff more nauseating than other candidates’–they all do it–because of … deeply ingrained sexism. And I think so, actually.
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