Failed Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said right-wing populism in the U.S. and Europe reflects some people’s psychological need for a dictator, according to an interview with a British newspaper published Thursday.
While Mrs. Clinton didn’t directly mention President Trump in that part of her interview, she doubled down on the recent Democratic tendency to explain political opposition as the result of mental and/or moral flaws — see also, former President Barack Obama’s “bitterly clinging to guns and religion” explanation, or her own “basket of deplorables” comments.
Mrs. Clinton said right-wing populists in the U.S. and Europe meet “a psychological as much as political yearning to be told what to do, and where to go, and how to live and have their press basically stifled and so be given one version of reality.
She also said that perhaps Americans who vote for such candidates — and she was explicit elsewhere in the interview that she sees Mr. Trump as an example of right-wing anti-immigration populism — simply don’t want to live in a democracy any more.
“The whole American system was designed so that you would eliminate the threat from a strong, authoritarian king or other leader and maybe people are just tired of it. They don’t want that much responsibility and freedom. They want to be told what to do and where to go and how to live … and only given one version of reality,” the former first lady said.
“I don’t know why at this moment that is so attractive to people, but it’s a serious threat to our freedom and our democratic institutions, and it goes very deep and very far,” she concluded.
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• Victor Morton can be reached at vmorton@washingtontimes.com.
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