Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton just gave a lesson in how not to talk about the 2024 election.
During an interview on “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon” on Monday, Fallon asked Clinton to weigh in on the key predicament facing both President Joe Biden and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump as Election Day approaches: “What do you say to voters who are upset that those are the two choices?”
Clinton’s response was blunt: “Get over yourself, those are the two choices.”
After an affirming comment from Fallon — “Yeah. I love that!” — the crowd began to clap.
She continued, “You know, it’s kind of like, one is old and effective and compassionate, has a heart and really cares about people; and one is old and has been charged with 91 felonies. I don’t understand why this is even a hard choice. Really. I don’t understand it. But we have to go through the election and, hopefully, people will realize what’s at stake because it’s an existential question.”
The core problem with Clinton’s communication style in her remarks is an absence of empathy.
Clinton is right that the 2024 election has possibly existential stakes for our democracy, and that Trump and Biden are vastly different candidates. But how she expressed that view left more than a little to be desired. While she may not hold office anymore, she remains among the most prominent political figures in the country and, like any Biden surrogate, she has a responsibility to address voters’ doubts in a way that meets them where they are. She not only failed to do that — she seemed uninterested in it.
The core problem with Clinton’s communication style in her remarks is an absence of empathy. Polling indicates that Biden is cursed by the same problem as she was in 2016 — high unfavorability that puts him on roughly equal footing with Trump. Clinton not only fails to grapple with the reasons that some segments of the population might find both…
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