Hillary Clinton is not a declared candidate for president, but she sure is acting like one.
She was in Atlanta on Friday to accept the “Realizing The Dream” award at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and after being introduced as “president”, Clinton took on the tone of a black preacher.
“We have a maternal mortality rate crisis in this country,” she told attendees, adding, “it’s tragic and wrong that black women are more likely to die than white women.”
“It is a lot harder to save mothers and babies when you don’t have access to healthcare,” Clinton said as someone in the audience yelled, “That’s right!”
“It’s also hard even when you have access and nobody’s listening to you,” she said.
“It is absolutely beyond my understanding that this state we are in today,” she continued, referring to Georgia, “has not expanded Medicaid to take care of the hundreds of thousands of low-income mothers and their babies who need healthcare and should be able to access it.”
Hillary praised the SCLC, “It just made my heart swell that you’re still at it. That you have not folded up your tent and disappeared because you know what, we need you now more than ever.”
RELATED: Hillary introduced as ‘president’, plays to empty tables in Atlanta
“There is no doubt that the struggles we face right now at this point in our history are as consequential as those that were faced back in the late 1950s when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. took the helm of this storied organization.
“And it is not a time to look backwards. It is a time to reassert our commitment to the future that will realize the dream, but to recognize the work is never over,” she said.
Clinton said people may be surprised that the same arguments are being had, “but that is the hand we have been dealt.”
“There are so many noble fights to be waged, because the truth is, when our civil and human rights are being trampled on and marginalized every single day, the need for a just and humane society becomes even starker,” Hillary told the audience.
“The need for not only leaders but foot soldiers.”
Clinton defended Rep. Ilhan Omar and the other members of “The Squad” from Trump, saying he sent “racist tweets meant to demean not only members of Congress but all people of color, all women and all immigrants.
“We are better than this but we better start proving it, and not just saying it,” she said to applause.
Clinton called it an “out of date notion” that some people can be “more American” than others.
“But that can’t just be a battle fought out on Twitter. That battle has to be fought and won at the ballot box,” she said, “which is the only place that matters.”
She sought to strike a different tone from Trump’s tweets.
“We have to recommit ourselves to love, and compassion, and empathy. We will have doors slammed in our faces. We will have eyes rolled at our rhetoric. We will have people dismiss and demean us, but at the end, standing up for those fundamental values is more important than scoring cheap political points,” Clinton said.
She went on to urge attendees to “keep the faith” because “we are stronger together,” invoking her 2016 campaign slogan.
Leave a Comment
COMMENTS POLICY: We have no tolerance for messages of violence, racism, vulgarity, obscenity or other such discourteous behavior. Thank you for contributing to a respectful and useful online dialogue.