Can Hillary Clinton be pulled to the left?

At Donald Trump’s wedding

Democrats who support Bernie Sanders, but don’t expect him to win, say that his contribution will be to pull Hillary Clinton to the left.

If she has to be pulled to the left, that means her heart lies elsewhere.

She may change in campaign rhetoric in response to Sanders.  But if you know that is the reason for the rhetoric, how much can you really trust it.

Big Wall Street banks and other industry groups have literally given her millions of dollars in speaking fees—the content of which she refuses to reveal.

At Nancy Reagan’s funeral

She challenges opponents to give an instance in which a money contribution changed her decision.  Of course that’s not how the system works.  Elected and appointed officials make decisions based on their own judgment, and then those who benefit from those decisions do things that express their gratitude for services rendered and their anticipation of future benefits.

The Clintons are friends of the Trumps, the Bushes and Henry Kissinger.  How much of an opponent of the financial and political elite can she really be?

At a 2009 awards ceremony

Hillary Clinton is in the upper 1 percent of income earners, but the people she hangs out with are in the upper 0.1 percent.  In her social circles, she may well find herself the most liberal person in the room and the least well-off person in the room.  That still doesn’t mean she has anything in common with real reformers or real people struggling to make ends meet.

For the past 25 years, Clinton-Obama Democrats have told us that what we have now is the best we can hope for, and we should vote for them because the alternative is something worse.

If you believe that, by all means vote for Hillary Clinton.  But don’t kid yourself that she represents fundamental change or can be pushed into representing fundamental change

If she were to become an opponent of the financial oligarchy and an advocate of peace, she would not be “pulled to the left.”  She would have undergone a radical, life-changing conversion.

Hillary Clinton speaks to the plutocrats

Hillary Clinton in 2013 received $1.8 million in speaking fees from Wall Street banks and investment firms—$675,000 from Goldman Sachs alone.

HIllary Clinton

Her husband Bill has received $7.7 million from speeches to banks in the past 15 years.  In all, CNN reported yesterday, the Clintons have received $153 million over the years in speaking fees to various groups.  That’s more than many middle-class people make in a lifetime.

Here is CNN’s breakdown of Hillary Clinton’s Wall Street speaking fees, all in 2013.

• Goldman Sachs, three speeches, $675,000 total
• Bank of America / Merrill Lynch, two speeches, $485,000 total
• UBS (a Swiss bank), one speech, $225,000
• Morgan Stanley, one speech, $225,000

Here is the breakdown of Bill Clinton’s Wall Street fees, over a period from 2001 to 2014.

• Goldman Sachs, nine speeches, $1,550,000
• UBS, nine speeches, $1,690,000
• Bank of America / Merrill Lynch, four speeches, $770,000
• Citicorp, four speeches, $700,000
• Morgan Stanley, one speech, $225,000