What Hillary Clinton really thinks about gridlock in Washington

Why is our government so bad? And what can we do to fix it?

Both candidates in this year’s presidential race have views on how to make Washington more effective. Republican Donald Trump has lambasted a “rigged system” and pledged to basically dismantle it. Democrat Hillary Clinton is more nuanced, with a series of better-government proposals that would basically amount to incremental reforms within the existing system.

Voters wonder, of course, what Clinton really thinks, and she herself has said that politicians “need both a public and a private position.” So what’s her real view on gridlock and how to fix it?

She may have given it in a paid speech delivered at a Goldman Sachs conference in Arizona on October 29, 2013. In a transcript of the speech, published by Wikileaks, Clinton refers several times to “obstructionists” who prevent legislation from passing in Congress. She doesn’t identify such people, but one can reasonably assume she’s thinking of legislators such as Republican Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the senate majority leader who has blocked many of President Barack Obama’s initiatives, including the nomination of Judge Merrick Garland for the Supreme Court. (Many Republicans would contend that Democratic Senator Harry Reid of Nevada was just as much of an obstructionist when he was majority leader during the last two years of the George W. Bush presidency).

[Related: Hillary Clinton’s speeches to Goldman Sachs will bore you to death.]

In the passage below, Clinton addresses the issue of gridlock. We trimmed the first part of the question and the first part of her answer, which was less forthcoming, but anybody who wants to see the full transcript can click here. We did not edit the portion of Clinton’s remarks included here:

Question: “How do we reframe what we talk about in terms of the good that America does in the world and bringing about the message of hope? Even in this discussion what we talked about, we talk mostly about fear and threat. Can you speak to us about the hope and the good that we bring to the world?”

Hillary Clinton: “What I really resent most about the obstructionists is they have such a narrow view of America. They see America in a way that is no longer reflective of the reality of who we are. They’re against immigration for reasons that have to do with the past, not the future. They can’t figure out how to invest in the future, so they cut everything. You know, laying off, you know, young researchers, closing labs instead of saying, we’re better at this than anybody in the world, that’s where our money should go. They just have a backward-looking view of America. And they play on people’s fears, not on people’s hopes, and they have to be rejected. I don’t care what they call themselves. I don’t care where they’re from. They have to be rejected because they are fundamentally unAmerican. And every effort they make to undermine and obstruct the functioning of the government is meant to send a signal that we can’t do anything collectively. You know, that we aren’t a community, a nation that shares values.

[Related: What Hillary Clinton really thinks about Wall Street.]

I mean, American was an invention. It was an intellectual invention, and we have done pretty well for all these years. And these people want to just undermine that very profound sense of who we are. And we can’t let them do that.

So it’s not just about politics or partisanship. It really goes to the heart of what it means to be American. And I’ll just say that I’ve been reading a lot of de Tocqueville lately because he was a pretty smart guy, and he traveled around and looked at this country and came up with some profound observations about us. But he talked about how unique early Americans were because they mixed a rugged individualism with a sense of, you know, community well being. So the individual farmer would quit farming for a day to go somewhere to help raise a barn, for example. People understood that the individual had to be embedded in a community in order to maximize—if you were a merchant, you needed people to sell to. If you were a farmer, you needed people to buy your products. And he talked about the habits of the heart. And he said, that’s what set us apart from anybody else. And, you know, I think there’s a lot of truth to that. We are a unique breed, and people come here from all over and kind of sign on to the social compact of what it means to be an American.

And we can’t afford to let people, for their own personal reasons, whether they be political, commercial, or whatever, undermine that. So, yeah, there’s a lot of to be said. And we need to say it more, and it doesn’t just need to come from, you know, people on platforms. It needs to come from everybody.”

Rick Newman is the author of four books, including Rebounders: How Winners Pivot from Setback to Success. Follow him on Twitter: @rickjnewman.