May 20, 2018

Hillary Clinton Talks About Trump, Facts, and Fascism in Yale Speech

She said America is facing a “full-fledged crisis in our democracy”

Today, Hillary Clinton delivered Yale University’s annual Class Day speech, urging the Class of ’18 to keep organizing to roll back the “full-fledged crisis in our democracy.” But before she got serious, she kicked things off with a dig at a scandal-embroiled political adversary who remained unnamed throughout her remarks: 

Clinton, who graduated from Yale Law School in 1973, hit some common graduation speaker themes—citing Alexis de Tocqueville and Benjamin Franklin, urging grads to “find ways to disagree respectfully” and embrace “radical empathy.” But her comments became more pointed as she described the current political situation, particularly the Trump administration’s disregard for facts, data, and real news. To bolster her point, she name checked her fellow former secretaries of state, quoting Madeleine Albright’s new book, Fascism, and praising Rex Tillerson for his recent criticism —”perhaps a tad late”—of his former boss. 

Clinton also gave shoutouts to the #MeToo movement and the Parkland students, and called for “common sense gun safety legislation as soon as we can get it.”

Clinton urged grads and anyone else listening to combat the Trump administration’s disregard for facts by “supporting great journalists and their reporting”—and by subscribing to a newspaper. Disappointingly, she did not mention magazines.

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate