I am repeating last week’s thought experiment, this
time for Hillary Clinton. Like last
time, I’ll assume Clinton is a serious political leader. I will assume she wins
November’s election. I will assume she follows
through on her acceptance speech agenda. I will even assume she is successful
in implementing her proposed policies. These are all big “ifs,” but they allow
us to imagine America under the leadership of Hillary Clinton, and to compare
that image with Catholic Social Teaching (CST).
Based on Clinton’s own words, we can expect the
following;
In Foreign Policy: We can expect continued war (especially air war and
drone war) and occupation aimed at nation building and regime change. We can also expect more war against ISIS and other
terrorist organizations. We can expect support for allies, and special support
for Israel, with no stated concern for the Palestinians or their supporters. We
can expect continued tense relations with Russia. We can expect trade tensions
with China. But we can also expect
strong efforts at diplomatic solutions, as with Iran.
The first of these expectations is clearly out of step
with Catholic Social Teaching, as almost all Catholic leaders opposed the
invasion of Iraq and other similar attempts at regime change or nation building. Most of the other elements are also more or
less in conflict with CST too, except Clinton’s preference for diplomatic
agreements over confrontation.
Catholic Social Teaching has also long shown a major
concern for the relation between the advanced industrial nations and the
developing world. On this significant issue, Clinton (like Trump) was totally silent
during her speech. Her concern about globalization’s impact focuses, not
on developing nations, but on the US. We can expect her to fight for our middle
class, but not against global poverty. In this respect, both Clinton and Trump
talk about solving terror without solving poverty, as if terror has a military
solution—a position Pope Francis has soundly rejected.
On Public Safety and Social Harmony: Here Clinton promised many things: no wall with
Mexico, a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, reform of the
criminal justice system to build trust in communities and defend rights, common
sense gun reforms, no ban on any religion or religious group, comprehensive
immigration reform, and protection for the right to choose abortion. Except for
this last, most of Clinton’s promises match Catholic Social Teaching. On other
“culture war” issues where we could expect more conflicts with CST, she was
mostly silent.
Clinton’s promises on immigration are especially supportive
of CST. The Church regards migration “for a better life” as a human right, a
concept unknown to Trump based on his words.
On Economics. Based on her words, we can
expect many initiatives to reduce income inequality. Clinton called on Wall
Street, corporations, and the very rich to begin “paying their fair
share”—which sounds like higher taxes for the 1%. She also promised to end tax
breaks and loopholes and collect taxes from corporations that outsource jobs.
We can expect a “living wage” minimum wage. We can expect large government
investments to create jobs (she promised the largest investment since World War
II, which seemed to imply New Deal-style public works jobs). We can expect
easier credit for small businesses.
All this fits (somewhat roughly) with Catholic Social
Teaching’s long-standing critique of “unbridled capitalism,” its calls for
income equality and even the redistribution of wealth (Pope Francis labels
income inequality “the worst of all social ills”). This contrasts with Trump,
who relied entirely on unchecked market forces to improve the economy, and
promised to reduce taxes for the wealthy.
On Climate Change. Saying “I believe in science,” Clinton promised to
fight climate change and in the process create many new jobs in clean energy. This
contrasts with Trump’s total silence about climate change. Clinton thus supports the same perspective as
Catholic Social Teaching in general. But she failed to address the specific
concerns of Pope Francis in his major encyclical “Laudato Si,” in which he linked climate change to nearly all
global and social unrest, including global poverty and terror. In short,
Clinton is against climate change while Trump ignores it—but neither of them
connects the dots to our global situation they way Francis has.
On Social Welfare and the Safety Net: Based on Clinton’s words, we can expect more good
paying jobs, good schools for all, tuition free college for middle class
Americans and debt-free college for all, more training for people to learn
trades, and an expansion of Social Security. This contrasts with Trump, who
said almost nothing about policies regarding jobs, student debt, poverty,
social security, etc. Rather, his speech implied that he expects the unbridled
forces of the market to resolve all social problems. Catholic Social Teaching,
meanwhile, has long rejected this idea, which Pope Francis himself has referred
to as a fraud. So in this contrast Clinton’s positions on social welfare are a
closer match with CST.
On the Supreme Court: Trump offered a generic promise to name more
conservative justices to the Supreme Court, but Clinton was much more specific.
With Clinton, we can expect justices prepared to defend Roe v Wade, expand
voting rights, and reverse Citizens United—in short, the most “progressive”
SCOTUS in a generation. From the point of view of Catholic Social Teaching,
this would be a mixed blessing, raising the prospect of the reinforcing Roe v
Wade, but at the same time holding the prospect of many decisions promoting the
advancement of a freer, more just society.
In short, the America we can imagine under Clinton mixes
many ideas congenial to Catholic Social Teaching (especially on issues like
inequality, immigration, and social welfare), some other issues where she
simply remains silent (like climate change’s global impact, and third world
development), and some issues (like war and abortion) where her position
conflicts implicitly or explicitly with Catholic Social Teaching.
Compared to my Trump posting, I believe my assumptions
this time are a bit less problematic. While
I do not find Trump a serious leader, I do find Clinton a potentially strong
leader and I do expect her to win. But, given Washington’s gridlock, I doubt
that she will succeed in achieving many of her goals, though she will
undoubtedly pursue them vigorously. Yet it is still instructive to understand
exactly what Clinton (and Trump) are proposing for our country, and how it
fits--or does not fit--with the propositions of our faith.
© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2016
