Hillary Clinton argued in a speech Wednesday that her opponent, Donald Trump, was a threat to democracy and well on his way to turning the Republican Party into the “party of Trump.”
She criticized the real estate mogul in a speech in Springfield, Illinois, where she called for racial unity following the slaying of five police officers in Dallas and the fatal police shootings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. She then turned her focus to Trump, whose campaign she said was sending an “ugly, dangerous message” to America.
She pointed to Trump’s proposed ban on Muslims, his plan to deport thousands of undocumented immigrants and his habit of demeaning women when she said that he campaign was as “divisive as any we’ve seen in our lifetimes.”
“This man is the nominee of the party of Lincoln. We are watching it become a party of Trump,” she said. “And that’s not just a huge loss for our democracy, it is a threat to it.”
Clinton spoke from the Old State House, where Abraham Lincoln delivered his famous “House Divided” speech, and made several historical references to the former President.
She went on to say that Trump’s campaign rhetoric amounted to fear-mongering and asked the audience to imagine if Trump didn’t have just “Twitter and cable news” to go after his critics, but also the IRS and the military.
“The very first thing a new president does is take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution. To do that with any meaning, you’ve got to know what’s in it. And you have to respect what’s in it,” she said. “I do wish Donald Trump would listen to other people once in a while. He might actually learn something.”
