In his first public appearance since his wife lost the presidency, former president Bill Clinton advanced the narrative that liberals have been propagating since President Trump's election.

The key is to conflate the kind of virulent nationalism that infected Germany during the Nazi years with the simple patriotism of ordinary Americans.  It is an insidious narrative that barely disguises their attempt to portray Trump as Hitler and his supporters as mindless super-nationalists.

Politico:

"People who claim to want the nation-state are actually trying to have a pan-national movement to institutionalize separatism and division within borders all over the world," Clinton said. "It's like we're all having an identity crisis at once – and it is an inevitable consequence of the economic and social changes that have occurred at an increasingly rapid pace."

Note that Clinton talks as if the "nation state" were already dead and populists around the world are plotting to bring it back.  Liberals may support a one-world government under the auspices of the U.N., but most of the rest of us don't.  And those "economic and social changes" – runaway globalism and forced acceptance of cultural taboos – are actually opposed by significant numbers of people around the world.

Making his first major public appearance since his wife lost last year's presidential election, Clinton did not discuss President Donald Trump specifically, but warned repeatedly against "us versus them" thinking that he said has become such an active part of politics in America, in the Brexit vote, in the Philippines and throughout Europe.

The speech was the keynote at an event hosted by the Brookings Institution honoring the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

"The whole history of humankind is basically the definition of who is us and who is them, and the question of whether we should all live under the same set of rules," Clinton said. He added that often, people "have found more political success and met the deep psychic needs people have had to feel that their identity requires them to be juxtaposed against someone else."

What a load of crap.  Trump's political success – and the success of populists in Europe – is the direct result of a realistic appraisal of various threats to the economic and personal security of ordinary citizens.  What that is "juxtaposed against" is the liberal desire to place "diversity" and open borders over the simple, everyday need of citizens to feel safe.

Clinton's speech was given in honor of the late Israeli leader Itzak Rabin:

Rabin's assassin was a Jewish Israeli opposed to the peace process, who cited such logic after shooting the prime minister at the end of a rally on Nov. 4, 1995.

That, Clinton said, is another lesson to take from what happened to Rabin. "We have to find a way to bring simple, personal decency and trust back to our politics," he said.

A good start would be to stop trying to tar your political opponents as Nazis and closet authoritarians.  But liberals have started down a path that they cannot deviate from, lest their rabid base turn on them.  Prominent liberals from across the country have been calling Trump a Nazi and disrespecting the voters for being "ignorant" in electing him.

Not a recipe for electoral success.