In what may be either a instance of triangulation or too much chardonnay, Hillary Clinton has confounded both friends and foes by taking a position against mass, uncontrolled immigration (in Europe, not the USA).  Of course, she says the reason has nothing to do with the crime wave, displacement, and sharia that accompanied the arrival of over a million "migrants," but rather is necessary to contain the rise of "populism" in Europe.

The interview with the U.K. Guardian in which she expressed these opinions was conducted before the midterms (according to a separate Guardian article) and for some reason was published only after the voters had spoken.  Gee, did the Guardian editors want to avoid depressing (or, as Stacey Abrams would say, "suppressing") Democrat voter turnout by causing some open borders enthusiasts to stay home?

The New York Times spoke to a number of shocked progressives reeling from Mrs. Clinton's statements to the Guardian:

"I was kind of shocked," Eskinder Negash, the president and chief executive of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, said of Mrs. Clinton's comments.  "If she's simply saying you need to cut down on refugees coming to Europe to ask for asylum because they have a well-founded fear of persecution, just to appease some right-wing political leaders, it's just not the right thing to do."

Tanja Bueltmann, a history professor at Northumbria University in Britain who focuses on migration issues, said Mrs. Clinton's perspective was "tragically misjudged."

"Ultimately, immigration is not actually the problem that inflamed voters: Much more foundational issues, such as austerity, are the real reason," Professor Bueltmann said.  "Immigrants and refugees are simply the scapegoats populists have chosen to use to drive forward their ideas."

The context in which the interview took place may (or may not) explain Mrs. Clinton's straying away from the Party Line that uncontrolled immigration is an absolute good.  The Guardian, you see, is attempting to raise an alarm about global populism and conducted interviews with that it called three "center-left" politicians: Mrs. Clinton, Tony Blair, and former Italian P.M. Matteo Renzi, whom it called "rightwing populism's  greatest scalps."  In this hypothesis, with the danger of listening to what non-elite voters think on her mind, Mrs. Clinton committed a gaffe in the Michael Kinsley sense: telling the truth by mistake.  Her focus was actually on the dangers of the right.  The amount of verbiage disparaging her enemies that made it to print is considerable and reeks of projection:

File photo by Gage Skidmore.

Clinton, Blair and Renzi all said rightwing populism had not just fed off issues of identity but was also driven by a disruptive way of conducting politics that dramatises divisions and uses a rhetoric of crisis.  The centre left struggles to get its voice heard over the simplistic, emotional language used against it, they said.

This is laughable.  The left controls mass media, academia, and popular culture in all three nations, and social media chip in suppressing distribution of conservative voices.  And yet they are feigning the role of vici suable to make their voices heard.  This would be psychotic-level denial of realty if it were more than a talking point.

The disparagement of her enemies leads to an absurd caricature of them as big-government liberals like Mrs. Clinton:

Clinton said rightwing populists in the west met "a psychological as much as political yearning to be told what to do, and where to go, and how to live and have their press basically stifled and so be given one version of reality."

Remind me: is the Nanny State a goal of conservatives or Democrats?

Almost as if she has been hanging out in lectures at the Heritage Foundation, Mrs. Clinton suddenly is a fan of the Founders' intent:

"The whole American system was designed so that you would eliminate the threat from a strong, authoritarian king or other leader and maybe people are just tired of it.  They don't want that much responsibility and freedom.  They want to be told what to do and where to go and how to live ... and only given one version of reality.

And we know that it is conservatives (AKA, for now, "populists") who want to run a Nanny State:

"I don't know why at this moment that is so attractive to people, but it's a serious threat to our freedom and our democratic institutions, and it goes very deep and very far and we've got to do a better job of shining a light on it and trying to combat it."

She also reveals her contempt for Steve Bannon, whose attempt to bolster rightwing populist parties in Europe is stalling everywhere outside of Italy.  "Rome is the right place for him since it is bread and circuses and it's as old as recorded history.  Keep people diverted, keep them riled up appeal to their prejudices, give them a sense they are part of something bigger than themselves – while elected leaders and business leaders steal them blind.  It's a classic story and Bannon is the latest avatar of it."

Tom Maguire suggests that this interview signals that she is not running in 2020:

But one more thing for which to be thankful – with an anti-immigrant message like this, she won't be running.

I disagree.  I think she is attempting to "triangulate" the way her husband did in the 1990s, heeding the advice and terminology of Dick Morris.  The venerable technical term for this is co-opting a rival's issue.  But Bill Clinton had far more political talent and was a much, much better liar than Hillary, and he was already in office with the left committed to keeping him there because he was their guy.

Hillary may be opening up a world of trouble for herself by speaking out clumsily, or she may be attempting to run against the leftward lurch of her party, with the Sandernista faction feeling its oats.  After all, equally inarticulate Nancy Pelosi seems to have vanquished the Progs and secured a return to the speakership.  I don't think her lust for power as POTUS has abated.

If this is part of a conscious triangulation strategy, President Trump may well attempt to work his deal-making on her and her allies in Congress, with an appeal for border wall funding.

So far, there is nothing in Trump's Twitter feed on Hillary latest, but then again, it is still early on the start of the holiday weekend.

Triangulation or too much chardonnay?  Stay tuned.