Failed Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton tore into President Donald Trump again on Monday during a speech at Oxford University, warning students that “intellectual elites” had underestimated the power of populism, and comparing the American president to the increasingly despotic Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
According to the Daily Mail, Clinton told the audience that “populists can stay in power by mobilizing a fervent base. Now, there are many other lessons like this,” she said, including “my personal experience with winning three million more votes but still losing.”
Trump, of course, bested Clinton in the Electoral College — the only contest that matters when counting votes for the presidency — after Clinton’s team failed to believe polls showing Clinton’s lack of popularity in Rust Belt states like Wisconsin and Michigan.
She went on, however, to compare Trump to Erdogan, who won a hotly-contested election in Turkey over the weekend after spending his first term greatly expanding his executive powers and cracking down on individual freedoms, to the degree that he is now considered an “authoritarian” leader of the country.
Erdogen, the Daily Mail reports, has jailed more than 160,000 political opponents, including journalists. Although Trump is often criticized for his treatment of members of the mainstream media, he has yet to jail a single political opponent.
Regardless, Clinton drew a direct line between Erdogan and Trump. “Turkey also shows that political and intellectual elites, both inside the country and around the world, persistently underestimate the threat which these kinds of leaders pose to the survival of democratic institutions,” Clinton said. “We are in the midst of a global struggle between liberal democracy and a rising tide of illiberalism.”
Apparently, Clinton believes she is on the forefront of that fight for democracy.