If Clinton had won we'd be at war – Susan Sarandon

Actress and activist Susan Sarandon believes that had Hillary Clinton won the election, “we would be at war.”

“I did think she was very dangerous,” Sarandon said in an interview with The Guardian, as she continues to attract criticism from Clinton loyalists over her support for Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and her subsequent vote for Green Party candidate Jill Stein during the 2016 election.

“I got from Hillary people, ‘I hope your crotch is grabbed’, ‘I hope you’re raped.’ Misogynistic attacks," she said.

Asked if Clinton was more dangerous than Trump, Sarandon explained, “I did think she was very, very dangerous. We would still be fracking, we would be at war [if she was president]. It wouldn’t be much smoother. Look what happened under [Barack] Obama that we didn’t notice.”

Clinton has a long record of supporting US interventions. Her vote for the Iraq war, the zeal with which she pushed to take down Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, down to her giddy celebration at his death, are just some of the reasons pacifists chose not to vote for her.

While Trump has failed to end US interventionism since coming to power, Clinton had advocated for a no-fly-zone over Syria, which would have likely led to war between the US, and Syria and Russia. Clinton admitted a no-fly-zone would “kill a lot of Syrians,” in a 2013 speech leaked by WikiLeaks before the election. She also maintains a hawkish stance on Iran, and promised in 2008, “If I’m president, we will attack Iran. In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them.”

Sarandon voted for Stein in New York, which, she explains “was probably the easiest place to vote for Stein,” as Trump was not going to win that state. “Bringing attention to working-class issues is not a luxury,” she said of her decision. “People are really hurting; that’s how this guy got in.”

“It wasn’t a protest vote,” she added. “Following Bernie wasn’t a protest.” 

Aside from a pro-war stance, the former secretary of state’s apparent inability to understand the anger felt by Americans still living with the effects of the global financial crisis, and her centrist policies meant she was not a viable candidate for Sarandon and others – even with the threat of a Trump presidency. Sarandon highlighted Clinton’s refusal to back a $15 minimum wage as being the stance of a non-feminist.

Sarandon thinks the blame levied at her over Clinton’s loss is part of the reason Democrats will lose again. “Well, that’s why we’re going to lose again if we depend on the DNC [the Democratic National Committee],” she said. “Because the amount of denial ... I mean it’s very flattering to think that I, on my own, cost the election. That my little voice was the deciding factor.”

“It’s upsetting to me more from the point of view of thinking they haven’t learned,” she added.

Sarandon also pointed to the fact that, “you can’t judge by the mainstream media what’s going on in the country,” a quote which The Guardian placed inside parentheses and described as “the space where the extreme right meets the left.”

“How did we lose all our journalists and media?” she asked.