'I wish Trump knew how to be a president': Hillary Clinton urges voters to oust 'dangerous' president who defeated her

Warning against 2016 reprise, former candidate says ‘this can’t be another woulda coulda shoulda election’

Hillary Clinton returned to the Democratic National Convention spotlight to urge voters to support Joe Biden, leading a team to “pull our nation back from the brink and build back better”.

The former Democratic presidential candidate returned to the DNC not as an incumbent making the case for her re-election but as the face of a party that lost a crucial election to Donald Trump, whom she once said was owed an “open mind” as he took office.

“I meant it,” she said in remarks on Wednesday. “I wish Donald Trump knew how to be a president because American needs a president right now.”

But “he is who he is”, she said. ”America needs a president who shows the same compassion, determination and leadership in the White House that we see in our communities.”

The convention’s themes, much like the 2016 event, have underscored a message of unity in a time of division, presenting a slickly presented vision of its moral values and a broad set of policies that reflect them, and introducing a candidate who represents them and whose own personal narrative can speak to the platform.

But, also like 2016, the convention has served mostly as a dire message to voters, now armed with four years of evidence why Americans should vote against the incumbent.

The former secretary of state framed her loss as a warning of what’s to come with the president’s re-election, and stressed the importance of their vote.

She said: “For four years, people have said to me, ‘I didn’t realise how dangerous he was,’ ‘I wish I could go back and do it over,’ or worst, ‘I should have voted.’ Well, this can’t be another woulda coulda shoulda election.”

Her loss in 2016 had shocked the party, which relied on leading polls and a popular vote win by a three-million vote margin, a frustrating shadow that has lingered among Democrats over the last several years. Republicans are counting on a similar outcome in 2020, seeing a shorter path to victory by relying on a handful of key electoral college states while possibly losing a popular vote.

Ms Clinton has urged Americans to overwhelm the ballot box and “vote like our lives and livelihoods are on the line, because they are.”

“If you vote by mail, request your ballot now, and send it back as soon as you can,” said said. “If you vote in person, do it early. Bring a friend and wear a mask. Become a poll worker. Most of all, no matter what, vote.”

The convention has placed a sharp focus on voting rights, as the president mounts daily attacks against expanding the availability of absentee ballots during the coronavirus pandemic and has appointed a postmaster general who has actively sought to undermine the Postal Service in the months leading up to November elections.

Those threats also arrived on the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which lifted discrimination on the basis of sex at the voting booth and paved the way for women to vote, though it was not until the Voting Rights Act in 1965 that discrimination against black women was prohibited.

Democrats have pledged to renew the Voting Rights Act in the name of late Civil Rights leader and congressman John Lewis following a US Supreme Court ruling that voting rights advocates argue have allowed states to suppress

At the beginning of Wednesday’s event, vice presidential nominee Harris pointed to recent ”obstacles and misinformation and folks making it harder to cast your ballot” before asking, “Why don’t they want us to vote?”

“Why is there so much effort to silence our voices?” she said. “The answer is when we vote, things change. When we vote, things get better. When we vote, we address the need for all people to be treated with dignity and respect.”

In her remarks, Secretary Clinton invoked the president’s 2016 question – “what do you have to lose?”.

“Well, now we know,” she said. “Our health, our jobs, our lives, our leadership in the world and even or post office.”

She rallied Democrats to “set our sights higher than getting one man out of the White House.”

Ms Clinton said voters should vote job creation, emergency relief to families and businesses, paid family leave, for DACA recipients, to “make sure a foreign adversary” doesn’t choose the president, and for “law enforcement that serves and respects communities of colour”.

“Vote for justice for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, because Black Lives Matter,” she said.

“Vote like our lives and livelihoods are on the line,” she added, “because they are.”