Hillary Clinton: Populists 'Yearn' to be 'Told How to Live' by a Dictator

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Hillary Clinton pulled no punches as she went on the attack during an interview with a British newspaper Thursday, where claimed that people in the US and Europe have a "yearning to be told how to live" by a dictator, which has led to a rise in populism.

The failed Democratic presidential candidate claimed that the growing populist movement is down to voters' psychological and moral defects causing them to "yearn" for a dictatorship.

The comments appeared to be another thinly veiled attack against President Donald Trump and his supporters, where she tried to frame him as a tyrant who has brainwashed his voters.

In part of her interview, Hillary also blasted German Chancellor Angela Merkel's too-soft open-border policies.

Clinton suggested that Germany's flood of migrants has caused an anti-immigration knee-jerk reaction.

She cited the surge of migration as a trigger for the rise in populism in Europe.

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While Mrs. Clinton didn’t directly mention Trump by name in that part of her interview, she doubled down on the recent Democratic tactics of explaining political opposition to be the result of mental and/or moral flaws.

Former President Barack Obama famously made similar comments when he described working-class conservative voters as “bitterly clinging to guns and religion.”

The remarks are also reminiscent of Hillary's own “basket of deplorables” comments.

During a private 2016 fundraiser, Clinton drew criticism after saying that half of Donald Trump's voters belong in a "basket of deplorables” while the rest of his supporters feel let down by the government and economy.

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In her latest stab at the needs of everyday citizens, Clinton said right-wing populists in the U.S. and Europe meet “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."

She also said that perhaps Americans who vote for such candidates — and she was explicit elsewhere in the interview that she sees Mr. Trump as an example of right-wing anti-immigration populism — simply don’t want to live in a democracy anymore.

“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,” the former first lady said.

"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.

“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,” she concluded.