Clinton to undecided voters: Envision a Trump presidency

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton is asking voters to visualize a future she hopes never materializes: a Donald Trump presidency.

Speaking to supporters at a rally in Las Vegas on Wednesday, Clinton acknowledged that “a lot of Americans” will vote for her Republican opponent on Election Day next Tuesday and that many more are considering it.

{mosads}To Trump’s supporters and those on the fence, Clinton presented a mental exercise.

“On Jan. 20, either I or Donald Trump will be sworn in as the next president of the United States,” Clinton said.

“Take some time and think,” she continued. “Imagine that on Jan. 20, 2017, it is Donald Trump standing on our Capitol and taking the oath of office. … Imagine with me what it would be like to have Donald Trump sitting in the Oval Office coming next January. Someone who demeans women, mocks the disabled, insults Latinos and African-Americans. What would it be like to have that person in the most powerful office in the world?”

Clinton then drew a picture of a dystopian nation run by a racist, bigoted misogynist and a borderline sexual predator.

She drew from her well-worn lines of attack against Trump to urge specific groups of people to visualize how he would treat them or destroy their lives if he was in the White House.

“If you’re an immigrant … you know how you’ll be treated and what you’ll be thought of,” Clinton said. “He’s promised to round up millions of immigrants and kick them out, even if that means tearing apart families and hurting the economy.”

The same holds true for Latinos, Clinton said, pointing to Trump’s attacks against the Mexican heritage of an Indiana-born federal judge overseeing a lawsuit against him.

To black voters, Clinton said:

“If you’re African-American, you know what that would be like. You’d have a president who thinks the lives of black people are all crime and poverty and despair. He has no idea of the strength of the black church or the vibrancy of black-owned businesses.”

To Muslims:

“You know what your life would be like. We’d have a president who views people of your faith with deep suspicion and who wants to ban every Muslim in the world from ever coming to the U.S.”

And to women:

“Our girls would grow up with a president who proudly ranks women by their looks. Who brags about doing things to them without their consent. Just imagine what that might do to young girls’ and women’s confidence and self-worth.”

It was the latest in an increasingly personal string of attacks from Clinton as she seeks to turn the spotlight back on Trump after dealing with days of controversy over the FBI’s renewal of an investigation into her private email server.

Campaign allies told The Hill on Wednesday that they’d hoped to run a positive campaign into the finish.

But the tightening race and the exploding controversy with the FBI has forced Clinton to seek to tear Trump down into Election Day instead.