You can sum up her argument in two words: Donald Trump. Even though she’ll keep saying that “I believe what we need in America today is more love and kindness,” at its heart this will be a campaign about fear. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

If you watched Clinton’s speech last night, you might have noticed that apart from a line congratulating Bernie Sanders on winning four states, she made no reference to him or the differences they have on policy and governing. Instead, she took shots at Donald Trump. She didn’t mention him by name, but there was no doubt whom she was talking about. Here’s an excerpt:

AD

AD

America is strong when we’re all strong. We know we’ve got work to do. That work, that work is not to make America great again. America never stopped being great. We have to make America whole. We have to fill in what’s been hollowed out. We have to make strong the broken place, re-stitch the bonds of trust and respect across our country. Now, it might be unusual, as I’ve said before, for a presidential candidate to say this, but I’m going to keep saying it: I believe what we need in America today is more love and kindness. Trying to divide America between us and them is wrong, and we’re not going to let it work. Whether we like it or not, we’re all in this together my friends. We all have to do our part.

In the coming days, Clinton is probably going to start rolling out a comprehensive critique of Trump — and you can bet that her pollsters are right now working hard to test a wide variety of messages and attacks to see which ones are the most effective. This isn’t only a general election strategy; it’s also vital to winning the Democratic nomination.

That’s because it’s important for Clinton to get Democrats thinking about the general election now, and in particular the ghastly prospect of Donald Trump being the Republican nominee, which now looks extremely likely. By focusing on Trump, Clinton says to Democrats: It’s time to get serious, because the danger of a Trump presidency is real. We can dream about political revolution some other time. Right now we’re facing national catastrophe.

This is also likely to be the core of Clinton’s general election message if she and Trump do end up being the nominees. It’ll be a campaign based in large part on fear, fear of what a xenophobic, bigoted, ignorant buffoon like Donald Trump would do to the country. While some of the attacks might be offered with a smile and a laugh, I’m guessing that there will be some pretty harsh stuff in there too, meant to convince voters to be terrified of the idea of Donald Trump as the leader of our country.

AD

AD

To be clear, that’s just a prediction; we don’t yet know if Clinton will run a campaign centered on fear. But would it be wrong if she did? The answer is, it depends.

Fear-based campaigns can be problematic for a variety of reasons. You can argue that it’s wrong to make voters afraid because fear banishes rational thought. You can argue that it’s wrong because it crowds out substantive discussion of important issues. You can argue that it’s wrong because so often, fear-based campaigns are misleading.

For instance, when in 1988 George H.W. Bush ran a campaign centered on the (barely implicit) idea that Michael Dukakis would unleash a horde of scary black men to kill you and rape your women, it was wrong not only because it utilized and sought to activate racism, but also because it was absurdly untrue. The furlough program in Massachusetts that released Willie Horton had been shut down years before, and the president does almost nothing about prisoners anyway. To take another example, in the couple of elections after September 11, Republicans routinely attacked Democrats by raising fears of terrorism. That’s a legitimate and relevant policy area that the president and Congress do have an influence over, but the problem with many of those attacks was that they unfairly attacked Democrats’ patriotism and sought to agitate voters over a threat that is actually minimal.

AD

AD

But there are some things that we really should be afraid of. We aren’t afraid enough of climate change. We aren’t afraid enough of the guns that kill 30,000 Americans every year. We weren’t afraid enough that the housing bubble would collapse. Fear can paralyze you or lead you to make terrible decisions, but it can also force you to get off your butt and do the right thing.

And the idea of Donald Trump being president of the United States is genuinely terrifying. If it doesn’t make you afraid, you really ought to familiarize yourself with this man.

Any candidate could use fear against Trump, but for Hillary Clinton it could be particularly important. She knows by now that she’s not the most exciting or inspiring candidate. She’s not a great orator. When she paints a picture of her presidency, it isn’t a utopia where every problem is magically washed away. Clinton promises reasonable expectations, diligent work, and a long hard slog of governing.

AD

AD

So far in the primaries, Republicans are turning out to vote in significantly higher numbers than Democrats. So to motivate Democrats to get to the polls in large numbers in the fall, she’s going to need something compelling, a way to activate not just their reason but their emotions. And in an age of negative partisanship, in which voters are motivated more by their dislike of the other side than by their affection for their own side, she’ll need to get Democrats good and worked up over the prospect of a Trump presidency.

To be clear, that may not be enough to get Clinton to the White House. As powerful an emotion as fear is, there’s no guarantee such a criticism of Trump — essentially, “If we elect this lunatic, we’re all screwed” — would work all by itself. Trump’s core argument — that America is a mess because our leaders are idiots — is undoubtedly compelling to lots of voters, and it implicates Clinton as well, so she needs to find an effective counter-argument to it.