Hillary’s Detractors Are Sexist! We Need a Woman President!
Lorraine Devon Wilke posted a blog here entitled “You Say You Want a Revolution? I Do Too. It’s Why I Support Hillary Clinton.” Within I found an example of cognitive dissonance I find among many Hillary→ supporters*.
Culture is a wily beast. So difficult to manage, so impossible to predict, yet it is exactly who and what we need to attend to, to honor, at this pivotal moment in our civic evolution. And culture, society, our trajectory as a nation, demands that we expand our thinking to embrace a different paradigm of leadership…
…to elect a female President of the United States.
[…]
Considering her impressive resume, decades of service, and the respect she’s garnered around the world, it’s stunning to note the sheer volume of irrational, disproportionate, and sexist negativity that comes her way, an onslaught that she remarkably endures and transcends.
To simultaneously complain about sexist smears of Hillary→ Clinton and introduce support of her as ‘our culture demands a female leader’ is remarkable. I don’t abide the sexism that hounds Hillary→ Clinton’s candidacy — negativity or positivity.
My opposition to Hillary→ Clinton has nothing to do with her chromosomes, genitalia, hairstyle, and choice of clothing, nor should anyone’s support of her be based on those features.
My opposition is achieved by listing all the issues I care about and matching up where the candidate and I disagree. On some of my most key issues, Hillary→ Clinton is indistinguishable from a (fabled to exist) moderate Republican, or has just recently come around to my position after Bernie Sanders has forced her to tack to the left.
Specifically, my top ten Issues, in no particular order, where she loses my support, as do Republicans:
- Foreign Policy — supports regime change, voted for Iraq War (seriously, anybody who could be fooled into trusting George W. Bush loses my vote right there);
- Privacy — voted twice for the USA PATRIOT ACT;
- Banking — owned by Wall Street, opposes new Glass-Steagall, wouldn’t break up “too big to fail,” would keep Goldman Sachs involved in Treasury;
- Labor — supports every “free trade” agreement, recently pretends she doesn’t to pander;
- Death Penalty — she supports it, despite hundreds of documented death row exonerations;
- Health Care — she wants to keep private insurers and Big Pharma in business, maybe with slightly lower profits;
- Education — she wants something called “debt-free tuition”, which still sounds like “not-free education” to me;
- Gay Marriage Rights — she’s all for it… now, when it’s a fait accompli, not when she could have helped;
- Corrupt Politics — current beneficiary of the system, eight-figure net worth, Clinton Foundation sweetheart arms deals;
- Marijuana Legalization — would continue Obama’s federal-prohibition-but-look-the-other-way stall tactic, might reschedule medical marijuana out of the heroin/LSD category to the cocaine/methamphetamine category or the anabolic steroids/Ambien category (i.e. still requires doctors and prescriptions and health insurance and pharmaceutical companies).
Then add to that numerous instances where she’s displayed less than stellar character and integrity — FBI investigations into email, shady dealings at State though the Clinton Foundation, surviving “sniper fire” in Bosnia (why does Brian Williams lose his job for tall tales of war for career advancement, but Hillary→ gets to say she “misspoke”?)
There needs to be a radical revolution, all right, but there’s nothing radical about electing a female leader; most advanced countries have done so repeatedly. Electing Hillary→ Clinton would be a symbolic advance for female equality in America, but at the cost of further cementing the “Third Way” pro-corporate Clinton Democrat dynastic hold over what’s supposed to be the party in opposition to the excesses of big business.
Electing an independent Democratic Socialist with over two million individual donors and no Super PACs who wants to break up big banks, provide free public healthcare and education, and reduce American militarism – that’s revolutionary!
Hillary→ Clinton’s latest tack is to present herself as the grown-up who recognizes dreams can’t really come true and you have to be pragmatic and practical and bargain with billionaires for what scraps you can scrounge together that don’t upset too many shareholders. But even by that measure, Hillary→ isn’t the Democratic candidate with the most potential to enact real change; it’s Bernie.
An elected Hillary→ isn’t going to beat the Republicans by much, if at all (see: President Rubio). Nobody is going to motivate more GOP turnout than Hillary→; they hate her that much. The progressive base isn’t going to turn out for the corporate Democrat who’s currently shitting on Bernie Sanders as a pro-NRA gun nut** who wants to repeal Obamacare. With no electoral mandate, projecting “more of the same, like Obama”, and a Republican House (and maybe Senate), the next four or eight years of Hillary→ vs. the GOP Congress gridlock will make Obama’s terms with Congress look functional.
But an elected Bernie would crush the Republican nominee. Don’t give me the “America won’t vote for a socialist” line. America, twice by large margins, voted for a “black socialist Kenyan Muslim” with the middle name “Hussein”, remember? GOP voters won’t be as motivated to counter-vote against him and some moderates may even defect to him to prevent a Trump or Cruz. Progressive enthusiasm drives turnout and downticket Dems benefit. President Bernie has a Dem Senate, a smaller GOP House majority, and an electoral mandate for radical change.
As I wrote before, It’s the Rigged System, Stupid! Only Bernie Sanders wants to take on that rigged system.
* I call her Hillary→ to remind everyone her campaign logo |→| already tells you which political direction she leans. Besides, if we’re going to call Bush “Jeb!”, it only seems fair.
**And on the gun issue, as a liberal originally from Idaho, let me tell you that Bernie’s stance on guns is going to play much better with Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania hunters and gun enthusiasts than Hillary’s rhetoric.
