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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsPost from a friend on Facebook. Worth the read.
"We hear a lot about “mansplaining” these days, and so I'm going to do something I have only dreamed of (something our gal Hillary Rodham Clinton nobly refrains from) and drop some Middle-Aged Ladysplaining down right here.
.
Almost anyone who hates Hillary Clinton - and certainly anyone younger than 40 who hates her - hates her because of sexism, plain and simple. But they don't understand that they do, because the sexism of hating Hillary Clinton does not exactly resemble any other form of sexism. It is unique.
Hillary Clinton is historically unprecedented, and will be historically unfollowed. She exists in a very specific time in history as a very specific person, and the sexism she faces is a concentrated, nuclear, Godzilla-scope sexism that is a product of the culture wars that have transpired in her lifetime.
There are people of voting age who grew up in a culture that hates Hillary Clinton...they're like fish in water who don't even know it exists. This generalized distaste is a simple reality: a fact of life. It is gaseous, and congeals into solid form around various issues - war, Benghazi, emails, Goldman Sachs. All of which could be legit on their own merits, but all of which are also easily seized Trojan Horses in which to transport the diffuse miasma of Hillary Hatred that fills the American Air.
She is, reluctantly and uncomfortably, an archetype: the witch, Jezebel, Eve...through she does not have the personality for this role, she has been thrust into it anyway.
.
During Bill Clinton's first campaign, when we first nationally noticed her, she was the embodiment of the generalized threat to the patriarchy represented by the 60s counter-culture's transition into 70s feminism. She had a powerful job, she didn't want to bake cookies. She either WAS your mom, or she threatened the validity of your mom. Men hated her because she was the wife that could afford to leave you, and didn't care about how big her boobs were. Women hated her because her husband was unfaithful and she didn’t leave him.
She was, is, will always be, a threat to many people on a core level.
.
When you have watched her closely, for 25 years, as a woman...you get this. It's impossible NOT to see.
But if you're a 25-year-old dude who has breathed it in with your oxygen since literally the minute you came out of someone’s vagina, you dismiss it as not influencing you, and you grab onto something on the endlessly rotating Lazy-Susan of intellectually defensible “reasons” to hate Hillary Clinton. Every second of her life she is watched like a hawk, by people looking for new morsels to add to the spread.
Or, if you're a middle-aged woman who has self-defensively aligned herself with patriarchy, maybe you're honest and just say "I don't LIKE her" and that's the end of it.
.
Our culture will give anyone with the slightest inclination to hate Hillary Clinton a "valid" rack to hang your hat on.
Even though, when one compares her to literally any other politician throughout history, it becomes instantly clear that she is certainly no worse and objectively miles better. There's no question that she would have been an excellent President, by any realistic understanding of that job description. But there was no way that an America that has shaped its identity around rejecting her was ever going to allow her to lead it.
Women who come after her will certainly face sexism. Women before her certainly did. But no one will REPRESENT the changing status of women in our culture ever again the way she did, and so no one will ever inspire the passion she has.
America, our beloved white supremacist capitalist hetero-patriarchy, still needs to define itself largely in opposition to everything she is.
.
Anyone who pretends to hate her for any other reason simply doesn't fucking get it. I don't pretend to feel otherwise anymore.
.
People I would otherwise respect constantly pull out their laser pointers and refer to charts and graphs, and appeal passionately to my intellect and character and sense of freedom and justice and outrage, and I just sit there like “mmmm-hmmmm”, waiting for them to be done.
.
I listen to them as well as I can, with as much respect as I can, until their words turn into Peanuts-parent dialogue. I sit there, tired, irritated, knowing that I know why they hate Hillary Clinton, but they never will.
-Emily S."
#StillWithHer
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sharedvalues
(6,916 posts)No wonder people hate her. "Judicial Watch", whose main goal is to slander and defame the Clinton's, has spent half a BILLION dollars over ten years.
How many of us would have a positive public rep if the right wing propanganda machine were dedicated to destroying us?
Glorfindel
(9,726 posts)"We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace--business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.
They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.
Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me--and I welcome their hatred."
Franklin D. Roosevelt, America's greatest president, 1936
genxlib
(5,524 posts)I heartily endorse this essay.
I have not always agreed with her but she has never deserved any of the massive hatred directed her way.
One of my secret desires is that Mueller will find evidence of the proverbial vast-right-wing conspiracy in his investigation. Something like emails that coordinate the continuation of the Benghazi hearings with targeted Facebook memes and advertising. I would love to see all these assholes burned for it.
Glorfindel
(9,726 posts)
Atticus
(15,124 posts)RandomAccess
(5,210 posts)The whole thing is quite good and I mostly agree.
The big problem I have is with this sentence, and I would ask you to share my concern with your friend and for everyone here at DU (and everyone everywhere, actually) to stop thinking it's true (aside from the stupid Electoral College):
First, SHE WON! She effing WON!
Second, yes, there was massive sexism and it cost her votes. BUT there were other problems that prevented the full win she'd have had that had nothing to do with sexism:
The big problems are voter suppression, Russian meddling, and targeted voter propaganda through Twitter, Google, Facebook, and other forms of social media. There is no question that the Trump campaign, through Cambridge Analytica, did this -- and that the Russians did this. The only question is how much they conspired together in the propaganda campaign.
We need to figure out how to defend the democratic process from fake news and micro-targeted AI propaganda -- or lose our democracy. https://www.democraticunderground.com/10029576691
And this:
Here is how they stole the election, well this and KGB operatives V Crosscheck in action:
Trump victory margin in Michigan: 13,107
Michigan Crosscheck purge list: 449,922
Trump victory margin in Arizona: 85,257
Arizona Crosscheck purge list: 270,824
Trump victory margin in North Carolina: 177,008
North Carolina Crosscheck purge list: 589,393
http://www.gregpalast.com/election-stolen-heres/
My intention isn't to diminish the terrible scourge sexism still is -- but we will NEVER fix the problems that actually caused her "loss" (70,000 highly targeted votes in 3 key states) if we distract ourselves with the wrong "causes."
Yes, sexism was a factor, a big one. No, it wasn't THE determining reason for her loss.
ProudMNDemocrat
(16,783 posts)53% of White women voted for Trump. That is huge. They voted AGAINST their best interest even after Hillary Clinton laid out the cards on the table where she stood on Women's issues. They rejected her and voted for the Con Man instead.
When will women realize that Republicans will do everything they can to keep women down, yet whore themselves for their votes?
RandomAccess
(5,210 posts)With all the Russian shenanigans that went on, I don't trust those numbers either. There have been -- I'll call them "rumors" -- that Russia WAS able to penetrate some of our election results and I know Republicans have in the past, so -- ?
Those numbers just don't make sense to me, and it doesn't make sense to me to believe them when there were so many other problems.
ProudMNDemocrat
(16,783 posts)I stand by my comment. I am confident that any woman who voted for Trump and Republicans are regretting their vote.
All states should use paper ballots. Voting machines are too easy to manipulate.
RandomAccess
(5,210 posts)Paper ballots, hand-counted in full public view.
I'm confident many are not.
Squinch
(50,934 posts)his election like Hillary was, can you imagine either party not going nuclear in studying, fighting and exposing the tampering with our election system as you describe.
I agree with you. I believe our election results were changed. If it were a man candidate, there would be at least a measure of bipartisan outrage resulting in serious congressional investigations and a rally around our flag vs. Russia. Instead, we get demands by Nunez that the FBI turn over evidence to show that the act of investigating the coup was the actual problem, rather than the coup itself.
RandomAccess
(5,210 posts)I am shocked and dismayed especially by the Dems' lack of coherent or even audible objections on the subject of what all went wrong ASIDE from whatver Hillary did or didn't do. I'm similarly shocked by the MSM glee for pillorying her rather than giving ANY credence let alone air time or digital space to these other problems.
ehrnst
(32,640 posts)They voted against their best interest then as well.
But no one seemed to be overly concerned about that trend of white women (and men) voting GOP. Most people I talked to chalked it up to racism.
But when the trend actaully reversed slightly with Hillary -OMG!!!!!!! She failed to get the majority of the votes of WHITE WOMEN!!!! That means she was really a bad candidate, because you know, women are a voting bloc, and they vote for women.
Weekend Warrior
(1,301 posts)Wish I wouldn't have read it.
RandomAccess
(5,210 posts)edited to add:
Just what WAS that nerve I hit??
Weekend Warrior
(1,301 posts)We all read things throughout the day that weren't worth the time. I don't see the connection to hitting a nerve.
ehrnst
(32,640 posts)Which indicates that it did affect you enough to let the OP know...
RandomAccess
(5,210 posts)Could have been --
well,
uh,
maybe,
possibly,
uh,
perhaps
a familiarity with the written word and good comprehension skills.
Duh.
But hey, if you want to play games, fine with me.
FYI - I purposely chose an inflammatory subject line for a reason -- to get people's attention because I think it's very important for all of us to start focusing on the things that very clearly and specifically in real time caused the most votes in key states to go to Trump. I am sorry it irked you so. FWIW, I agree with almost every word of your friend's post, except that one line, because as bad as it was, it wasn't (only) sexism that defeated her.
Here's another fascinating bit of info, tho it's from a source that is frowned upon here:
http://www.palmerreport.com/opinion/rigged-election-donald-trump-won-every-surprise-swing-state-by-the-same-1-margin/118/
The most commonly posited explanation of Donald Trump’s shocking election victory was that every professional pollster in the nation – despite each working independently and using differing methodologies – somehow managed to overlook the same pockets of Trump voters in these states. If such pockets did exist, they would have existed in varying sizes in each of the four states, thus resulting in different sized wins in each.
Ask any statistician and they’ll tell you that a reasonable distribution of the results would have been Trump winning one of the states by one percent, won one of them by perhaps three percent, won one of them by two percent, lost one of them by one percent, or something along those lines. But instead the voting tallies looked startlingly different from any natural distribution. In fact they looked startlingly the same.
According to the New York Times, the voting results broke down like this: Trump won Florida by just over one percent of the vote. He also won Pennsylvania by just over one percent. He won Michigan by just under one percent. And he won Wisconsin by precisely one percent. That’s not how numbers tend to work in the real world.
On its own, this kind of suspiciously consistent numerical dispersion across the four states that decided the election would be something that could be written off as a mere fluke. But when you put it within the context of the numerous other ways in which the voting tallies make no mathematical sense, it points to the numbers having been rigged or altered.
lostnfound
(16,169 posts)Keep posting it and sharing it. I'm passing those numbers on to friends.
RandomAccess
(5,210 posts)RandomAccess
(5,210 posts)From a frowned upon source at DU. I just also posted it in my reply to the OP.
http://www.palmerreport.com/opinion/rigged-election-donald-trump-won-every-surprise-swing-state-by-the-same-1-margin/118/
The most commonly posited explanation of Donald Trump’s shocking election victory was that every professional pollster in the nation – despite each working independently and using differing methodologies – somehow managed to overlook the same pockets of Trump voters in these states. If such pockets did exist, they would have existed in varying sizes in each of the four states, thus resulting in different sized wins in each.
Ask any statistician and they’ll tell you that a reasonable distribution of the results would have been Trump winning one of the states by one percent, won one of them by perhaps three percent, won one of them by two percent, lost one of them by one percent, or something along those lines. But instead the voting tallies looked startlingly different from any natural distribution. In fact they looked startlingly the same.
According to the New York Times, the voting results broke down like this: Trump won Florida by just over one percent of the vote. He also won Pennsylvania by just over one percent. He won Michigan by just under one percent. And he won Wisconsin by precisely one percent. That’s not how numbers tend to work in the real world.
On its own, this kin of suspiciously consistent numerical dispersion across the four states that decided the election would be something that could be written off as a mere fluke. But when you put it within the context of the numerous other ways in which the voting tallies make no mathematical sense, it points to the numbers having been rigged or altered.
ProudMNDemocrat
(16,783 posts)I would have rather have a confident and qualified woman like Hillary Clinton as President , then a man-child who brags about the size of his hands , genitals, and how he likes to grab women by theirs. I mean, the choice was obvious, people.
What IS obvious is that the WRONG choice won and we are now all paying the price.
Scarsdale
(9,426 posts)for the gigantic orange ass in the WH, making this country look STUPID. Vlad had lots of help from people like Bannon, Kushner, Beavis and Butthead tRump, Flynn and a host of other TRAITORS. Another one was Mitch "I Always Have Room In My Pocket for more money" McConnell and his merry band of crooks in DC.
JayhawkSD
(3,163 posts)All those years and thousands upon thousands of dollars for therapy, and all I really needed was you. Someone who had never met me, never spoken to me, never read anything that I have written, and can tell me everything about how my mind works.
You did not explain the mind of women who hate Hillary Clinton. I would love to hear your lengthy essay on that.
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)write it DID mention the reason for women who hate Hillary (although she didn't go into great detail). I don't think you really read the post. You rushed to a defensive stance. Try not making it all about you next time. The fact that you did is kind of interesting.
Scarsdale
(9,426 posts)and VERY tRump like.
BlueMTexpat
(15,366 posts)
MrsCoffee
(5,801 posts)Weekend Warrior
(1,301 posts)Sorry you needed years of therapy and have spent thousands of dollars to help you in this area. At this point I think it's pretty obvious you need a different approach.
"All those years and thousands upon thousands of dollars for therapy, and all I really needed was you. Someone who had never met me, never spoken to me, never read anything that I have written, and can tell me everything about how my mind works."
JayhawkSD
Wounded Bear
(58,626 posts) 
highplainsdem
(48,957 posts)
volstork
(5,399 posts)Thanks for sharing
dlk
(11,540 posts)Think of it--it's 2017 and, yet, politicians and too many Americans are still fighting hard against equal pay, equal civil rights, women's equal control of their own bodies. Will we ever move past the Dark Ages?
Historic NY
(37,449 posts)any women, that doesn't fit their notion that should be home serving them, their PP&J sandwiches with the crusts cut off.
yardwork
(61,588 posts)I remember how my father - rest his soul - reacted when Bill Clinton won in 1992. "We've elected Mrs. Clinton!" - dripping with vitriol. She was hated and feared as a strong, educated woman who dared to talk.
It's sad that there is still so much misogyny in the U.S.
ffr
(22,665 posts)You're right. They don't get it. And we're all worse off because of their stupidity. Their stupidity is going to get us in a world of hurt.
StevieM
(10,500 posts)This highlights how good of a campaign she ran. It took an assault on our democracy from the FBI to beat her.
Given what she was up against, that is pretty impressive.
Nitram
(22,776 posts)fish in water who don't even know it exists." Exactly!
But the right wing vendetta against the Clintons, starting with Bill's two terms in office, added an additional powerfully toxic ingredient to the whole anti-woman bias. Conservatives, and even liberals, think they can get away with hating her because they can claim (or fool themselves into believing) that it is just a hatred of two so-called sleazy politicians.
MLAA
(17,266 posts)
jimlup
(7,968 posts)is that both sexism and racism are more prevalent in our society than I realized.
I do agree that sexism was a large factor in the '16 result. Perhaps even the decisive one.
For example, the Benghazi absurdity would not have stuck had the Secretary of State been male, all other conditions being exactly the same.
R B Garr
(16,950 posts)Very insightful assessment.
BlancheSplanchnik
(20,219 posts)Brilliant, brilliant.
That was so right on. And she made me understand something I never thought of: that Hillary is a unique person in history.
Wow. I have to read that again. And gaze out a window, pondering with cigarette in hand.
pnwmom
(108,973 posts)I'd love to share it with my friends on Facebook.
Crossing my fingers!
madokie
(51,076 posts)Would make us a proud America. Proud that she won, proud that issues thats been on the back burner for so long are now at the forefront of where we're going. Equality in our being equal. Black, white, red, yellow we're all Humans and should all treat each other as such.
Never in my 69 years of life has anyone been so vilified as she. No one ever
bdjhawk
(420 posts)I have a news aggregator app that shows headlines from various sources. I always ignore the FAUX Noise headlines but couldn't help but notice this last week the headlines from FAUX included several regarding Benghazi. So the RW media helped steal the election and they are still focused on freakin' BENGHAZI?!!! Ever since the election, each time yet another bit of evidence or information comes out about how this election was clearly stolen (Russia, cross-check, info from bots, etc) and the orange turd and his family are using their positions for personal gain, all I can think of is what THEIR reaction would have been if HRC had won and there was even one of those issues that was deemed to have helped her. It would be non-stop media (both RW and MSM) hysteria about it and I have no doubt there would be open threats from tRumps buddies that he called "the 2nd Amendment people".