"No more dynasties"--for women, that is

[BainsBane]

158. It isn't about policy or why people voted as they did.

it is about a clear double standard in how people discuss politics.

The very idea that you and others use the trope of dynasty to attack not a third generation like the Kennedy's but the first woman major candidate because of her husband is itself odd. She was not born into political power. She was the partner of a former president during a time when women were excluded from political power (and still are at the highest levels). Policy concerns don't require holding a woman's marriage again her, or pretending she is an extension of her husband. Charges of dynasty weren't levied against Gore, despite the fact he was born into a prominent political family.

The impetus for my OP was a thread dealing with a news article saying that Chelsea Clinton was not going to seek office anytime soon. Dozens went over to express heir contempt for the very idea she might run--even though the point of the article was to say she wasn't. What policy dispute could that possibly be about? With no campaign, there is no articulation of policy. They shouted dynasty. These are the very people who call for Democrats to return to an era of an earlier dynasty, the Roosevelt's.

That some find it distressing is not surprising. People are often uncomfortable examining their own double standards.

The construction of the contemporary notion of progressive and its use by which they proclaim their separateness and superiority to the rest of Democrats is in part about gender, but it is more about race. It is overwhelmingly invoked by the white, more often than not male, bourgeoisie. It seeks to move away from "identity politics" to establish solidarity with white men on the right. It proclaims middle-class and upper-middle class economic concerns (conspicuously, not poverty) the only true cause, while insisting those who prioritize racism and women's reproductive are somehow centrist. When Sanders talks about how he knows Trump voters aren't racist, his progressive crowds break out in cheers. That reaction cannot be all about sympathy for Trump voters. It taps into something within self-proclaimed progressives themselves.