I just interviewed our next president @hillaryclinton on @theconversation with @amandadecadenet xoxo -GloZell pic.twitter.com/6ULMae60VG
— GloZell Green (@GloZell) December 21, 2015
I try not to be too overt about supporting HRClinton here, because right now the Balloon Juice readership seems to be divided into three classes: those who also support her candidacy, those who are willing to accept her as our best candidate at the moment even if they don’t agree with everything in her history or her platform, and those who will never get over hating on Hillary for her real or imagined sins. The first group doesn’t need persuasion, the last group is unpersuadable, and the middle group probably doesn’t want to hear any more from either side. But after all the bullshit of the last few days — from the more paranoid Sandernistas insisting the data breach was a HRC-crafted trap, to the Media Village Idiots wondering if Daesh is really using a specially-crafted video of Trump insulting Muslims for recruiting purpose, to the stench of Trump’s latest free-media filth-slinging — I have to share Sady Doyle’s brilliant exegesis, “Likeable”:
… You’d think, given the impressive amount of unfair and often cruelly personal scrutiny this woman faces from the media, it would make sense for her to be pretty cautious about how she presents herself in public. Any misstep or miscalculation will result in a flood of negative headlines, and stands to damage her. Well, apparently, that doesn’t make sense at all. Hillary Clinton, you see, has a reputation for seeming “distant” to the press, not “open” enough to media exposure, “secretive,” “paranoid.” That public presence of hers sure does seem “calculating.” I mean: It’s almost like, after over twenty straight years of being attacked for her appearance, personality, and every waking move, breath and word, Hillary Clinton is highly conscious of how she is perceived and portrayed, and is trying really hard to monitor her own behavior and behave in ways people will accept. Which is disgusting, of course. Nowadays, we want “authentic” candidates. Hillary Clinton isn’t “trustworthy.” She doesn’t seem “real.”…
Hillary Clinton is the impossible woman. The pressures she lives under, every moment of her life, are so numerous and so all-encompassing that she barely has room to breathe. She doesn’t have an inch of leeway, a single safe option; there is no version of Hillary Clinton that won’t receive visceral hatred, and loud, personal criticism. And the version of Hillary Clinton we get – this conflicted, conflict-inspiring candidate, the woman who has a genius-level recall of global politics but has to assure the world she’ll spend her Presidency picking out flowers and china, the lady who books a guest spot on Broad City but can’t pronounce “Beyonce,” the woman who was twenty years ahead of the curve on women’s rights but somehow thinks it’s a good idea to throw in a Bush-esque 9/11 reference at a debate – is the inevitable product of these pressures…
And her story moves me, on that level, simply as an example of a woman who got every misogynist trick in the world thrown at her, and who didn’t let it slow her down. On that level, she’s actually become a bit of a personal role model: When people yell at me, or dislike me, I no longer think oh, how horrible this is for me. I now think, well, if Hillary can do it. Seriously. If Hillary Clinton can be called an evil hag by major media outlets for most of her adult life and run for President, I can deal with blocking ten or twenty guys on Twitter. She’s dealt with more shit than I have. She’s still going. I really have no excuse not to do the same.
But she shouldn’t have to deal with it. This is all the byproduct of a misogynist culture. If you can cut through those expectations, or change them, a different woman – potentially a very different candidate – would emerge on the other side. So saying nice things about Hillary Clinton, for me, isn’t just something I do because I feel good about her. It’s not even something I do to piss people off. It’s a way to shift cultural dialogue, to allow for a world where women aren’t suffocated or crushed by our expectations of them – a world where Hillary, and every future female President or Presidential candidate, can focus on the task at hand, and not have to climb over a barbed-wire fence of hatred in order to change the world.
(via)
Myiq2xu
Anybody gonna mention Ann Telnaes racist cartoon in the Washington Post?
Omnes Omnibus
I didn’t know that Amanda de Cadenet was still culturally relevant.
Omnes Omnibus
@Myiq2xu: Do explain why it was racist.
Myiq2xu
You might want to double check that with John Cole, cuz seven years ago he assured us that there was absolutely no misogyny or sexism being used against her.
Myiq2xu
@Omnes Omnibus: Are you claiming it isn’t?
Wag
This is why I’m firmly in the middle camp that you describe. Bernie is my choice, but I’d be okay with Clinton.
Omnes Omnibus
@Myiq2xu: I am asking you to explain why it is. You are capable of that, no?
Anne Laurie
@Myiq2xu:
Yeah, Cole’s definitely Group Two in my theory.
In his defense, he did give me a platform here, knowing full well that I disagreed with him about HRC (among other topics), so there’s that.
chopper
@Myiq2xu:
I really don’t think you of all people should be telling others to go rooting through the archives from back then.
chopper
@Anne Laurie:
given at the very least the fact that she clearly supported the biggest foreign policy blunder in the last 50 years, she belongs in the second bin.
thing is, the second bin isn’t a bad place to be. trying to be the best possible candidate for liberals is a sucker’s game anyway.
Keith G
So, a Tallahassee hospital and the police ganged up to kill a Black woman.
What? Were they running low on bullets?
Woman dies after being forcibly removed from hospital by police; state to investigate
@chopper:
No. Not really.
Suzanne
I am honestly a little bit scared of what happens if HRC is elected, or if another woman is elected in my lifetime. BHO’s election caused a lot of the festering racism that remains in society to come out loud and proud and let its freak flag fly. The first woman prez will bring out frightening amounts of sexism.
This is, of course, not a reason to not vote for her. It’s just going to be fucking ugly and awful.
Ohio Mom
This is the third blog post I’ve seen this evening in my travels through the blogosphere with big chunks of Sady Doyle’s post. She has definitely touched a nerve.
I am in the middle camp, not a big fan but certainly see Hillary as the only realistic option. But I have been asking myself for a while now how much of my ambivalence is indeed plain old sexism.
PeakVT
Do people in this group actually hang out here? Thank goodness I have no time to read the comments anymore.
Gin & Tonic
@chopper: This is probably neither here nor there, but in referring to “the biggest foreign policy blunder of the last 50 years” I think you (meaning the generic “you”) should be more specific. I get that you are referring to the invasion of Iraq, but I personally think that Reagan’s insistence on maintaining the SDI, which led to the collapse of the Reykjavik summit in 1986, was a bigger blunder. The Iraq war cost more in money and lives, but the potential consequences of Reykjavik were so much larger.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: Based on this report, I agree.
Suzanne
@Omnes Omnibus: Was she ever?
Bobby D
I’m in the second group and I agree she gets way, way more BS that she deserves from pretty much everyone to include the media and other Dems. I don’t like DNC coporate shilling types, and I put her firmly in that camp, but I’m practical, and am voting for supreme court appointments. She can win, nobody else on our side can. And sure, I said Obama couldn’t win the first one, so I could be wrong. But I’m not willing to risk it.
stinger
@Suzanne:
Yes, it is. I partly dread it, but I also want to lance that boil. Might help hasten the dissolution of the Republican Party.
workworkwork
@Suzanne: I think it’s more of a problem for HRC, since misogyny is still considered more socially acceptable than racism.
On the other hand, the abscess doesn’t start to heal until it drains. I think bringing these jerks out into the sunshine and cutting off their social support structure is, in the long term, a good thing. Doesn’t mean it isn’t horrible in the short term, though.
NotMax
Couple of off the beaten track items which caught the eye.
Gee, ya think?
Police: Upset over horse’s death, man bombed house
When will the Repubs announce their plans to begin bombing?
chopper
@Gin & Tonic:
potentially, maybe. if that changes maybe it’ll pop up into first place.
HR Progressive
Hillary Clinton puts up with a ton of bullshit that anyone who is a woman, let alone a women capable of being “Leader of the Free World”, should have to put up with, in 2015.
That said, the reason some of us question whether we can “trust” her has nothing to do with her gender, and everything to do with her coziness to the financial MOTU’s that caused the economic meltdown that many still have not recovered from.
If Elizabeth Warren were running, she too would have to put up with knuckledragging codswallop from those who wish the calendar was about to read 1816 and not 2016, but those of us who support Sanders would not be questioning her “trustworthiness” on issues related to the vanishing middle class.
Frankly, I don’t give a damn what duties if any Bill Clinton has if Hillary is elected President. And neither should anyone else. I don’t need Hillary to prove she’s “still a woman” or some other crap by “picking out flowers”. If she’s elected, she has to lead. She has to get people back to work, address monumental criminal justice and civil rights failures within this country, and must not be drawn back into another large-scale disaster into the Middle East.
I’m all in for Bernie Sanders, because I think he’d advocate for, and take better positions than her on these issues. But if Hillary wins the primary, she has to win the general, period. End of story. That should not even be a question to anyone who fancies themselves as anything other than a reactionary bigot.
Omnes Omnibus
@Suzanne: She was pretty and married a dude from Duran Duran. Of course, she once was relevant. Also, her dad was a racing driver who once came in third overall at Le Mans. I became aware of her because of him.
Keith G
@efgoldman: Maybe so. Could be the cop had no other option than to cuff the former patient and remove her.
I would like to think that police try to use judgement and discretion in solving disputes before escalating them to the back of a squad car. It is possible that the cop had no other option available to him. Maybe. Maybe not.
As far as the hospital goes….jeeesh, they couldn’t have found a place for her to sit for a while until she or had a chance to either feel better or reassert her request for help?
Suzanne
@workworkwork: @stinger: Agreed. It’s just going to be awful. I’m a mom of girls, and I’m also striving to climb the career ladder in a male-dominated field, so I am expecting to be really pissed off for the next four years.
In my employee review once, I was told that I wasn’t nice enough and that I didn’t smile enough, that I was “looking daggers” when I was just sitting with a neutral expression. I seriously got called out for Bitchy Resting Face. Fuck.
BubbaDave
@Suzanne:
OK, I realize I’m a horrible person, but that’s one of the reasons I’m supporting Hillary.
When Obama was our nominee, a lot of racism came out in the opposition (I’m still proud of having been called a traitor to my race because I was knocking on doors for Obama in Ohio in ’08) — but it didn’t hurt the Republicans much because African-Americans already voted D.
If Bernie is our nominee, I expect a lot of antiSemitism to come out in the opposition– but it won’t hurt the Republicans much because Jews already tend to vote D.
But if Hillary is our nominee, I expect a lot of misogynist bullshit to come out in the Republican party– and white women are a big chunk of the GOP voters. If the Republican sexism alienates a substantial block of white women, it could wreck the GOP as we know it– a consummation devoutly to be wished.
J
Trump is saying this to your daughter sister and mother wtf.
FlipYrWhig
@HR Progressive: What is this very frequent charge of Wall Street coziness based on? I know about “corporate” and how that basically boils down to Walmart plus Bill. Where does “Wall Street” come from?
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@FlipYrWhig: It’s the infamous list of her top-10 donors going back to when she first started running for Senate from NY. Why people think that someone representing the state that includes Wall Street wouldn’t have substantial donations from people who work (not the firms themselves, of course) on Wall Street is beyond me…
Cheers,
Scott.
amk
@Myiq2xu: Most people grow up. Some idjits obviously don’t.
FlipYrWhig
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: There are the Robert Rubin ties to Bill as well. But did she do anything particularly beyond the call of duty to benefit Wall Street? I remember when people used to sneer that Biden was the “senator from MBNA,” and as I recall that was because of, or amplified by, his championing the bankruptcy bill. Does Hillary C have anything like that in her record?
Monala
@Myiq2xu: As vile as Ted Cruz is, the cartoon is pretty despicable. “Leave the kids out of it” should be a hard and fast rule, even if the candidates bring their kids into it themselves. You want to criticize a candidate for displaying their children? Do it verbally; don’t depict the children.
A Humble Lurker
Uh huh.
(I don’t really care, I’m just saying.)
FlipYrWhig
@HR Progressive: BTW, are you sure Elizabeth Warren has dovish views on foreign policy?
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@FlipYrWhig: She worked hard to get as much money as possible to rebuild Manhattan after 9/11. I don’t know much about anything other than that wrt Wall Street in her record. Presumably lots of this stuff is at Wikipedia.
My take on her is that she’s a very smart woman who has been demonized by people for a very long time. But I also think that she has put forward some policies (like the proposed no-fly zone in Syria) that seem to me to be poorly thought out and even dangerous. She also has seemingly had trouble hiring good people (e.g. Mark Penn) and has done things in office that seem bone-headed to me (her e-mail server). I think her heart is in the right place in many social issues, and she has demonstrated she can learn, but she also has a very stubborn streak that is likely to get her into trouble (see her interview with Terry Gross).
I also worry about her health and whether she has the stamina for the campaign and the job (she looked worn out to me on many occasions as SoS).
Is she my favorite? No. She’s no Obama.
Do I hate her? No.
Will I vote for her if she wins the nomination? With enthusiasm.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
I posted a similar concept about President Obama before he was elected and got my ass rightfully handed to me. You are right about it being ugly, but then hasn’t it already been? As several have stated the only way to get the subject out in the open and maybe start to heal up the hate and bullshit is to elect a woman. HRC is capable and experienced, has had more than her or anyone’s share of hate and bullshit and she’s willing to go for it. That alone is worth more than can be measured. I want her elected because she is strong, because she is the best candidate who is running and because she has learned to be worth our trust.
FlipYrWhig
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Hawkish is a charge I understand. “Too Wall Street” I’ve never quite gotten a handle on.
JGabriel
Anne Laurie @ Top:
I guess I’m a fourth class, someone who genuinely thinks Sanders is our best candidate, and intends to vote for him in the primary, but likes Clinton and will have no qualms about voting for her if she’s the nominee.
Suzanne
@Ruckus: Yes, it’s ugly, and because I’m white, I have been able to witness this grotesquerie at one degree of remove. Obviously, it has horrified me to see the racism be so awful, but I know that I don’t truly feel it as deeply, having never experienced it directed at my.
As I said, avoiding expressions of sexism is no reason to vote or note vote for her. I just, personally and selfishly, know it’s going to be hard to take. People that I care about and like , or even people I can’t avoid, are going to say offensive shit. My daughters will hear things that hurt them and cause them to question their place in society. I just do not always have the emotional energy to deal with this, yanno? I realize that I am relatively privileged here.
FDRLincoln
I am a white heterosexual married middle class male in his late 40s, and I put a Hillary Clinton bumper sticker on my car today.
I have tremendous respect for Bernie Sanders and agree with him on most things, but then I agree with Hillary on a lot of things too. Both are acceptable to me ideologically.. Hillary seems better prepared to be Chief Executive.
Irony Abounds
I’d vote for a rattlesnake over any of the Republicans running, so it will be easy to vote for Hillary. Nonetheless, I find Doyle’s descriptions of the incredible hardships that HRC has had to endure to be hyperbole in the extreme. For pete’s sake, the woman has been a successful attorney, First Lady of Arkansas and the United States, a United States Senator and Secretary of State. She and Bill have gotten richer than snot. Whatever her complaints may be they pale at the blessings she has received during her lifetime, so unless she is in fact Superwoman, apparently she hasn’t really had to face the horrible misogyny that Doyle believes to be the case.
Unquestionably there have been a number of unfair attacks on her, and it is harder for a woman to become a part of the power structure in this country. But please, reading that haigography you’d think HRC was constantly being beaten by a 2X4, shackled to to the floor and penalized for breathing (e.g., the last sentence of the Doyle’s piece: “It’s a way to shift cultural dialogue, to allow for a world where women aren’t suffocated or crushed by our expectations of them – a world where Hillary, and every future female President or Presidential candidate, can focus on the task at hand, and not have to climb over a barbed-wire fence of hatred in order to change the world“). Is Hillary really served by this crap?
Spare me the woe is her. Hillary’s doing just fine. She’s going to win the nomination very easily and is in great shape against the Republican candidate whomever it is, notwithstanding the utterly insurmountable obstacles that she has to face.
benw
@JGabriel: Agreed. Go Bernie.
burnspbesq
@Omnes Omnibus:
That seems awfully unlikely, wouldn’t you say?
mclaren
@Wag:
I mean, c’mon…what’s the alternative? Hillary is far to the right of Obama, who is pretty much Dubya’s third and fourth term except for the healthcare and gay marriage stuff, and maybe (maybe!) Obama’s DOJ doing some serious investigations of insitutional racism in shitholes like Ferguson MO. But seriously… People! Trump or Hillary? Is that really a choice? Cruz or Hillary? Rubio or Hillary? I’m not great big Hillary fan, but cripes, I’d crawl over broken glass with salt on it to vote for Hillary if the choice is between her and Rubio or Cruz or Trump or any of those other lunatics.
Yes, Hills has been slammed with grotesque misogyny. Yes, she’s playing the “poor victimized woman” card, along with the feminist solidarity card — and so what? Hillary is a politician. Politicians use whatever they can to get elected. At least Hillary isn’t telling insane lies, the way Romney was, or massaging the stormfront white power freaks, the way Trump is, or promising crazy shit like putting Hillary in jail, the way Cruz is.
Myiq2xu
@Omnes Omnibus: What part of portraying Latino children as monkeys being racist don’t you understand?
mclaren
@chopper:
Yeah, but this is the Democratic Party’s dog-whistle — pretty near the whole goddamn Democratic Party voted for the biggest foreign policy blunder in the last 50 years, and they not only did it once, they doubled down and voted for it again when Karl Rove gave them the opportunity in 2004.
If we start running people out of the Democratic party or claiming they’re not qualified to serve in high office because they fucked up so bad with supporting the biggest foreign policy blunder in the last 50 years, there wouldn’t be a lot of Democrats left to serve in any high office.
And by the way, our wonderful host was Mister Gung Ho in the biggest foreign policy blunder in the last 50 years for about 2 years. So if we’re gonna start a purity patrol, you’d better deep-six the guy who runs this blog. I don’t think we want to go there. Let’s just admit that a lot of Demos fucked up on Iraq, they recognize their error now, and let’s move on.
burnspbesq
@Myiq2xu:
What part of Cruz making them fair game by shamelessly exploiting them do you not understand? Republicans never backed down from going after Amy Carter or Chelsea Clinton. As ye sow, so shall ye reap. Period, full stop.
Suzanne
@mclaren: I am finding it interesting to see how, dramatically against type, the Dems are falling in line while the GOP falls in love. It’s so irrational.
Myiq2xu
@burnspbesq: Kids are off limits. Period.
Rashi
Clinton’s problem is that she doesn’t show enough cleavage. In fact, I don’t think she shows any at all. Throw away the pant suits and start wearing more revealing attire. This will not only ingratiate herself to men but send the message, at least subconsciously, that she’s open, warm and receptive.
mclaren
@FlipYrWhig:
Okay, let’s try this one:
Source: “Why Liberal Democrats Are Skeptical of Hillary Clinton, in One Paragraph — Hint: It’s the same reason an auditorium of Goldman Sachs executives gave her a warm welcome recently,” The Atlantic magazine, December 2013.
Add in the fact that Hillary’s daughter Chelsea is married a Goldman Sachs hedge fund trader while Goldman Sachs just pleaded no contest to “misleading investors” and coughed up a record 550 million dollar fine to the Securities and Exchange Commission for their grotesque criminal fraud, and you’ll start to see the light.
mclaren
@Suzanne:
Yeah, the parties seem to have switched personalities, like something out of the film Freaky Friday. Normally the Demos are catfightng and disintegrating into chaos while the Repubs are disciplined and well-organized, but this election it’s just the opposite.
Hey, I’m not complaining. William “Darth Idiot” Kristol is predicting the Republican party will split into more than two parts. Hey…sounds like a plan!
mclaren
@FlipYrWhig:
Hillary Clinton also came out against breaking up the TBTF banks in the recent debate. Disastrously bad idea. Hillary has a long long record of deregulating Wall Street predatory banks and crooks, then coddling them and protecting them from the consequences of their criminal fraud. Hillary has opposed literally every single financial reform, from reinstating Glass-Steagall to breaking up the TBTF banks to regulating the shadow banking system to holding individual Wall Street corporate officers personally liable for criminal fraud.
mclaren
@efgoldman:
If you gave a paid speech to child molesters explaining that “bashing child molesters is not productive,” you’re goddamn right it does.
Use the proper analogy instead of a sleazy straw man.
chopper
@mclaren:
yeah, I don’t think cole is running for president this year.
let’s not and say we didn’t. the people killed, maimed and made refugees in that conflict deserve better than that.
I’m not saying drive anybody out of the party, chuckles. re read what AL said again, this time with reading comprehension.
mclaren
And speaking of open threads…anyone notice the bombshell that just blew up in Wisconsin?
Source: “Scott Walker Corruption Case Threatens to Implicate Wisconsin Supreme Court Justices,” Mother Jones, December 2015.
Yowie zowie. This might crack that whole can ‘o worms in the corrupt Wisconsin kleptocracy wide open…
Rashi
@mclaren:
“Yeah, but this is the Democratic Party’s dog-whistle — pretty near the whole goddamn Democratic Party voted for the biggest foreign policy blunder in the last 50 years”
This is terribly overstated if it refers to the Iraq War resolution, no? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Resolution
Amir Khalid
@NotMax:
Back in 1963, Brunei was on the verge of joining Malaya in the new, expanded Federation of Malaysia, along with Sabah, Sarawak, and Singapore. The Sultan then, the father of the current one, changed his mind at the last minute; Brunei is now the only extant Malay Sultanate not part of Malaysia. Some may remember the FORTUNE cover story that painted the royal family as eccentric and rather tacky. Maybe we dodged a bullet.
chopper
@mclaren:
so, being willing to accept clinton as our best candidate at the moment even if i don’t agree with everything in her history (like her vote for war in iraq) or her platform makes me a psychopath whose girlfriend gargles piss?*
interesting philosophy you’ve got there. i’d like to subscribe to your newsletter, assuming it isn’t written in feces. i’m not holding my breath on that last bit tho.
* for those playing at home, this refers to a comment that appears to have vanished. you can generally guess the content.
chopper
@Amir Khalid:
i like the sultan. i’d like to walk right up to him and wish him a big fat merry christmas.
BillinGlendaleCA
@chopper: I saw it, I guess it got moderated out or Mclaren asked for it to be deleted(I’m betting on door #1).
AxelFoley
@Suzanne:
Bring all that shit out. It’s always been under the surface (for the most part). This shit has to be lanced from America, and the only way to do that is to get it all out in the open.
cmorenc
@Suzanne:
It will also stoke resentful fears among the GOP base that HRC’s election is proof that the electoral demographics and dynamics have gone past a tipping point past which it is becoming forbiddingly difficult for the GOP to win a Presidential election, for all their success in gerrymandering the US House and state legislatures following 2010. The likely result will be more egregiously blatant attempts by the GOP to skew federal elections, including not merely talking about (as they have before) but actually going through with attempts to alter the electoral vote apportion in presidential blue-leaning states like Michigan they control at the state level by apportioning electoral votes by congressional district instead of statewide, while leaving red-leaning states winner-take-all. Vote suppression will also take even more egregious forms.
AxelFoley
@mclaren:
You’ve said some stupid shit many a time before, but this one takes the cake.
cokane
I really can’t buy the main point of that article. As a commenter said above, Hillary’s life has been more blessed than cursed. I really don’t think the slings and arrows she’s suffered have been worse than men who have had as much limelight.
I also don’t think there’s much evidence that the country is resistant to a female president. She almost won the primary in 2008 and would have for sure won the general. Furthermore, 40+ percent of Americans somehow brought themselves to vote for a ticket with Sarah Palin on it. Republicans, even. If someone that unqualified can get so close, it’s hard to argue that voters are making the candidate’s sex a primary issue.
Applejinx
@mclaren: This. Hillary literally represented New York, and it was her duty to stand up for whoever signifies New York the most, and just like a Senator from Delaware might, she aligned with what the dominant business forces in her state were.
THEY are a serious problem. She, in turn, was only serving them because that was the job she was asked to do, and it’s more a question of how much carry-over there would be. She ain’t no Elizabeth Warren, and the big hope here is largely to hope that Hillary can see the mood of the zeitgeist and throw the bankers under the bus: because that’s going to happen one way or another, what they’re doing is unsustainable (listen to some Mark Blyth if you’d like to be enlightened and alarmed, about the amount of leverage in the banking system relative to national GDPs. We can’t just let them expand and carry on as usual anymore)
I’m in that second camp, and prefer to see a Clinton candidacy as having some positive aspects that balance out the worrisome aspects (mostly having to do with war and economics, two alarming places to have bad habits). It’s hard to imagine not voting for the Dem, though. Look at how much damage W did.
I know a bunch of Sandernistas who think I’m insane for even considering the idea that Clinton could throw the banks under the bus to save us, but (a) only Nixon could go to China, (b) I don’t think Clinton is principled enough to have loyalty to special interests over general voter pandering, and (c) in so many ways we can see that the populace is super pissed with the bankers and hyper-wealthy. I think she could do the right thing for sketchy reasons. Her people were on the verge of canceling the Bernie campaign for her, and she stepped up and fixed that because of her political instincts, and those same instincts are telling her that Wall Street is in real trouble with the people. They gotta go. In real terms they’ve way overreached.
Marrying in to the Clinton family will not necessarily help.
But you’ll still get people who seem to believe that the Clintons will show touching loyalty to the incredibly wealthy who’ve spurned them again and again, and would never betray those genuinely horrible people for political gain. I am unconvinced.
Arclite
The cashier in line at the discount store said to me today, “Anyone but Trump.” It was a woman, of course, and most women who know Trump’s history of rape despise him.
Schlemazel
@mclaren:
So, decided the r2r was not gonna make it on life support and you just wanted to add a special brand of stupidity all your own? I bet you were one of those who just knew that Nader was right an a term or two under Boy Blunder would convince Americans that Ralphie was our only hope.
There is a lot of distance between what I wish Obama could have done & what he was able to do but if we placed it next to the difference between what he did and what Bush did (or any of the current clown car would do) it is infinitesimal. It would look the same as if we laid your brain on a razors edge & looked at it through powerful microscope – a pea in the middle of a four-lane highway.
Another Holocene Human
@Keith G: A lot of ‘negroes be faking their health problems amirite’ in there by the doctors and police, despite all evidence to the contrary. Seen it in Gainesville, too.
Also more evidence that using white 20 yo college males as the baseline for vital statistics is literally killing Black women.
Another Holocene Human
@Arclite: Why? AFAIK he’s been accused of rape once and the accuser retracted. Plenty of women out there would dismiss that. However, the fact that Trump is an insecure blowhard and a bully is painfully obvious and his shtick with that dollop of misogyny is not working with them.
Also, don’t underestimate that gross comment he made about fucking his daughter. That’s gotten a lot of circulation.
Last item, there is research showing even white women don’t care for men who brag about being racist shitstains. It’s like A Clue they aren’t particularly nice guys.
Linda Featheringill
I have been working for women’s rights for more than a half century but I still believe there are reasons for supporting someone other than Hillary that have nothing to do with misogony. She is not Holy Mary Mother of God. She’s a human being, with all the frailty that goes with being such a creature.
I happen to like Bernie and I support him, even though I don’t think he has the chance of the proverbial snowball of winning.
FlipYrWhig
@mclaren:
Show me. What you showed me so far was a second hand account of some banker types feeling relief at a speech she gave (not quoted, only characterized) and some slime about her son in law. My brother and sister work in investment banking, one because she wanted to be rich, the other because they recruited him and paid him scads of money to do quirky things. My other brother is a labor organizer. Someone could tell very different stories about me by aligning me with any of those people, no?
EconWatcher
I’ll never forgive her Iraq War vote, and I’ll complain about it right up until the moment when I pull the lever for her, because I have no choice. But in a more decent world, it would be disqualifying.
Never forget that about half of the Senate Dems voted against it. No doubt more votes could have been picked up for the opposition if the Clinton name wasn’t counted in support. It didn’t even require being a lonely voice in the wilderness to do the right thing.
And I’m sorry, folks, but she knew better. I was around at the time. It didn’t take a genius. She just calculated that it was better to err on the side of hawkishness for her future run for President.
I’m always baffled by people who emphasize that she now says she was wrong. That is absolutely obligatory for someone who would run for the Dem nomination after casting such a vote; why does it earn credit?
Anyway, I like Bernie, but I’m not for him, because a self-declared socialist is not getting elected in this country. So Hillary it is. Sigh.
Seth Owen
@Gin & Tonic: huh?
Considering that the Soviet Union ceased to exist a few years later and with it 90% of the danger of thermonuclear war, I don’t see how that holds a candle to the continuing fallout from the disastrous Iraq war. It’s not even in the same universe of blunder, if it was even a blunder and not merely a set back in the normal give and take of diplomacy. Is there any significant Impact today?
I think Iraq could easily be the biggest foreign policy blunder in 200 years, let alone 50. It’s only competitors might be the War of 1812 or, perhaps, US entry to WW1.
C.V. Danes
@Wag: I agree, to a point. I am solidly in the Bernie camp, but will accept Hillary if she wins. I’ll just have to buy stock in Tums to get over the queazy feeling I get whenever I see her.
C.V. Danes
@Bobby D: In an anti-establishment election, Sanders would fare much better than Clinton. I’m concerned that Clinton is the Democratic version of Mitt Romney. I guess we’ll just have to see how the primaries play out.
C.V. Danes
@FlipYrWhig: I don’t think it is a stretch to point out that Clinton is clearly the establishment candidate, with all the implications and baggage that brings.
FlipYrWhig
@C.V. Danes: “Establishment” doesn’t mean “pawn of Wall Street,” though. I’m sure rich Democrats like Hillary Clinton pretty well. A lot of Democrats like Hillary Clinton pretty well, because she seems strong, steady, competent, and composed. She’s not exciting, but few candidates are.
And my view has consistently been that “anti-establishment” is vastly overblown and over-read this cycle, which has seen “establishment” Clinton decisively leading “anti-establishment” Sanders consistently on the D side. “Anti-establishment” is a too-clever-by-half way of trying to link liberal enthusiasm for Sanders to peckerwood enthusiasm for non-politicians like Trump and Carson.
Beth in VA
@Another Holocene Human: This. Hospital mostly at fault but I knew the woman was black after first paragraph. Police wouldn’t cuff white woman in same circumstance. Wish I’d been wrong but last paragraph verified it.
Linnaeus
@EconWatcher:
This is my view on HRC re Iraq. I can forgive her, because in the US political context there really isn’t a choice. I can’t forget it, though, and I don’t think it should be forgotten.
I like Sanders best, but I’d have no problem with voting for Clinton and I don’t see Sanders beating her in the primary.
The Gray Adder
@chopper: Bigger than starting a war in Iraq that we didn’t have to fight?
The Gray Adder
@The Gray Adder: OK, **supported** said blunder. Fine. #87 was in error and I sound like an idiot and I juuuuust missed being able to edit it.
Now, as for the dozens of Democrats who were basically browbeat into supporting the greatest foreign policy blunder in the past 50 years. Yes, browbeat. I was there. I saw it on TV. The lies, the accusations on the Sunday talk shows, the little vial of whatever it was that Secretary Powell waved around at the UN, all of it. I can only assume that there are more than a few of you who were in grade school at the time, but I was there.
Not only was I there, I was an Army Reservist whose involvement in said blunder (thank God) consisted of sitting in a truck supervising people driving ammo and hot coffee to the poor bastards who were training to go to the sandbox by freezing their asses off at Fort Drum. In fact, I was at the all-ranks club having pizza and beer while CNN was covering the invasion as if it were the fucking Super Bowl. It was enough to make one sick. A year later, I got my 20-year letter and retired before the ink was dry. As much as I wanted to refuse to participate in that fustercluck, I wanted my pension a little bit more.
C.V. Danes
@FlipYrWhig: My feeling is simply this: if you have no problem with all the things that Obama has championed (PPACA good, TPP not so much) then you should be happy with Clinton. On neo-liberal policy they will be virtually indistinguishable once she gets into office. But if you find the crackdowns on whistleblowers, the snuggling up to the secret police state, the defense of corporations, the coddling of Wall Street, the championship of free trade over fair trade, the hippie punching, and so on to be troubling, then Clinton will be more of the same, too.
There’s a lot of people who don’t want more of the same, and they’re completely justified in feeling that way.
LAC
@AxelFoley: Mclaren ‘s posts make this thread a quick read towards the end. After the first addled purity posing post, I just figure the rest are more of the same: Hilary is evil, you are all psychopaths for supporting her, here’s my cut and paste of the day, I am pure, blah blah blah.Followed by cv Danes ” purity list” with hippy punching making its endless appearance.
planetjanet
Wow. Thank you Annie, for bringing this to my attention. What a great perspective. It is amazing how much she has had to put up with all of her life and yet she keeps fighting. I have considered myself in the middle camp. It is time to put that bumper sticker on my car. I am getting my working clothes on. Time to fight.
C.V. Danes
@LAC: Wow. I never considered a non-dismissive attitude towards the liberal wing to be a purity trait. Who knew!
FlipYrWhig
@C.V. Danes:
But here’s the thing about the entire “liberal wing,” which isn’t really the liberal wing because the majority of liberals are cool with Hillary Clinton. It’s the left-libertarian and economic-populist segments already to the left of standard-issue liberals that care about your list with passion rather than with “eh, yeah, that sounds kinda bad and I wish it didn’t happen but I’m honestly not over-concerned about it.” And there aren’t that many people in that group. There are more moderates than liberals in the Democratic Party and more liberals than these other persuasions. “A lot” in an absolute way, OK. Not in a relative way.
wonkie
My distrust of Hillary comes from the campaign for the nomination. She surrounded herself with bad advisers and followed their bad advice. She took the pandering appeasement route and the big state strategy, rather than defining herself in contrast to the Rethugs and running in every state. She seems to have learned and grown from that experience. She seems to understand that you can’t win by presenting yourself as Rethug-lite while abandoning marginal areas to Rethug control. But I’f rather have the candidate who has had the good instincts all along than the one who learned by fucking up.
Of course I will vote for her if she gets the nomination.
LAC
@C.V. Danes: gee, I thought it sounded more like a smug putdown with a little twist of purity posing. You know, the kind of “concern” that causes us to sit out elections and hand over the legislative branch of this country to nuts.
FlipYrWhig
@wonkie: “Republican-lite” doesn’t match my recollection of the Clinton ’08 campaign at all. I remember her running as the prepared, tough-minded candidate, picking on the others as starry-eyed newbies. Then she tried the have-a-beer-with strategy to appeal to “hardworking, white Americans.”
C.V. Danes
@LAC: @FlipYrWhig: Just for the record, I’ve never sat out an election, and I always encourage people to vote because not voting is a vote for the other side, no matter how you justify it.
That being said, there are legitimate concerns with some of Obama’s policies, and when your response to that is SHUT UP YOU STUPID HIPPIE, then a lot of people who would be energized to, I don’t know, vote to restore Democratic control of the House and Senate just say fuck it. Don’t believe me? Just look at the routing of Democrats in the last NY govenor’s election.
So keep blaming those who might not like everything they see, or have issues with wholesale crackdowns on whistleblowing, active destruction of privacy, or whatever. Because that attitude is working so well in the states and just about every elected office except the POTUS.
LeonS
Am I the only one who couldn’t give Hilly Kristal’s rats ass how “likable” a candidate is? It’s the the mother of all non-issues for me. You are NOT going to have a beer with the president. Get over it.
That said I have a very strong preference for Bernie, and many problems with Hillary. None of them have anything to do with “likability” or “perceived honesty”. And none of my issues with Hillary are within a galaxy of preventing me from voting for her should be be the Democratic candidate.
quakerinabasement
@Myiq2xu: Yes. You, apparently. Please continue.
J R in WV
Now this is a typical political posting thread.
Nothing we haven’t all heard before, maybe excepting a detail of two around the edges.
Bernie is a good guy, with great political instincts and good policy positions on issues that matter, especially big business and the workers they exploit.
Hillary is a good guy, with good political instincts and reasonable policy positions on many issues that matter, except perhaps for big business and the exploitation of workers they do.
I’m just hoping Trump doesn’t win the election, because the world is fucked if he does. The man has terrible instincts, no policies at all other than his own narcissism, and the willingness to do anything that takes his interest for a moment. Then, while minions are in a dark corner beating someone to death, he’ll forget he ever talked about the dead guy and his need to get re-educated.
That same concept will also go for Trump’s larger problems, like Putin raging around in his backyard, and what NATO wants to do about it. Whatever is best for Trump’s ego is what he will do. I can smell the flames now. Here and in the parts south of Russia, the former Soviet states. Pits full of bodies and fuel, burning, like the former Yugoslavia burned a while back, only more so.
LAC
@C.V. Danes: well, if we had energized people who were realistic and long term warriors instead of posers who love to overuse the word hippy and list their grievances like George Constanza’s dad, we might be in a place where we would have a legislature that would respond better to privacy issues, and civil rights, and fucking gun laws. Because generally what comes out of a sector of the left in this country is a lot of lecturing about what we should be concerned with (Snowden snowflake) coupled with a fuck you if we are not chomping at the bit to vote for Sanders or hang bankers by their thumbs. Oh and making Clinton and Obama sound like Pol Pot. Yeah. Your way is soooo working.