It Is Hillary Clinton's Destiny to Defeat Donald Trump

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PART I

Okay, maybe you're not so excited that Hillary Clinton is running for president. After all, she's been around for a long time, there's always some kind of controversy swirling around her, she's no spring chicken, she's married to Bill, she wears those jackets, she's got that midwestern accent, plus she's so serious and wonky all the time. What's left to be said? You've already made up your mind about her. She might not be as crazy as those guys on the other side—but that doesn't mean that you have to be happy about the prospect of another President Clinton.

But what if the story isn't about what you know but rather about what you don't? Politicians always say that "there's never been more at stake in an election"—when it happens to be the election in which they're running.

But what if, this time out, that's true? What if this is, like, it, the main event, the conclusion of a long-running series, the climax of a nearly metaphysical battle that started before most people had ever heard of her? Think of a story you read once upon a time in which someone is selected for a fate more profound than anybody suspects—think Harry Potter but with Hermione, the grind, the perpetual A student, as the one scarred by the Dark Lord's lightning. Sure, Hillary Clinton is an unlikely prospect for such a heroine. She's so familiar. What she says might change but she's always the same. But you've read the books. If a person seems to be an unlikely fulcrum for forces much larger than herself, that only means...she is.

PART II

She stands in a classroom, writing on a whiteboard. She is alone—alone as she ever is—and unhurried. There are some people in the room, but they give her space, and her back is to them. She does not turn around. She continues in her condensed handwriting. To her right hangs an American flag and, taped to the board, the text of the Pledge of Allegiance; to her left is the message left to her by the teacher who normally presides over this room. It says, in black marker, "Go Hillary! You are an inspiration to women and young girls across the globe." Then, in red, "Thank you and Happy Holidays to you and your family."

It's long, and it's pro-Clinton, but it's very good.

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a44169/hillary-clinton-esquire-profile/

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1. Hillary Clinton Is Now The Most Religious Candidate Running For President. Here’s Why That Matters.

During a town hall campaign event in Iowa this past January, a woman stood and asked Hillary Clinton an unusually blunt question about faith. The woman, a high school guidance counselor, said she identifies as both a Democrat and a Catholic Christian, but expressed frustration about having to defend her support for Clinton to conservative friends who insist that progressivism and Christianity are incompatible. How, she asked, does Clinton — a self-identified Methodist Christian who also happens to be one of America’s most famous Democrats — grapple with the same question, and how does her faith in things such as the Ten Commandments square with her left-leaning politics?

It’s a deeply personal question that many politicians would dodge, or at least explain away with a platitude about the value of faith and family. So it came as a bit of a surprise when the famously on-message Clinton, whose demeanor and accent critics often dismiss as duplicitous and disingenuous, launched into a lengthy, nuanced, and uncharacteristically unscripted articulation of her faith.

“Thank you for asking that. I am a person of faith. I am a Christian. I am a Methodist,” Clinton responded. “My study of the Bible … has led me to believe the most important commandment is to love the Lord with all your might and to love your neighbor as yourself, and that is what I think we are commanded by Christ to do. And there is so much more in the Bible about taking care of the poor, visiting the prisoners, taking in the stranger, creating opportunities for others to be lifted up … I think there are many different ways of exercising your faith.”

“I do believe that in many areas judgment should be left to God, that being more open, tolerant and respectful is part of what makes me humble about my faith,” she added. “I am in awe of people who truly turn the other cheek all the time, who can go that extra mile that we are called to go, who keep finding ways to forgive and move on.”

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/05/06/3775910/hillary-clinton-faith-profile/

[zalinda]

2. Religion should have no bearing in politics

for me, this is one more strike against her.

You do the right thing BECAUSE it's the right thing. You should not have to read about doing the right thing from a book that some ancient men wrote that is full of inconsistency, not to mention down right subjugation.

A politician should only have one 'religion', it's called The Golden Rule.

Z

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3. With me it depends on the religion and the person.

I'd have to describe myself as agnostic, I don't accept reductive rationalism, the idea that we can describe everything we see analytically, it seems pretty clear that there are perfectly good questions that we are not equipped to resolve about the nature of our reality here. So some sort of reverence or respect or awe seems appropriate.

But on the other hand when someone starts theorizing about the nature of the deity, or how it prefers that we behave here, aside from the obvious things, like don't kill each other, well ...

And not in politics ever. Religion is a private matter. If you can't convince everybody to follow your rules, you don't get to use state power to enforce them anyway.

Ms Clinton's doesn't bother me much, I was raised Methodist, she seems to keep it in its place. I could say the same about Sanders on that count.

[zalinda]

6. Except that she belongs to The Family, which scares the hell out of me. eom

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7. Yeah, I know, but she is a politician.

I don't see anything about her that suggests she is really evangelical, like Cruz for example, which would bother me, but not as much as Trump does. But I get your point.

[Gamecock Lefty]

4. Hillary's faith does not bother me much . . .

because I am firmly in her corner already.

But I must say I look forward to the day when our President is a person of no faith (like me). Of course the argument is that will never play in America. We like our leaders to at least say they are people of faith whether they act like it or not (see Palin, Bush, Cheney, Falwell, Robertson, etc).

But imagine the annual prayer breakfast being cancel due to the President having no interest. Priceless!

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5. I prefer Bernie, but I will vote for Ms Clinton if it comes to that.

I expect that any attempt at further explanation of that will be savaged here, so I'll leave it at that.