Clinton's Internet Supporters Desperately Want This Campaign to Be About Sexism

[mhatrw]

http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2016/02/hillary-clintons-internet-supporters-desperately-w.html

...

Unfortunately, it doesn’t begin and end with the “Bernie Bro” trolling. As that notion starts looking less and less substantial, and others start speaking out, the tactics have shifted. The new line of argument, which has started to emerge this week, is that Hillary Clinton’s policies may not be great, but the choices she made happened because of misogyny. In other words, Hillary’s spotty record—her support for the Iraq war, or her firm opposition to gay marriage that preceded a sudden shift in 2013, or her strong advocacy for job-killing and climate-damaging NAFTA—can all be blamed on sexism.

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If Hillary were a man, she wouldn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of securing the Democratic nomination in 2016. None. And there’s not a serious pundit in the country who would argue otherwise. Why? It’s simple—we wouldn’t have this obscuring gender fog, and we’d see her for the neo-liberal warhawk that she really is. The mood of the Democratic party and of the American left generally is favorable to progressive politics, which is why Hillary continues to adopt many of Bernie’s issues as the campaign rolls along. Hillary leads nationally by about 20 points with women, and trails by about the same amount with men. Without her female base, she’d have no path to the nomination. And if she were a man, she would lose that female base and have to run on her policies and experience alone. How would that go? Well, how did it go for the other centrist male Democratic candidates this year? Anyone remember Lincoln Chafee or Jim Webb?

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Here’s the truth: Being a politician with integrity is seriously hard for anyone. It takes strength to be honest, because you are constantly being asked to compromise your principles, and it’s so easy to fall on the side of big money and line your own pockets, as Hillary has done for years (“being a woman means she had to take hundreds of thousands of dollars in speaking fees from Goldman Sachs!”). But people do it. They’re rare, but they exist. And being female doesn’t disqualify anyone from being honest.

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Okay, enough of the idiocy. I’m not ignorant of the fact that writing this post as a straight white dude is going to open me up to a counter-attack. But let’s call this author’s line of thinking what it is: Hopelessly uninformed, if not downright deceptive. Appeals to emotion don’t belong on the political left—they belong with the GOP, who spend every waking moment stoking fear and anger and finding scapegoats. What the author above has done, and what many of Hillary’s supporters have done, is to adopt a Republican smear tactic. They, too, love to dodge the issues and rile up their base against some anonymous enemy. Just as Donald Trump insists on those mythical New Jersey Muslims who celebrated after 9/11, and his followers believe him despite enormous evidence to the contrary, so Camp Hillary dreams up the Bernie Bro, and it sticks.

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[still_one]

1. "Hillary supporters...adopting republican smear tactic"??? What a bunch of bullshit. How many

Hillary supporters are spamming Facebook pages of people or organizations because they endorse Bernie?

NONE, that seems to be a behavior prevalent in one group of supporters.

Some of links I have seen attacking Hillary here are directly from right wing sources.

When PP endorsed Hillary, a link to an extreme right wing anti-abortion site was used to support the bashing of PP because of that endorsement. Even though it was pointed out multiple times the vileness of the site, the OP, refused to remove the link, and the recommendations and comments within the thread were fast and furious.

and this isn't the only occurrence. So when the accusation, "many of Hillary’s supporters have done, is to adopt a Republican smear tactic.", I suggest those that believe this bullshit, should look around them more closely to see what has been happening in their own back yard. This is the pot calling the kettle black, and it is pathetic.

[mhatrw]

3. Clinton and her supporters are ever persecuted and always victims.

Clinton and her surrogates constantly attack by and/or while playing the victim card. Doesn't your bleeding heart bleed for poor, poor disempowered Hillary?

Anybody who has the gall to publicly express her or his political disagreement with Clinton or her supporters is by definition mean-spirited, racist, and sexist. That's the only consistent line of attack Clinton and her supporters have, and they are sure sticking with it.

[ancianita]

4. Agreed! Media are so much into shit stirring. We need to not allow their taint.

[Metric System]

2. Has HA Goodman taken on a new identity?