Hillary vs. the Hate Machine: How Clinton Became a Vessel for America's Fury

[ehrnst]

Feeling, for lack of a better word, is what drives most Americans' perceptions of Hillary Clinton, one of the most complex and resilient figures in U.S. politics, yet also, after decades of probing scrutiny, less a real person than a vessel for Americans to collectively project their anxieties, fears, frustrations and identity struggles. Across the country, people of every political persuasion – men, women, millennials, baby boomers – told me they were eager for a woman president, just not this woman. Clinton is "inauthentic," some say, as well as selfish – "Her eyes are on her own game," one Democrat noted – calculating and corrupt. Another told me, "She's a fucking liar."

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There are valid criticisms to be made about Clinton. She is one of the least transparent politicians in recent memory. Her 2002 vote to authorize the invasion of Iraq is seen by many, including Clinton herself, as a mistake. As an unapologetic capitalist, whose wealth, family philanthropic foundation and Wall Street ties speak to a cozy relationship with the political and financial elite, she is seen as emblematic of the "rigged" system Trump and Bernie Sanders have campaigned against. And, like many politicians, Clinton has bobbed and weaved over the course of her career, sometimes tacking to the right.

Still, she is fundamentally liberal, and running on a highly progressive platform that includes raising the minimum wage and passing gun-safety measures like universal background checks. Clinton has also been a tireless advocate for women and families since the 1970s and, unlike any secretary of state before her, made global women's issues a key point on her agenda. "She is somebody who wants to be president for all the right reasons," says Clinton's longtime aide Jennifer Klein, who is currently advising Clinton on women's and girls' issues. "I mean, that's the irony of all of these negative characterizations: You couldn't find a person who is more dedicated to improving people's lives than Hillary Clinton."

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"Hillary was proof that all those women sitting around in consciousness-raising groups in the Seventies had made an impact," says early feminist leader and journalist Marilyn Webb. No prior first lady, with the possible exception of Eleanor Roosevelt, had so forcefully asserted her independence. "She was a symbol of all the change that men at that time didn't want," says Webb. "This was the White House – where Jackie Kennedy lived, for God's sake. A feminist coming there was too jarring for a lot of people." With remarkable alacrity, "Hillary-hating," as historian Henry Louis Gates wrote in The New Yorker, became "one of those national pastimes which unite both the elite and the lumpen." Writers like David Brock, then at the right-wing American Spectator – which depicted Clinton as a witch on one of its most successful covers (and referred to her as the "Lady Macbeth of Little Rock&quot – and talk-show hosts like Rush Limbaugh coalesced into what Hillary would later call a "vast right-wing conspiracy." The New York Times' William Safire wrote that she was both a "congenital liar" and a "vindictive political power player." Elsewhere she was derided as a selfish, untrustworthy, incompetent, ball-breaking "bitch," a "closet lesbian" and a terrible mother. Brock, who underwent a liberal conversion in 1997 and is now a pro-Clinton strategist, recalls standing in the hallway at the American Spectator, looking at various cover stories with the magazine's publisher, "and he says something like, 'Can we find some more women to attack, because these Hillary covers are really working.' "

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We live in an era of dire straits and instant gratification, which is why a boorish billionaire was able to say, "Build a wall!" and millions cheered and nominated him for president. But long before all of that, in the pre-recession era, before 9/11 and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, everything felt vastly different, with one crucial exception: the national discomfort with Hillary Clinton and everything she represents, which is strong and unequivocal female leadership. The nativist politics represented by the candidacy of Donald Trump did not happen in a vacuum – nor did the ferocious attacks on Hillary Clinton. If she loses, says the Berkeley linguist Robin Lakoff, "The line will be, 'A woman can't win.'" The majority of activists in both political parties, she notes, are men, "and an awful lot of them are not enthusiastic for a woman. Hillary Clinton pulled it off by God knows how many years of steely determination. She is not 'inevitable.' She has been running this race since 1992."

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/how-hillary-clinton-became-a-vessel-for-americas-fury-w440914

[tblue37]

1. K&R for visibility. nt

[ffr]

2. Bill Clinton: One is real, the other is made up. Best change maker I've ever known.

From above.

"I mean, that's the irony of all of these negative characterizations: You couldn't find a person who is more dedicated to improving people's lives than Hillary Clinton."

34:30s The real one v. the cartoon caricature made up by the RW

[meow2u3]

3. Ever notice that 99% of the attacks on HRC are sexist?

And that she's not allowed to come out and complain about being the target of misogynist attacks?

What's even worse, the most vicious sexist attacks come from other women. Goddamn gender traitors!