This was the first time a trans woman gave a speech at the DNC. Having trans delegates is quite different than putting them on the main podium to speak.
We don’t. This was the first time an out trans woman gave a speech at the DNC. I assumed you’d understand that aspect without it being made explicit.
Are you accrediting Hillary Clinton for these developments? I don’t think she deserves that, especially not given her past positions opposing this sort of progress.
If you’d read the comment I was replying to originally you’d recognize the answer is obviously no.
Would openly transgendered persons giving political speeches make up for war, corruption, depraved expressions of US Federal executive power like drone strikes and destabilizing uses of national force abroad? What about regulatory capture, environmental contamination and global climate change, toxic domestic food and water supplies, the depravities of for-profit basic health care? Will she even tackle gun control? Will she end the war on drug users? If you don’t have these things, and we have another war, incrementally make the entire planet less livable for another decade, and new extremes of income inequality, debt, and more wins for caste-system than class-mobility? Will you still be happy that a token someone made a speech once at the DNC?
I guess I’m asking “Is the neo-liberal agenda something to feel good about when it is stripped free of most progressive humanist liberal values and decency?”
I’m pretty sure they fact that they even WANT to is a pretty good indicator that they’re head and shoulders above the other guys.
No, they just know how to count votes.
I utterly do not believe that the Democratic leadership actually gives a shit about LGBT people except as a voting bloc, just like they didn’t support gay marriage until every progressive in the country did and they had no choice.
I understand that you really want to Clinton-bash no matter what the topic, and are quite skilled at finding some tangent to spin into an attack, but since you’re Clinton-bashing is so far off any topic I was discussing, and since I don’t want to be the one to give you more excuses to get yourself even more worked up, I’ll just bid you good night.
Yes, the Dems are hoping their policies will help them capture the LGBT vote and the women’s vote and the minority vote. And the Republicans are hoping their policies will help them capture the bigot vote.
But sincerity isn’t really the issue, is it? The issue is which party is putting forward the best policy.
I’m not bashing Clinton. I’m bashing the corrupt system, the engines of inequity and harm, that she stands with and for. She’s bashing herself by standing on the wrong side of history on all these subsurface issues in this bravely disingenuous national political climate.
But I have higher standards than that. I want leaders to lead because if they just do the popular things, that means that they won’t do the necessary things unless they are popular and, frankly, most of the country is ignorant and proud of it.
I’m watching the area I live in now (the Bay Area) and the one I am from (Seattle) spiral out of affordability of everyone not in the top 20% of incomes, pushing minorities and poor folks out and these cities are considered the successful ones. Much of the rest of the country is still in an economic recession, if not depression, and I see that neither the Democrats or the Republicans are willing to make the hard decisions to lead and actually do something about out problems. They’re locked in an endless tit-for-tat bullshit game show with each other instead of engaging in their actual jobs: governance.
So, yeah, color me unimpressed by their machiavellian realpolitik.
But with violence instead of selling flowers.
I remember connecting to a flight at LAX when I was 12 (before they had such rules). Even as a trusting Pollyanna from a rural town in the San Joaquin, the Hare Krishnas kind of gave me the willies. How stupid were we in those days?
I almost started this post with an apology because I feel like I’m beating a dead horse, but I’m not going to do that.
The operative word in this articulate and accurate post about why she’s problematic, at least for tonight, for me, is “she.” I truly didn’t expect to be this emotional about it. I’m ambivalent about her, to put it lightly. But this week, particularly tonight, was powerful in a way I can’t describe or decipher. When she walked out there, in all white, the traditional color the suffragettes originally used, it elicited something in me I didn’t even know was there.
It wasn’t hyperbole when I suggested the closest thing for my white, male American husband was when, at 11 years old, he watched a man walk on the moon. We couldn’t think of another equivalent experience in his lifetime.
So, I recognize you’re not bashing Clinton, but the system. I respectfully ask that we recognize that this is historic, this is meaningful, this will have positive, lasting implications for little girls everywhere – Democrat, Republican, Independent, Green, etc. – whether you agree with her or not.
I do (recognize), but I’m feeling too alarmed by her not being the right woman to lead us (or humanity itself, if the US is truly the ‘leader of the free world’) out of this wilderness. The historical precedent almost starts feeling like a feint if it isn’t going to be backed by earnest reform and progress, and she hasn’t earned my faith that she’ll be a champion or any kind of moral leader for American society, culture, or politics.
But I digress, I do understand where you are coming from. I wish I could feel happy about how many people are taking inspiration from the new precedent being set by her nomination. I wish it was anything other than the nomination of the wife of a two-term president under the twenty-second amendment, and I wish America would build a better world for its newer generations out of new political ideas and integrity from a new political breed.
No, you’re really bashing her. @nemomen was pointing out that there were some historical firsts and you come back with something unrelated. It does seem like you’re trying to annoy people on this thread. To be fair, you’re not the only one. But at least own up to it.
BTW, I supported Bernie (I even gave him a donation), but I’m getting tired of every thread about the Democratic nomination devolving into Clinton being the anti-Christ. She’s a politician and every elected politician has always made compromises. EVERY. ONE. OF. THEM. Am I disappointed when my candidate gets elected and does this? Hell, yes. But then I get over it and remain hopeful that the incremental positive steps we make as a country will eventually add up to something beautiful.
Just give it a rest, please.
Edited to delete superfluous auxiliary verb in the first line. (Late night sleepy brain.)
As a white male Sanders supporter I found the acceptance speech deeply moving, and the sincerity with which she advocated for ‘Sanders’ planks (like going after the 1%) seemed more consistent with the 25-year-old Hillary, or the one I remember from the campaigns before Bill’s first election, than it does with the demonic Hillary that Trump, Fox, and some ostensibly progressives here keep describing.
Nothing wrong with a white pantsuit.
ETA:
I’m really fine with celebrating her accomplishment as a woman. But the two party system is fucked, the voters are getting fucked, and celebrating this historic first for the Democrat party is just kind of gross. Let’s defeat that red team creep, and then be happy for the first woman president, and the first First Husband. And then maybe later, someday, elect the first true progressive president of this century.
Probably the best speech she’s given for free in the last couple of years.
