“core progressive values” and “central to her message” are doing a whole lot of work here, do you care to hedge any further? This is saying that she actually talked about what you wanted her to talk about, but she did it in a manner that didn’t convince you.
She talked about defending progressive achievements and achieving progressive goals pretty much every goddamn day, the fact that she was actually talking about the many issues that affect democratic voters, and not just the really important ones that you happen to care about is being used as evidence of her perfidy. Give me a break.
I’ll give you an example, one ripped straight from the headlines: Hillary Clinton was stronger and clearer on the necessity for gun control. Gun control happens to be quite popular, as it has been historically, but people discounted this as a reason for Clinton’s popularity, instead favoring a narrative where Clinton won more votes through skullduggery and blackmail. It’s almost like issues women overwhelmingly support are disregarded as unserious, to the point where people have to invent entire alternate histories to explain why they are the ones ignored and victimized.
You don’t think that the literal decades long anti-Clinton campaign contributed to her inability to get a coherent message out? People have hated her (for no reason, really) since her time as the first lady. She was too feminist, she was not feminist enough, she was a bad mom, she gave up her career for her husband, she was shrill, she was not feminine enough, she was too involved in the political side, she was not engaged in politics enough, and the endless sexist bullshit about her looks, mode of dressing, etc, etc. This went on for literally decades in the right wing media as it slowly became a part of the mainstream media. Come 2016, she’s having to constantly respond to this inane bullshit, which most certainly impacted her ability to message.
And mind, I’m not Clinton fan (and also, let’s note that she is always called “Hillary” instead of Clinton, unlike almost every major male politician out there), but she was most certainly having to deal with a landscape that most male politicians don’t have to deal with. I also agree that her campaign did have some communications issues, but that wasn’t all on her campaign.
Gun control and (I hate using the term, but bear with me) “identity politics” are only core progressive rhetoric for the rich prog Dems, and that’s what you’re talking about with Hillary - she wanted to stick with the stuff that didn’t scare off Big Finance donors, but she didn’t want to get into the murky waters and wrestle all the alligators associated with economic progressive values.
And you’re also doing a lot of dancing to avoid admitting that she was notably silent on that in her core rhetoric, instead putting up that “well it was on her platform”. Yeah, everybody knows that “platform” values don’t mean crap when it comes to actual policy goals. Can you reach a little and tell me what messages and promises Hillary was using/making when it came to jobs, taxes, reforms? And if they’re aligned with prog Dem values? Or if she kept notably silent most of the time and gave talks to Wall Street banks?
You don’t think that starting from way, way, waaaaaaaaaaaaay behind the eight ball maybe should have been a sign that she was a bad candidate? Like everyone was saying? And that she kept ignoring? And then blamed everyone else for her failure even though polls of many kinds said that her running was the best thing that could have happened to Republicans?
And water has some “wetness” issues. When we’re talking about a position that REQUIRES extremely tight and powerful communications skills, this was a massive clue that this was not a job for her. She could have stayed a power broker until the day she died, but she gambled and face-planted and lost most of that political cachet by making a horribly bad move.
That makes some sense considering there was already a President Clinton so it helps to differentiate. Like how the second President Roosevelt is still referred to as “FDR.”
No, because “core rhetoric” is an exercise in Calvinball, like this whole thing has been–you say she didn’t take the positions you wanted her to take–she did. Then you say that she didn’t talk about those positions–she did. Then you say she didn’t talk about them enough, and in the right mix, and at that point is when I call bullshit on this whole unserious exercise in projection and ass-covering.
It’s elementary to define a “Bernie Bro.” A Bernie Bro is a (usually young) male who displays an irrational hatred for a female presidential candidate who shares a 90% policy overlap with their preferred, male presidential candidate, often blaming pretty much everything on said female candidate while claiming their preferred male candidate would solve everything.
(Edited to remove what some people seem to have confused with a personal attack.)
Good point. On the other hand it was her own campaign that made all those bumper stickers and signs branding her as “Hillary” so it’s not exactly like she was trying to fight it. Her campaign logo even used her first initial instead of her last initial.
I’m struggling to come up with any instance where referring to her as Hillary wasn’t the preferred nomenclature, though. I mean, I think that they “leaned” into that to make her seem more folksy, but the reality is that it’s another example of that gendered divided between how women are understood/presented to the public and how men are. Just because they went along doesn’t mean it’s not also sexist on some level. It’s just more women not being taken seriously, even though they might have the chops, which Clinton has (whether you agree with her political stances or not is immaterial here).
Because Breitbart buries stories that are critical, so they can claim that they covered them and are fair and balanced. They post the stories, but fail to link them off the main page. Honestly, I have no idea how Google ends up indexing them.
Note the lack of comments on the following:
Any normal article has hundreds of comments from the usual suspects over there. These two articles, I count maybe one regular BB commenter among them? The rest are liberal trolls–even then, maybe 10 between the two articles.
There’s also this side to consider: all her early accomplishments as an honor student, an activist, an attorney and legal advisor, a campaign organizer and political operative etc. were things she did as Hillary Rodham. Referring to her only as “Clinton” suggests her relationship to her husband is more important than her own identity. It’s a bit of a sexist Catch-22.
Nope. Just the small subset of them who are behaving like ones, who remain obsessed with the idea that Hillary is somehow evil and to be blamed for all the wrongs of Trump.
Your own words, from this very thread:
If you don’t see the misogyny in those words, you are not very self-aware.
I’ve generally referred to her as Clinton because Bill wasn’t running for office in 2016. There shouldn’t have been any confusion. If there was, or is, then refer to her as HRC.
@Mindysan33’s not wrong pointing out that women are frequently referred to in media by their first names rather than their last names, as men are nearly always referred to.
She didn’t take the positions I wanted her to take. Specifically, she didn’t repudiate her donors. If she was a left candidate she (1) would not have accepted money from Goldman Sachs after 2008 (if you don’t get this, we have nothing more to talk about) and (2) if she had, she should have admitted that giving those speeches was a mistake. She did admit that, eventually, long after the election - as “bad optics”, but not as an actual error in judgement, or an alliance with the devil.
There are other things, like: Sanders attempted to raise money from small donors, while Clinton openly courted wealthy supporters. Maybe this is also “bad optics” only, but in a ‘democracy’ ruled by the rich, these things matter to voters (e.g. me).
There’s a lot of other stuff I want her to repudiate, like (1) the general failure of her policy in Libya and crowing about the death of Qaddafi, (2) describing Hosni Mubarak as a “family friend”, (3) hawkishness about Syria, etc., but this is maybe a bridge too far since Americans don’t give a shit about what happens to brown people overseas.
Blah, blah, blah, I can go on for ages. There is a shit-ton of disagreement between Sanders and Clinton, the argument that there are no significant policy differences is simply garbage.
You are both certainly correct on that, but as I’ve said upthread there are multiple factors at work. Some people refer to her as “Hillary” for dismissive sexist reasons, some people do it because her own campaign branded her that way (much like Bernie Sanders’ did), and some do it out of acknowledgement that she has an identity independent of her husband. Remember, she’s been a “Hillary” far longer than she’s been a “Clinton,” and if she ever (understandably) decided to divorce Bill a Hillary she would remain.
I get what you’re arguing in this specific case, however, I felt that branding herself with just her first name was almost as tone deaf as dragging Madeline Albright on stage to call women betrayers to their sex if they voted for anyone other than HRC. That tone deafness, alone, was enough for me to have very serious hesitation about voting for her in the general. Honestly, it’s never taken me that long to fill in the “president” bubble on my ballot.
An argument can be made that “Hillary” was her name, while “Clinton” was a name foisted on her as a young woman.
Besides, it is a good name, both not generic (like “Bill” or “George”) and works well in sentences. Other than Obama, too many of our recent presidents/candidates have had boring first names.
She chose to marry Bill. She also chose to accept his last name. There is no argument to be made that she isn’t her own person replete with agency to make her own choices.
A trick used to infantilise. You’re taught young that elders and those “deserving of respect” get addressed by honorific+last name. Children are called by their first name.
The Conservatives pulled that against Trudeau in our last federal election (complete with the “well, we already had one with that last name”) approach. Their intent (just like with Clinton) was clear: imply he’s incapable of handling the job. What made it stand out was that they were using all the techniques we’re used to seeing lobbed at women – too-casual form of address, focus on his looks, questions about his strength, etc.-- against a white man. So, it looked weird, and people noticed. And they called it out.
Yes, he won, because he is a white male, so it backfired (and because we have a different system and the Cons pissed off enough people for the ABC* effect to kick in). But the tactics are obvious.
ETA (because I forgot to footnote): ABC = Anything But Conservative.
