The inevitable sexism of the presidential campaign

Now that Donald Trump is pretty much the nominee, I thought I'd start a new politics thread.

Is it just me, or has the "story" of this campaign become all about disgruntled white men and which candidate they support? Because even though Hillary Clinton is the Democrat candidate pretty much, every story I've been reading lately seems to be about how disgruntled white men either like Trump or Sanders, and who do they like more and why? Disgruntled white men are the minority, are they not? So why do we care so much what they think? I don't really have any specific stories to point to; I just have the overwhelming sense that this is what the news media are talking about, from reading it in the NYT and hearing it on NPR ad nauseum.

I am really fucking tired of white men and their problems.

I also saw that if you donate to Clinton's campaign, you can get an official "woman card." I thought this was amusing.

It's dire. I think I'll be scanning the headlines until the circus is over. Not that it will ever be over for Clinton if she wins.

>1 sturlington:

RE:

"Is it just me, or has the "story" of this campaign become all about disgruntled white men and which candidate they support?"

Not literally "just (you,)" of course, but, yes, mainly it's only you and a minority like you who focus exclusively on your obsessions--

E.g. Exhibits A -Z:

"I am really fucking tired of white men and their problems."

Obviously you get up every morning "really fucking tired of white men and their problems." Many other women don't--and many of them are very happy to support Bernie Sanders.

But that falls outside your feminist tunnel-vision.

>1 sturlington: Disgruntled white men are the minority, are they not? So why do we care so much what they think?

A big reason they are disgruntled is that fewer people do care what they think.

But Lola has a point. If the Republican nominee is Trump -- as seems to be the case, then for vast numbers of voters the decision on who to vote for is a forgone conclusion. Previous elections seem to have hinged on the "undecided voter" but I don't think too many people are undecided on whether or not to vote for Trump. So really, the question is whether or not to vote at all. If Sanders were to end up being the nominee then I think Clinton supporters would vote for him. Because Clinton supporters vote, and they sure as hell wouldn't cross party lines to vote for Trump.

It's a more open question if Clinton in the nominee -- as seems likely at this point. Sanders supporters won't vote for Trump, but they might sit out the election altogether. But I think Clinton could still win if they did. It depends on how much of Sanders support is from people who have not participated in the election process in the past and how much is the Democratic party base making its wishes known. If he's really rallied people who have until now rejected the electoral process as corrupt, it's a great thing, but if their candidate goes away, then I suspect they will as well.

While I don't think we should take anything for granted, I also don't think Trump can win. He's alienated too many people and is bound to keep on doing so. I think a lot of Republicans are going to be sitting this one out as well, since they can't bring themselves to vote for either candidate. I've already heard many people saying that. The real question is whether someone will decide at the last minute to run as a third party candidate.

As to my original post, what I was commenting on is how the news coverage has been focused on the angry, sidelined, white male voter to the exclusion, I think, of all the rest of us. It's taken as a given that women and Hispanic voters hate Trump, that black voters tend to support Clinton, and maybe looking at these groups does not make for exciting news coverage. But I just feel like every single news story is all about the white male voter and what he will do, and I could personally care less. And since I listen/read fairly liberal-leaning news stories, I imagine it's even more slanted in other venues.

>5 sturlington:

You don't need to explain... ;)

>4 southernbooklady: "Sanders supporters won't vote for Trump, but they might sit out the election altogether."

Actually, some Sanders supporters shall vote for Trump (I.e. against a HRC candidacy) provided that a.) Sanders did not run as an independent _and_ b) that it were not feasible to vote for Sanders as a write-in vote.*

I'm proof of this. I support Sanders. But if he's not the Democratic nominee, not only would I not vote for HRC, I'd vote for Trump if I couldn't vote for Sanders some other way.* This has nothing to do with HRC being a woman. I'd take the same position if any other DLC-candidate was the nominee-- Rahm Emanuel, for example, or anyone he or Obama or Clinton endorsed, man or woman

People who view everything in the world through a prism of presumed sexism as the constant and all-important factor in all matters are bound to have a bizarrely unrealistic view of life and the world around them.
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* Depending on the estimated potential of Sanders' actually being elected president by a write-in candidacy, if the prospect were essentially nil, then rather than use my vote to write in Sanders' name, I'd prefer to see Trump elected. That is because I regard the elimination of the DLC stranglehold over the Democratic party to be a long-term overriding priority, far more important strategically than any single presidential race's outcome.

Never again under any circumstances should a DLC candidate, woman or man, be elected to the presidency or to Congress. That's my No. 1 electoral priority--up and down the ticket.

>5 sturlington:

..."It's taken as a given that women and Hispanic voters hate Trump," ...

Certainly some of them do. Likely voters, including women and Hispanics, who like Trump are likely to vote for him.

>7 proximity1: Actually, some Sanders supporters shall vote for Trump (I.e. against a HRC candidacy) provided that a.) Sanders did not run as an independent _and_ b) that it were not feasible to vote for Sanders as a write-in vote.*

Given that Trump is held up as the "anti-Sanders" this doesn't impress me with the force of their convictions.

>7 proximity1:

I don't understand how voting for Trump achieves your goal. Of course you can do as you like, but I doubt that Trump becoming president makes even a dent in that, though it does risk effecting a vast number of policies I presume a Sanders supporter would oppose (border wall? ban on Muslims' travel?).

Meanwhile, as a pro-choice person possessing a uterus, I see the number of Supreme Court vacancies expected to open up under the next president a huge piece of the puzzle, and I would trust any pro-choice Democrat over Trump since it is not clear to me whether he is pro-life, pro-choice, or some other bizarre thing, and he seems equally likely to appoint an Apprentice winner to SCOTUS as a Scalia successor. To me there is a real risk to a Trump presidency -- namely my reproductive rights. To my friends of southeast Asian Muslim extraction, religious or not, there is a real risk to a Trump presidency. Et cetera, et cetera.

>9 southernbooklady: You're free to believe me or not. Sanders is by far not just my "first " choice, he's the only choice. That Hillary would oppose him confirms my view that she & every politician like her is a staunch adversary of what I believe in. She is in NO way a political liberal. She's effectively a neo-con passing herself off as a Democrat.

>10 sparemethecensor:

A Trump defeat of Clinton should, all by itself, completely discredit the DLC claims to preeminence as the only standard-bearers for the Democratic party. That discrediting is The No. 1 goal. In fact, unless and until that goal is achieved, even the freak election of a Sanders-like candidate to the presidency would have only a fraction of the importance it ought to have. Without the recovery of the Democratic party from these DLC vampires who now control it, ALL* progressive politics in the U.S. remains where its been since Ronald Reagan was elected-- at a standstill. As Ed Miliband's resounding defeat did in the U.K., finally opening the way to real progressive leadership of the Labour Party under Corbyn, so HRC's defeat would do for the orphans of the Democratic party in the U.S.

I recognise your concerns and I understand them. But I don't accept that they are so absolutely vital that ALL other political advances should continue to be sacrificed to their _supposed_ and now more doubtful preservation. Women calling themselves feminists have been willing to relegate every other vital social and political need of both men and women to the single priority of chasing and trying to defend reproductive rights. Those rights would be better preserved, I believe, by restoring the lost progressive character of the party snd, with that, its legitimacy as a political party; we do that by ridding ourselves of the likes of the DLC--with all its false friends including HRC.

There should be reasons for people to have hope for and confidence in the long-term prospects of democracy and justice in America. That is what Sanders' campaign is all about. By opposing him, Clinton opposes those prospects. The only path to achieve this better political future passes through the defeat of all candidates like Obama, HRC, and those in their camp. If Sanders endorses Clinton's candidacy against Trump, I'll be deeply disappointed.

>4 southernbooklady: & >5 sturlington:

Note what others think and say :

(from readers' comments at The Guardian's website :
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/may/08/donald-trump-given-a-fighting-c... )

Roberto Lopez
19h ago

4
5
"This presidential race is not about parties competing, but about two different sentiment, to vote for change or to vote for the same.
Either candidate, Trump or Sanders have a chance of becoming the next Potus, Trump more so.
This time voters will cross party lines , Change is going to win"

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DebraBrown Roberto Lopez

0
1
"Agreed. My vote in November will be against the status quo."

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MAppeal_62
20h ago

4
5
"Employees, if one is fortunate to have a full time job, are expected to do much more for far less, and we're too frightened of losing our job if we speak up. Neither Trump or Clinton will change that."

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DebraBrown MAppeal_62

0
1
"Bernie would change it."

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mrsdoom
20h ago

9
10
"I have a sinking feeling about Trump. He is clearly the product of economic distress caused by globalisation and stagnating living standards. Hilary's own husband said it. "It's the economy, stupid." Hilary is associated with the establishment and the economic policies which have brought us to this pass. The wealthiest have got richer and richer and the rest have turned to Trump, Sanders and Corbyn desperately seeking alternatives to the status quo. Trump will beat Hilary if she does not recognise this and address the concerns of those likely to vote for Him. It would be a huge error to treat him and them with contempt or to underestimate him. The German establisment did that with Hitler in 1933 and I increasingly have a feeling if deja vu. I am glad that Larry Elliott is pointing out Hilary's weakness as a candidate. It is by no means inevitable that she will win. She needs to adopt some radical economic policies which will improve the situation for ordinary people and she would do well to adopt Bernie Sanders as a running mate, if he would be prepared to take it."

It's wonderful how this thread has already been taken over by an individual who is openly hostile to the issues that we discuss here and who comes in here simply to insult me at least. God forbid we should try to discuss politics without a man coming in here to explain how we're not only wrong, but we're obsessed and have tunnel vision while displaying his own preponderance to the same.

Next time I start a political thread, I'm going to use a code word in the thread title like "tampons" or some such to keep the rabble out.

>11 proximity1: Sanders is by far not just my "first " choice, he's the only choice.

If that's true, then you wouldn't vote for Trump.

I recognise your concerns and I understand them. But I don't accept that they are so absolutely vital that ALL other political advances should continue to be sacrificed to their _supposed_ and now more doubtful preservation.

If women's rights are not integral to a platform based on human rights, then that platform isn't about human rights at all. Supporting women's rights, and actively opposing attempts to erode them, is a no brainer from a humanist perspective. If you sacrifice one group's rights for the cause of another's, you've already lost.

>13 sturlington: d, I'm going to use a code word in the thread title like "tampons" or some such to keep the rabble out.

ha! it would be hilarious if the Feminist Group all had a policy of referencing menstruation in their thread titles. The squeamish would have to put the group on ignore to preserve the sanctity of their talk pages.

..."God forbid we should try to discuss politics without a man coming in here"...

"God forbid"?

Let's leave her out of it.
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RE : >9 southernbooklady:

"Given that Trump is held up as the "anti-Sanders" this doesn't impress me with the force of their convictions."

I haven't noticed any such "given." As far as I've seen, only Clinton's supporters "hold Trump up as the 'anti-Sanders' "-- since plenty of Sanders-supporters feel they have more to hope for from Trump than from Clinton.

You're projecting your bias onto others, I think.

I would have thought that Trump being the "anti-Sanders" -- or more to the point, Sanders being "the anti-Trump" -- would have been a good thing. Socialist vs. Uber Capitalist. Thoughtfulness vs Blowhard, Man who respects others vs Narcissist. Idealist vs Cynical Opportunist. Candidate who respects the Constitution vs Candidate who never bothered to read the Constitution.

But hey, maybe you're right. Maybe when it comes to their followers, Trump is the next best thing to Sanders.

Go Hillary!

>14 southernbooklady:

"If you sacrifice one group's rights for the cause of another's, you've already lost."

Interesting. Your entire political purpose is premised on doing just that. For you, everything and everyone's interests are secondary to your single-issue interest--abortion-rights. Nothing else matters to you as long as that's included. And nothing else matters if its not included.

For that sole interest, you call on everyone to fall into line behind Clinton. You'd have us think "Human Rights = Women's Rights. Period." I say that's just not good enough .

>16 southernbooklady:

" Sanders being "the anti-Trump" -- is valid and accurate. But its opposite ,

"Trump is held up as the anti-Sanders"

--which is what you'd posted, is not the same thing.

So you can't argue consistently and fairly and make your case for HRC! ? Who's surprised?

"But hey, maybe you're right. Maybe when it comes to their followers, Trump is the next best thing to Sanders."

In a two-way contest for the presidency between Clinton and Trump, for me, a Trump victory carries a positive factor that no positive factors from HRC's election can match. So, in that sense, yes, it's a far, far, second to Sanders election, which Hillary wants to prevent before allowing Trump a chance to do the same.

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>17 proximity1: For you, everything and everyone's interests are secondary to your single-issue interest--abortion-rights.

"women's rights" is not equivalent to "abortion-rights." And equality is hardly a "single issue." It is about the right of women to exist on equal terms with men -- in any sphere.

Sure, reproductive health (which is more than just abortions) is in the headlines now. (Unlike, tellingly, pay scales.) But it is representative of a systemic problem that needs to be fixed. Just as corruption on Wall Street is representative of a systemic problem (income disparity and the enslavement of the working class) that needs to be fixed, and is not a single issue to be summed up as "break up the big banks."

Clinton is not going to break up the big banks. She might be convinced to enact small reforms or higher minimum wage laws, etc. She certainly would not support the constant attacks on Planned Parenthood, or the continued legislative attacks on women's health care.

There's no telling what Trump would do, but I doubt "break up the big banks" is on his list.

"In a two-way contest for the presidency between Clinton and Trump, for me, a Trump victory carries a positive factor that no positive factors from HRC's election can match."

I get it now! Translation:
I am not a woman so the infringement of reproductive rights doesn't matter to me.
I am not a Muslim so the Muslim travel ban doesn't matter to me.
I count no illegal immigrants among my family and friends so mass deportations don't matter to me.
I do not work in journalism so I don't care that Trump wants to change the burden of proof in slander and libel cases.
I don't live in another country so I don't care about Trump's desire to abandon the Geneva Conventions.
I do not rely on any provisions of the ACA so Trump's promise to repeal it doesn't matter to me.
I am not affected by voting rights and voter ID laws so I don't care whether conservatives are placed onto the Supreme Court and head up the Justice Department.

You are a single-issue (anti-DLC) voter, and you think Trump's election will make headway on that single issue. That's completely fine for you. Yet you feel disdain for other voters who are more concerned about the Trump policies outlined above and are criticizing those of us who care about reproductive rights?

Look, you want to vote for Trump if you can't vote for Sanders, that's your choice. But don't pretend that the only thing that will happen is the DLC will miraculously disappear. Many people's daily lives could be affected in drastic ways. Maybe not yours so you don't have to care. But don't criticize those of us who do.

>20 sparemethecensor: Hillary Clinton may be indicative of what's wrong with the American political system. But Trump is an example of everything that is wrong with America as a nation.

>20 sparemethecensor:

Of course I'd prefer to put it this way,

Though I am not a woman, the infringement of reproductive rights does matter to me--it's one reason I support Sanders for president.

Though I am not a Muslim, the Muslim travel ban does matter somewhat to me --it's one reason I support Sanders for president.

Though I count no (U.S.) illegal immigrants among my family and friends, mass deportations do matter to me --it's one reason I support Sanders for president.

Though I do not work in journalism, I do care that Trump wants to change the burden of proof in slander and libel cases--so, if that is true --it's one reason I support Sanders for president.

I do live in another country so I do care about Trump's desire to abandon the Geneva Conventions. But since neither Clintons nor Obamas clearly care enough about these vital conventions to respect their spirit or their letter, --it's one reason I support Sanders for president.

Though I do not rely on any provisions of the ACA, Trump's promise to repeal it does matter to me. However, it does not supersede all else in political priorities. ACA under Obama was settling for crumbs and getting those crumbs as a result. People who'll settle for whatever they're offered are usually offered next to nothing. So instead of recovering from decades of constant depredations, people like you have constantly preached in favor of settling for "the lesser of evils", constantly harped on politics being "the art of the possible. " You define your priorities as possible and insist that, since mine are not, according to you, my interests must be deferred so that we can concentrate on yours. Many people, myself included, have concluded that such a view is too short-sighted, that it sells the entire future for a paltry woefully diminished present that extends into the future as far as the eye can see. We think youve sold out far too cheaply and needlessly because you get in return a few things of prime importance to you in the present, rather than working to get these and much, much more in the foreseeable future. I and others say "that's not good enough anymore." --it's one reason I support Sanders for president.

Though I am not affected by voting rights and voter ID laws, I do care whether conservatives are placed onto the Supreme Court and head up the Justice Department --it's one reason I support Sanders for president.

"You are a single-issue (anti-DLC) voter, and you think Trump's election will make headway on that single issue. That's completely fine for you. Yet you feel disdain for other voters who are more concerned about the Trump policies outlined above and are criticizing those of us who care about reproductive rights?"

Actually, I'm not. A Sanders candidacy promises to protect ALL the interests you falsely claim I don't care about. And his candidacy asks nothing in the terrible moral compromises entailed in voting to sideline Sanders in favour of Clinton. BUT YOU'D HAVE US DO JUST THAT-- on the sucker's gamble that Clinton won't lose to Trump.

l get it now : you're comfortable enough with the status quo which voting for HRC shall give us. Those men, women and children suffering under that status quo's perpetuation just don't count enough to you to risk things you imagine--with little clear proof--shall certainly result from a possible Trump election--since you assume, at the risk of being proven wrong, that Trump cannot possibly defeat Clinton but could more likely defeat Sanders.

That makes you a DLC-supporter and it makes us adversaries, not allies. I'm through dealing by your sell-out terms.

>22 proximity1: "I'm through dealing by your sell-out terms."

That's great! Bye now.

I originally posted this topic so we could discuss bias in the campaign between the two actual presidential candidates, and particularly the bias shown in media coverage of those candidates. Since it's pretty clear that Bernie Sanders will not be one of those candidates, perhaps we can get back to the original topic?

>23 sturlington:

I'm including the three major-party candidates still in the race for the presidency: Sanders and Clinton in the Democratic primaries and Trump in the Republican camp opposing both of them now and one of them later in November, provided that Trump wins the nomination at the Republican party's convention-- and the inevitable news-media bias favoring Clinton's campaign.

It seems some "feminists" want _more_ than "equality" with their male peers.

Who knew!? LOL!

A Democrat is selling out by voting for Clinton instead of Trump? Who knew?!??!

If Sanders were the Democratic nominee, I would vote for him over Trump. If Clinton were the Democratic nominee, I would vote for her over Trump. You are the one who said you would vote for Trump over Clinton -- none of us said we'd vote Trump over Sanders. That is the point with which we engaged -- not your support of Sanders in the primary.

If you don't see a distinction between primary and general, and prefer to insult feminists under the guise that we are too addled by our delicate lady brains to vote for Trump as you would, then I echo >23 sturlington: and say, Bye now!

Lol! Disingenuous much!?

Stated as though it were desirable as an outcome in your view:

"If Sanders were the Democratic nominee, I would vote for him over Trump."

while, in actual fact, you'll do everything you can, by hook or by crook, fair or foul, to see to it that Sanders never becomes the Democratic party nominee.

It seems apparent that either you'd vote only grudgingly for Sanders-- out of desperation rather than conviction or sincere support--or, you may actually secretly favor him but are too afraid that "he can't win enough votes," you lack the courage of your convictions --a fear to which fulfillment your failure of support for Sanders contributes making an actual reality.

>26 proximity1:
It seems apparent that either you'd vote only grudgingly for Sanders-- out of desperation rather than conviction or sincere support

You mean, the way you say you would vote for Trump if the option is Trump or Clinton?

That's the way ballots work, after all. You pick from the options available, or you don't pick at all.

But moving on and back to the original topic....

I do find it curious that the hostility Clinton seems to evoke on all sides apparently outweighs so many other things that are ostensibly important to Americans. Trump is the antithesis of "family values" for example, but his supporters could care less. And Sanders is an avowed socialist -- a word hurled like an insult every time someone starts talking about "Obamacare."

It sort of encapsulates for me how American elections are at their heart about emotions, not issues. And in that sense I think Clinton has an uphill battle, because she is not emotional and doesn't inspire people at that level.

??? >27 southernbooklady:

RE:

(Citing me ) "It seems apparent that either you'd vote only grudgingly for Sanders-- out of desperation rather than conviction or sincere support"

You replied:

"You mean, the way you say you would vote for Trump if the option is Trump or Clinton?"

So, for you, our present choice, the choice between Sanders and Clinton in the Democratic party primaries is comparable to the choice between Trump and Clinton in the general election !!??


..." Clinton has an uphill battle, because she is not emotional and doesn't inspire people at that level."

An uphill battle? Not as far as the Democratic Party's nomination is concerned, she doesn't. The mainstream press held her coronation even before the primaries had begun.

She may have a real uphill battle on her hands when it comes to defeating Trump-- assuming they are their parties' presidential nominees for the November general election.

She's "not emotional"? Last time around, against Obama--who later hired her--she broke down in tears while being interviewed on-camera during a particularly low point in one of the primaries.

You do seem to live in a strange parallel universe. It's one in which Clinton is the poor victimized underdog; one where she has to struggle against insurmountable odds to get a shot at being her party's favorite. Give me a break! Your candidate is Lady Macbeth, not Little Bo-Peep.

>28 proximity1: She's "not emotional"? Last time around, against Obama--who later hired her--she broke down in tears while being interviewed on-camera during a particularly low point in one of the primaries.

I base that assessment on people I know who have met her, who describe her as "cold," and on the apparently universal assessment of her as reserved, ambitious and calculating. All of which I think are fair descriptions, by the way, but then I don't regard ambition as a negative trait per se.

She's not an underdog, but she is contending, (fairly well, she's had lots of practice) with a lot of irrational hostility towards her that I put down of a kind of instinctive misogyny, just as Obama has to deal with the inherent and ingrained racism of the American public. Oh, we rationalize our responses under the banners of other things, (birther movement, anyone?) but that instinctive knee-jerk antipathy? That's emotional. That's simply a "I don't like her/him" response.

I think Hillary Clinton is what you get when a woman makes herself a success in the political system. And Americans don't like what that looks like.

Also, we're a celebrity-obsessed culture, and Clinton is many things, but not charismatic. Trump is (and does he know it). Obama is. Sanders might be -- it is hard for me to tell because I don't find him emotionally compelling. But Clinton? Not so much.

>29 southernbooklady:

"I base that assessment on people I know who have met her, who describe her as "cold," and on the apparently universal assessment of her as reserved, ambitious and calculating. All of which I think are fair descriptions, by the way, but then I don't regard ambition as a negative trait per se."

I agree with you and with this assessment. But I don't see these facts as indications of her being unemotional under any and all circumstances. I think she's all of these things; I think she probably does do a very great many things coldly and calculatingly. That's very like politicians--e.g. Obama in first place.

In fact, I agree with much in your post.

This, esp. :

"I think Hillary is what you get when a woman makes herself a success in the political system. And Americans don't like what that looks like.

"Also, we're a celebrity-obsessed culture, and Clinton is many things, but not charismatic. Trump is (and does he know it). Obama is."

More RE >29 southernbooklady:

"I think Hillary is what you get when a woman makes herself a success in the political system. And Americans don't like what that looks like."

Actually, I think that's really only true as a special case--U.S. presidential politics--which can and which occasionally has also warped the men who venture into it.

But elsewhere in American politics, fortunately, both men and women have proven able to be truer to themselves than is my impression of HRC. Take Barbara Jordan, Frances Farenthold, Sarah Weddington and Lindy Boggs, who took up her husband's Senate seat when he (Hale Boggs) died. These women showed by their examples that there is nothing inevitable about women in politics exhibiting the worst of men's characteristics. It seemed to me that these women were themselves, and true to themselves. They didn't remake themselves in the image of any of their male colleagues. They were often much better than most of their male colleagues. To be fair to them and their merits and memories, we should not suppose that domestic politics is nearly bound to give us only women who very largely resemble the average male politician or something even worse.

There is too little experience in presidential politics to permit a generalization about the women who have been a part of it. With more time, there are bound to be women in presidential politics who exhibit all the best and worst we've seen from the men involved in it.

I thought this excerpt from the President's speech at Howard University was suitable for this "conversation."

Democracy requires compromise, even when you are 100-percent right. This is hard to explain sometimes. You can be completely right, and you still are going to have to engage folks who disagree with you. If you think that the only way forward is to be as uncompromising as possible, you will feel good about yourself, you will enjoy a certain moral purity, but you’re not going to get what you want. And if you don’t get what you want long enough, you will eventually think the whole system is rigged. And that will lead to more cynicism, and less participation, and a downward spiral of more injustice and more anger and more despair. And that’s never been the source of our progress. That’s how we cheat ourselves of progress.

>32 RidgewayGirl: Wow, what a terrific quote. It reminds me of the definition of "compromise," an agreement with which no one is happy. This stubborn uncompromising attitude has absolutely crippled our government over the last 8 years, and I would not consider it "progress" to see it infect the left as thoroughly as it has the right.

Imagine suggesting to Frederick Douglass
that he let President Jackson define for him what constitutes a well-made compromise or sufficient progress for the time being. I'm sure Jackson would have been only too happy to do that for Douglass. So would presidents Van Buren and Harrison, presidents Tyler, Polk, Taylor and Fillmore. Presidents Kennedy and Johnson did try to tell Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X what they ought to settle for so I think it's a fair bet that these other earlier presidents would have told Douglass he should accept what was given and be grateful for it.

Frederick Douglass would puke his guts out if he read that quotation and if he had to see and know the full record of this two-term first Black American president.

Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. would be right beside Douglass, puking their guts out.

Those are the self-excusing weasel words of our worthless eight-wasted-years soon-to-be-Ex-president Obama, cited by complacent people who want only to feel the smug, cheap, and shallow glow if seeing one of their own sex become president.

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Hipshot
4h ago

6
7
"That's America's problem, they see the crisis in their society as a white vs black issue, not a class/equality issue.

"That's why their black president made fuck all difference."

Reply Report

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/video/2016/may/11/trump-has-to-be-the-n...

>34 proximity1: Martin Luther King Jr. would be right beside Douglass, puking {his} guts out

An odd claim, surely, to make about a man who said:

"I therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue." (Letter from the Birmingham Jail, 1955)

And, for that matter:

"The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." (Sermon at Temple Israel of Hollywood, 1965)

>35 ABVR:

more from the letter you cite:

" ... My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct-action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."
...
...
"I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection. ...

http://abacus.bates.edu/admin/offices/dos/mlk/letter.html

from The Daily Kos :

The Definitive, Encyclopedic Case For Why Hillary Clinton is the Wrong Choice

Feb 23, 2016 4:25am CET

by Mass Southpaw

Comment
large
841
1022

Link to complete post:

http://m.dailykos.com/story/2016/2/22/1489185/-The-Definitive-Encyclopedic-Case-...
-------------------------------------

(Excerpt follows immediately)


("NOTE: This is a long piece! If you want to read or print it out in pdf form, you can find it right here

https://www.scribd.com/doc/300459389/The-Definitive-Case-for-Why-Hillary-Clinton...

and download it to your computer and read at your convenience.")

"There are fine reasons to support Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Some of the smartest people I know are behind her, and I appreciate their enthusiasm for what would be a historic achievement. I know, too, the long history of sexism and partisan attacks she has withstood. She’s shown amazing resilience.

"But time is short and the stakes are high, and I want to focus on a pattern of her claiming to be a progressive Democrat while taking positions that are too often more closely aligned with the other side of the aisle, and on a record that I worry makes her a real longshot if she’s our nominee.

"This story borrows (with permission) from dsully’s excellent post

(Link: http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/2/17/1486245/-12-Examples-of-Hillary-Violat... )

and benefits from his editing."

... ... ...

■ WELFARE REFORM

“Ending welfare as we know it” was, with NAFTA, one of the pillars of Bill Clinton’s triangulation strategy of selling out the Democratic party and Democratic principles for his own political gain: 98% of Republicans voted for the bill, while 85% of Democrats voted against it. Its author was Republican presidential candidate John Kasich.

Hillary Clinton speaks in nearly every debate about her service with the Children’s Defense Fund, but she does not mention that her support of welfare reform ended her political relationship with CDF founder Marion Wright Edelman, who said of President Clinton’s signing of the bill that it “makes a mockery of his pledge not to hurt children.”

The bill ended Aid to Families with Dependent Children, which had been created in the Social Security Act, and replaced it with the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, which was much weaker and much more temporary.

Three senior officials in the Clinton Administration resigned over the legislation, including Peter Edelman. Edelman had spent his entire career advocating for fundamental reform of welfare, but wrote:

But the bill that President Clinton signed is not welfare reform. It does not promote work effectively, and it will hurt millions of poor children by the time it is fully implemented. What’s more, it bars hundreds of thousands of legal immigrants—including many who have worked in the United States for decades and paid a considerable amount in Social Security and income taxes—from receiving disability and old-age assistance and food stamps, and reduces food-stamp assistance for millions of children in working families.

Hillary defended the bill, and in fact wanted a “formal role” in helping it pass, saying “Too many of those on welfare had known nothing but dependency all their lives, and many would have found it difficult to make the transition to work on their own.” But Journalist and activist Barbara Ehrenreich remarked that it was “hard to miss the racism and misogyny that helped motivate welfare reform.”

Now we know that reform has been a disaster, doubling the number of children in extreme poverty, tripling extreme poverty for female-headed households, and keeping millions from lifting themselves out of desperate situations.

Still, Senator Clinton in 2002 said, “Now that we’ve said these people are no longer deadbeats — they’re actually out there being productive — how do we keep them there?” Yes, she said deadbeats.

A 2015 article in The Nation says of the bill, “it is hard to find a single way in which it hasn’t been a catastrophe for the vulnerable.”

Where was Bernie?

Bernie voted against the bill, and wrote in his 1997 book, Outsider in the House:

"The bill, which combines an assault on the poor, women and children, minorities, and immigrants is the grand slam of scapegoating legislation, and appeals to the frustrations and ignorance of the American people along a wide spectrum of prejudices."

----------------------------------------

{ See the first link, above, to read further.}

I note here that : I am far from subscribing to all the claims and arguments contained in this article. For starters, I do not agree that "There are fine reasons to support Hillary Clinton’s campaign."

Nor are "Some of the smartest people I know ... behind her,"....

What the polls are saying about the candidates' prospects :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationwide_opinion_polling_for_the_United_States_p...

Crossing the Line: How Donald Trump Behaved With Women in Private http://nyti.ms/24RqHYi

The words missing but strongly implied in Trump's Make America Great Again slogan: For White Men.

Make America Great Again for the People It Was Great for Already http://nyti.ms/1V5FkEp

There's great irony in this thread:

opened by an embittered self-described "feminist" to decry what she presumptively calls the "inevitable sexism" of the presidential campaign, this person is in no way representative of women or even of feminists in general--thank goodness! Invited to dismiss the leading political progressive in this race in favor of a candidate who has the nerve to regard herself as entitled to the presidency, stooping to shame-and-fear-mongering in order to rack up delegates, vast numbers of women, to their immense credit, have refused to be cynically conned. They recognise their interests as being best championed by an elderly white man and, unlike this thread's author, they possess enough intelligence and self-respect to embrace that man's campaign unselfishly and unselfconsciously.

Had there been a woman who had come forward and represented the policies Sanders stands for, that woman would have my support. Instead, the leading woman in this race has the role of primary spoiler of the best hope for a progressive presidential candidate in some seventy-five years.

There you have the key "contribution" of the woman-candidate in this race.

And women in general aren't buying what she's selling with whole hearts. That is why there's a scarecrow-candidate in the race--Trump--to drive the remaining, unblinkered, hesitant voters into the clutches of "Sister Hillary."

First, Obama, solely for the sake of his black skin. Now, Hillary Clinton, solely for the sake of her sexual equipment.

Pathetically stupid politics--to prevent which Obama's past two terms were strictly for nothing.

Post >37 proximity1: above links an article detailing the wreckage left by Hillary in her pursuit of her political career.

>41 proximity1: Hey, I haven't been reading your posts because I don't consider them worthy of my time or response. But this is a group designed to discuss feminism and this thread is explicitly about discussing sexism in the presidential campaign. You aren't interested in doing either of those things, and you aren't going to achieve your goal of disrupting our conversations. So take your arguments back to Pro and Con where they belong. You aren't accomplishing anything here other than being annoying.

>43 proximity1: I'm not sure what you hope to accomplish in personal attacks on me, but you are coming pretty close to, if not crossing, the line specified in the TOS, and if it continues, I will report you for abuse.

>40 sturlington: Such messages are doomed to fail. Change happens. Time moves in one direction. We learn from the past, but it is pointless to try to live in it.

In reflecting on the NYT's article on Trump's treatment of women (see >39 sturlington:), it seems very clear that Trump is aware of how sexism has oppressed women and he has systematically used that to his advantage, primarily to get women to work harder for him by belittling them and reinforcing that they are inherently not as good as men in his eyes. Not only does this show his sexism but a rather alarming sociopathy, or willingness to use any person in any way simply to achieve his own goals.

>45 southernbooklady: Let us hope that by nominating Trump as their ultimate backlash candidate, the Republican party has sounded its death knell.

>46 sturlington: Did you see The Washington Post this morning?

Clinton's Flaws Worry Allies

Hillary Clinton’s declining personal image, ongoing battle to break free of the challenge from Sen. Bernie Sanders and struggle to adapt to an anti-establishment mood among voters this year have become caution signs for her campaign and the focus of new efforts to fortify her position as she prepares for a bruising general election.

More than a dozen Clinton ­allies identified weaknesses in her candidacy that may erode her prospects of defeating Donald Trump, including poor showings with young women, untrustworthiness, unlikability and a lackluster style on the stump. Supporters also worry that she is a conventional candidate in an unconventional election in which voters clearly favor renegades.

“I bring it down to one thing and one thing only, and that is likability,” said Peter Hart, a Democratic pollster who has conducted a series of focus groups for the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

I wonder about this word, "likability" and what it means for a woman candidate versus a male candidate.

>44 sturlington:

There's nothing personal in my observations. They desrcribe a kind of person found frequently everywhere. All I have to say is borne out by objective facts on view here for anyone to see.

Your own words speak for themselves about your motives here:

"I am really fucking tired of white men and their problems."

>47 southernbooklady: I think "likability" is too weak a word to really describe the level of venom directed at Clinton all out of proportion to whatever sins she may have. With Obama, the hostility expressed itself as often as a refusal to acknowledge his authority or show him respect. With Hillary, the hostility seems visceral, borderline violent.

For those who are genuinely interested in this topic, this may be a worthwhile website to follow:

http://presidentialgenderwatch.org

"The fact that Sanders is still fighting for the nomination is angering many on Team Clinton, with a former Clinton aide telling The Hill: 'This is the worst case scenario and the one people feared the most.' ”

LOL! Well, if "Team Clinton" are angry _now_ --at this nice, responsible, mild-mannered U.S. Senator, Bernie Sanders-- just imagine their "anger" when biv, mean Donald "You're Fired! " Trump gets going on "Team Clinton" in earnest and full-time!

Maureen Dowd in The New York Times :

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/05/22/opinion/sunday/weakend-at-bernies.html

(excerpt)

WASHINGTON —

"HILLARY CLINTON is the Democratic nominee.

"Really.

"Just ask her.

"She should have been able to finally savor shattering that “highest, hardest glass ceiling” — the one she gloried in putting 18 million cracks in last time around — when she attends her convention in Philadelphia in July.

"Instead, she is reduced to stomping her feet on CNN, asserting her dominance in a contest that has left her looking anything but dominant. Once more attempting to shake off the old socialist dude hammering her with a sickle, Clinton insisted to Chris Cuomo on Thursday: “I will be the nominee for my party, Chris. That is already done, in effect. There is no way that I won’t be.”

"It’s a vexing time for the Clintons. As Bill told a crowd in Fargo, N.D., on Friday, it’s been an “interesting” year: “That’s the most neutral word I can think of.”

"After all, why should Bernie Sanders get to be the Democratic nominee when he isn’t even a Democrat? And how is Donald Trump going to be the Republican nominee when he considers being a Republican merely a starting bid?

"It must be hard for Hillary to look at all the pictures of young women swooning over Bernie as though he were Bieber." ...

New cartoon proposal's working title:

"This Sexist World"

item : Ohhh! Noooo!

Oklahoma GOP chairwoman Pam Pollard
helps put Donald Trump's delegate-count into the winner's circle.

Oklahoma GOP chairwoman Pam Pollard.

“I think he has touched a part of our electorate that doesn’t like where our country is,” Pollard said. “I have no problem supporting Mr. Trump.”

This link was posted to a different thread, but I thought it deserved mention here because, hey, Camille Paglia weighs in on Clinton and Trump.

http://www.salon.com/2016/06/02/zombie_time_at_campaign_hillary_camille_paglia_o...

It's everything you'd expect.

Terrific piece analyzing Hillary's favorability ratings over time and connecting the dots to inherent sexism. Long but worth reading:

https://medium.com/@michaelarnovitz/thinking-about-hillary-a-plea-for-reason-308...

That was refreshing.

My night out in Cleveland with the worst men on the internet

>57 LolaWalser: That was very well written but so hard to read. I feel like the shellshocked journalist. I seriously don't know what's happening, and the debacle last night by the Bernie or Bust people only confirmed that.

>58 sturlington:

Electing Trump couldn't be much worse than allowing him to become THE Republican POTUS candidate has been. That has been the first important breach.

The damage is done and we are now living it.

I think it would be much worse. There's evidence that the Russians are trying to manipulate the election in Trump's favor. Nothing good can come of that.

If on the other hand, Trump loses horribly, it could mean the end of the obstructionist Republican party. I'm still hoping...

I don't see what's so specially scary about Russians. Saudis have been meddling in American policy for decades and it's demonstrable nothing good came of that, but that doesn't seem to matter.

The worst Putin could do is re-install the cold war--which is something both he and tons of Americans seem to be yearning for, actually.

That said, I take the point that Trump's presidency would wreak even worse, as-yet-unimagined havoc... but I was thinking about what has already been allowed to happen, the thresholds crossed, the type of discourse and ideas that have been allowed on stage and by that token labelled "acceptable" to public at large.

These racist, misogynist shits who'd be relegated to the sidelines in any decent society got paraded front and centre by one of the US's two major parties, signalling clearly what's the "new normal" in public life. The damage has started.

I don't disagree with you. What I find most abhorrent, though, is how many of them treat it as some sick real-life videogame, including Trump himself, I have no doubt. It's like looking around and finding yourself surrounded by psychopaths.

As for the Russians, it's the blatant, arrogant manipulation that gets to me, not just meddling in policy but actually claiming a presidential candidate as their boy. And his party seems to have no problem with that.

As for worse... Well, maybe I am just depressed and paranoid right now, but last night i was revisited by fears of nuclear annihilation that I haven't had since the '80s.

The Dead Zone is starting to seem very prescient.

>62 sturlington:

last night i was revisited by fears of nuclear annihilation that I haven't had since the '80s.

Oh yes.

This... http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2016/07/26/the-politician-and-the-plague-magma-e...

And this...

The Trump campaign’s strategy with female voters is sort of like the new Lean Cuisine campaign that tells women they “are so much more than their looks”: it’s a nice sentiment until you remember that they want you to eat shit.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/26/supporting-trump-misogyny-...

A long time coming... history made!

http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/26/politics/democratic-convention-roll-call-day-two/i...

I cried when I watched the group of women representatives led by Nancy Pelosi onstage. I grew up in an extremely conservative area of this country, and I never thought as a child that a woman would ever become president. This day means just as much to me as Obama's.

>67 sparemethecensor: I cried too. My husband and son looked at me like I was crazy.

...and I'm crying again now watching the mother of Sandra Bland speak.

Welp, this is sadly not surprising...

http://boingboing.net/2016/07/27/roundup-of-newspapers-that-ill.html

I'm surprised. It seems like a pretty egregious journalistic mis-step to me.

So women are still invisible.

Fortune noted it:

http://fortune.com/2016/07/27/hillary-clinton-front-page/

But here's another broader survey:

http://www.poynter.org/2016/front-pages-and-home-pages-mark-hill-story/423392/

And this was my morning paper:

An obvious reason for that is that Bill was actually on stage but Hillary was only on the Jumbotron. I'm sure there will be plenty of front page pictures of her when she gives her acceptance speech on Thursday.

Yeah, sorry, no. It was an historic moment, and they whiffed it.

Garbage.

This one tells the story appropriately:



I like the way Bill seems to be saluting her, which reflects the content of his speech as well.

I agree that that front page and headline is more appropriate, which is surprising for the Orange County (California) Register. BTW, I bicycle by the blimp hangers in the lower picture every day to work.

Newseum's top 10 front pages today http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/?tfp_display=topten

Many newspapers used a picture of Bill for the early edition, and then a picture of Hillary on the jumbotron for a later edition. But if they're going to change the photo, why not use a stock photo of Hillary for the first one?

Personally if I HAD TO put a photo of someone besides Hillary on the front page, I would have gone with Donna Brazile.

It was pretty egregious, and the only silver lining is that it's been noticed.

Another example (though I suspect the BBC at least partly rode the wave of popular outrage as opposed to reacting themselves):
http://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-36908283

I readily admit I'm so inured to this sexism I wasn't immediately struck by the ridiculous situation of a photo of Bill when it was Hillary's accomplishment. All the more reason for all of us to speak out when we see something, and to be ready to listen when we don't.

>82 elenchus: The article included this statement: "People will argue, 'Well, he gave the speech'.

True, but when Clinton, Bush and Obama were nominated, whose picture was on the front page? Did the papers use pictures of the nominees, their spouse, their opponent, the nominator? I don't have the time to investigate but it would be interesting to see how they were treated.

She owned it tonght. #dealmein

My mother last night was flipping mad about the commentary on Clinton's speech that she wasn't emotional enough! Women really can't win, no matter what we do. Is it possible the collective misogyny of the US will elect a would be dictator? Seems so to me.

The Trumps on sexual harassment at Fox, as bad as you'd expect. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/donald-and-eric-trump-opine-on-sexual-ha...

I have seen some older photos of Trump with his daughter and I would not be at all surprised if there wasn't abuse going on there. His comments about her are seriously disturbing.

Sexism this election year not only directed at Hillary.

http://presidentialgenderwatch.org/objectifying-melania-trump/

Charles Blow links Trump's campaign directly to fragility of white men.

Trump Reflects White Male Fragility http://nyti.ms/2aBRp0s

Fragile? But that's why they tote BIG GUNS!!! And now no other than the Republican POTUS candidate is suggesting they might use them:

WILMINGTON, N.C. — Donald J. Trump on Tuesday appeared to raise the possibility that gun rights supporters could take matters into their own hands if Hillary Clinton is elected president and appoints judges who favor stricter gun control measures.

Repeating his contention that Mrs. Clinton wanted to abolish the right to bear arms, Mr. Trump warned at a rally here that it would be “a horrible day” if Mrs. Clinton were elected and got to appoint a tiebreaking Supreme Court justice.

“If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks,” Mr. Trump said, as the crowd began to boo. He quickly added: “Although the Second Amendment people — maybe there is, I don’t know.”

I think Trump has nothing but a general contempt for the American voter, actually. And given the number of voters who rally to him, it's hard not to think that contempt is justified.

I'm more aghast at those who don't "rally to him"--not OVERTLY in any case--but STILL insist he's a "lesser evil" than Clinton, like that disgusting lot in Pro & Con. Every one of them an old white man of self-described "left" (or at least not avowed right) persuasion.

They can't even see they never cared, and are incapable of caring, about anyone but themselves. For the first time ever I find something positive to say about the worst manifestation of conservative selfishness--at least THEY are not blind to being led exclusively by self-interest.

New York Times today on Trump losing support of Republican women: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/10/us/politics/donald-trump-gop-women.html?ref=to...

>91 LolaWalser: So, was moderation added to this group to protect members from outside attacks or to allow a safe space for members to attack outsiders.

>93 jjwilson61: We seek on-topic, respectful, and constructive discussion about feminism. The validity of feminism is a given. Dissent is acceptable; disruption is not. Comments should pertain to the thread topic. Obnoxious, insulting, abusive, and threatening comments are unacceptable.

And, since this is the first time it has come up since moderation went into effect, I suggest that discussions about interpretation be conducted on the thread created for the purpose:

http://www.librarything.com/topic/224406

Currently all interpretations and the final say over whether something is "obnoxious, insulting, abusive, or threatening" resides with me. Complaints can always be taken to me by private comment on my profile, if people would prefer that to discussing on an open forum.

Well, since this is the thread in which Lola made the comment, I'll say to her that if she has something to say about the people in Pro & Con, she should bring it up there instead of making attacks on them from a protected forum.

I'll shut up now.

It's been, not interesting, exactly, but simultaneously frustrating and sort of awful, to see the discussion in pro/con degenerate from a spirited enthusiasm for the ideals represented by the Bernie Sanders campaign to the weird sort of nihilism that ends up defending Trump making snide "Second Amendment" innuendos and vague threats against Hillary Clinton. People can say he was "ha ha just joking" but it's still misogynistic. I stopped paying close attention to the election conversations in Pro/Con when the tenor of the discussions changed from the substantive to a chorus of disappointed whining.

Whatever people's objections to Clinton's candidacy might be, the form they take usually reeks of misogyny. In much the same way that people's objections to Obama might have had roots in economics, but ended up being expressed in racist ways. But Trump's main campaign strategy is one of provoking outrage. So exploiting the misogynistic inclinations of his audience by making veiled threats against Hillary is not surprising in the least. He's obviously learned that he can say almost anything without needing to worry about the consequences.

In fact, the one time so far in this campaign I can remember Trump backtracking quickly with tail tucked firmly between his legs was when they originally released the Trump/Pence logo, much to the delight of Twitter. That lasted, what, a couple hours before they took it down?

Trump seems to thrive on outrage, but ridicule seems to be his kryptonite.

>95 jjwilson61:

I'll shut up now.

Too bad you didn't shut it before. I wonder why you think you have the right to complain about me "attacking" anyone when I simply expressed generalised disgust at the opinions of a certain subgroup in Pro and Con, those "leftists" who think Clinton is worse than Trump. I named no one and for what it's worth, never gave YOU a thought but clearly you see yourself as belonging with them.

Then you express regret that I didn't "attack" them somewhere where I wouldn't have "protection". I posted ABOUT their attitude--which you maliciously but predictably call "attacking"--here because THIS thread deals with sexism surrounding the campaign. And I also posted in the Pro & Con thread, on topic, reacting to two of those posters.

So stick your complaint and think on the implications for YOUR character, Mr. Mansplainer, of this ongoing campaign of yours against ME. Don't ever forget I remember you think I deserved getting called a "putrid cunt". Would you enjoy seeing the swine treat me so again? Is that what you're hoping for?

>96 southernbooklady:

Do you notice, for instance, anyone asking where have all the female posters gone?

>98 LolaWalser: & >96 southernbooklady:

To be blunt, I've avoided most of PC for a while. Probably since the Orlando shooting. And largely because it's 2-3 jackasses snowing everyone by sheer force of volume. And having followed this group, I am relatively certain I understood where the female posters went. I believe I have tried calling attention to that dynamic once or twice.

And to whatever extent I have personally contributed to the dynamic, you have my apologies.

At this point, I'm not sure how one corrects it.

It's sort of amusing to me that the more strident the objections to Hillary become, the more credit I'm inclined to give her, and the better I feel about her as a potential POTUS.

She's never generated the level of antipathy in me that others seem to wallow in. On the contrary, I've always found her a competent, capable, mostly reliable politician. No more dishonest (indeed, often far less dishonest) than anyone else on Capitol Hill. I think she's got a hefty dose of the kind of hubris that people in power often have -- the kind that comes out as entitlement. I think that she sometimes sidesteps the protocols and rules (like using a private server instead of the State Department servers for official email). But on the whole I think she'd be a good president. And the deafening din raised against her (which seems to boil down to "she's a lying liar who lies and she's not Bernie Sanders!") has not made the slightest dent in that personal assessment.

I'll be more willing to chime in on Pro/Con when the conversation moves on from the chorus of "she's a lying evil bitch!" complaints that are passing for discussion at the moment.

Also, it's a busy time of year for me with the day job, so I'm not checking in as often.

Don't ever forget I remember you think I deserved getting called a "putrid cunt".

What is necessary for you to be healed from this?

>102 Jesse_wiedinmyer:

Please don't presume. Not stuff about me, and not about outraged women in general needing "healing". There's a chronic problem, but it's not ours.

>100 Jesse_wiedinmyer: I doubt anyone on P/C cares where the women posters went.

>104 sturlington: Or noticed.

>103 LolaWalser:

If I might rephrase that, then... What might be done to make amends?

>104 sturlington: & >105 RidgewayGirl:

Probably not. Then again, one of them creates a group with a membership of one, so...

>105 RidgewayGirl: Now they're reposting Clinton conspiracy theories. Le sigh.

I'm just going to leave this here:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/08/the-era-of-the-bitch-is-comi...

What has disappointed me (and I probably should have been prepared for it) is not the behavior of those on the right. It's expected of them. It's the behavior of those on the left, often from men who call themselves feminists. It's like the surface, having cracked just a little, is now allowing all their real feelings to emerge. From Pro & Con to guys who supported Sanders, to every single comments section, there's a litany of casual misogyny.

It's better out than in, but that doesn't make the experience pleasant. Just like the overt racism of those uncomfortable with an Obama presidency leading to #blacklivesmatter and increased activism, I hope this round of ugliness leads to women reclaiming the fight for equality and realizing that trying not to rock the boat is seldom effective. I hope this leads to women being much more bitchy in general - deciding that if we're perceived to dominate conversations if we speak 30% of the time, then it's time to really dominate the conversation and speak as much (and sometimes more) than the men.

>107 sturlington: It's almost charming how they consider her a super-intelligent super villain, with all the (powerful white) men around her helpless against her superior machinations. You'd think they'd want this omniscient, all powerful individual to run the country. Too bad she's the wrong gender.

>108 RidgewayGirl: Don't you think that the more blatant the misogyny, the more moribund the cause? There is a kind of "last gasp" feeling to that KFC Special mentioned in that article.

Just imagine, it will get even uglier than now.

Don't you think that the more blatant the misogyny, the more moribund the cause?

One would like to think so... Who knows, maybe future people looking back on this period will discern in things like the Clinton campaign and surrounding social circumstance ever less intense waves of anti-feminist backlash, leading to their own better society, which none of us will ever see.

>108 RidgewayGirl: It's almost charming how they consider her a super-intelligent super villain, with all the (powerful white) men around her helpless against her superior machinations. You'd think they'd want this omniscient, all powerful individual to run the country. Too bad she's the wrong gender.

People made the same claims about Obama. He must have his own time travel machine to be responsible for all the things people attribute to him. It's really discouraging, the willingness to believe the unbelievable just to justify the internal racism/sexism.

>109 southernbooklady: and >110 LolaWalser: I think there is a general feeling of the white male's last gasp being the impetus behind Trump and the surrounding nastiness of his campaign. BUT I am discouraged to see so many younger Sanders supporters succumbing to the misogyny as well. That does not bode well for the future. Perhaps when the boys my son's age are all grown up...

An editorial from novelist Siri Hustvedt on this thread's topic, misogyny in the U.S. presidential campaign.

Anyone here read a Hustvedt novel? I have The Blazing World on my recon pile, but have not read anything apart from an entry in the Future Dictionary of America (though I say that only because I read that book and LT lists her as a contributor, I don't recall her entry specifically).

Her new essay collection has an interesting title: Women Looking At Men Looking At Women.

>112 elenchus: Although I missed that debacle since I no longer watch network TV (and feel healthier for it), reading the news coverage in the NYT, I couldn't miss the sexism in the different ways that Lauer treated Clinton and Trump, even though the Times article never explicitly identified it as such. Especially that pernicious disease of men talking with women: constant interrupt-itis.

Fortunately, it seems like Lauer is being universally raked over the coals and journalists are going to have to step up their game a bit if they don't want to be ridiculed on Twitter.

On the topic of how differently we treat a female candidate, my father told me today that he can't vote for Clinton. She's too cold and ambitious. This is not a criticism he would have made of a male candidate. Can a man be judged as too ambitious?



And the Humans of New York bits were excellent, but would a male candidate need to do this?

http://www.scarymommy.com/hillary-clinton-explains-sexism-humans-of-new-york/

Too ambitious always kills me... As though people become president incidentally!

>115 sparemethecensor: Women can take positions of power, but only if the death or incapacitation of a man (father, husband) leaves an opening. She can't want it for herself.

>115 sparemethecensor:, 116

wouldn't want to accidentally value hard work, or let those girls know that it can get them somewhere.

My mother and stepfather watched the Lauer interviews, and my stepfather was talking with me about it. He was confused. He said he didn't understand why Lauer had treated Clinton and Trump so differently, why he was so obviously interrupted Clinton, being rude to her, not letting her speak, while giving Trump the exact opposite treatment. I told him this is what sexism looks like. I think this is something that's really hard for men to see because they aren't on the receiving end of it all the time, but this back-to-back format of the interviews, with Lauer's attitude so visibly different in how he treated Clinton versus how he treated Trump, really made it obvious, apparently.

Any bets on whether male advisors will have to band together to be heard in a Hillary Clinton administration?

http://nymag.com/thecut/2016/09/heres-how-obamas-female-staffers-made-their-voic...

Post debate analysis:
Hillary Clinton smiles too much/not enough/the wrong way. . . according to these men:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2016/09/27/hillary_clinton_s_mouth_shape_at...

Sheesh.

Priceless. I think my favourite is about her being "over-prepared".

You couldn't invent this shit...

Someone told me that Trump interrupted Clinton 25 times in the first 26 minutes of that debate.

I didn't watch the debate, but leading up to it, I heard several times on NPR that one of Clinton's goals had to be to "seem human."

I avoided the debate, figuring I would not learn anything new about Trump, and saving myself the stress of watching his bile.

But, I read a few post-debate articles, and came away with the sense that Clinton did very well in the face of a ridiculous challenge: be human (huh?) but not affected, substantive but not a know-it-all, strong but not "cold", etc etc.

I think Colbert summed it up best:

In his monologue, Colbert first laid out the wildly different expectations for each candidate going in to the debate.
Clinton:

Be confident but not smug
Be knowledgable without being a know-it-all
Be charming but not affected
Be commanding but not shrill
Be likable
Be warm
Be authoritative
Don’t cough

Trump:

Don’t commit murder (on camera)

>124 elenchus: The version I saw said:

HILLARY TIPS
-- Fix everything
-- At least 5 A+ zingers
-- Don't come off too smart

TRUMP TIPS
-- Speak English
-- Wear pants
-- Have fun

Even having been coached, he still managed to disparage a former Miss Universe when calling in to a morning show (a sympathetic one, at that) today. It’s amazing to me that he has a woman as a campaign manager.

I don't know why this affected me so strongly, but it did. A bit of counterweight to the usual posts in this thread: the Arizona Republic provides a sober but solid argument for backing Clinton over Trump. As sad as it is to admit, what impresses me most is the tone is adult and principled, I didn't detect any code or nascent misogyny. The bit about Supreme Court nominations is perhaps the biggest example.

A bit of context:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/09/27/arizona_republic_writes_mic_dr...

The full endorsement:
http://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/editorial/2016/09/27/hillary-clinton-endo...

On another thread I asked if there was anyone in the Republican Party who could step up and offer a real and coherent sense of mission for the party that seemed to be imploding. It would be pretty ironic if that person turns out to be Hillary Clinton.

So, the Trump sex trash talk tape. I've mostly ignored the discussions of it because, it was Trump. He's never hidden his sexism -- he's made a career out of being a sexist pig, actually, so it I was utterly unsuprised that a tape of Trump being Trump surfaced. If anything, I was surprised that people were surprised. I think it is because he used the "p" word -- references to female anatomy make entire segments of the American populace run screaming from the room.

But there was a chat among some of the female contributors to Fivethirtyeight.com (the only political site I pay attention to):

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-sexual-assault-chat/

It's not super deep, about what you'd expect from an online chat discussion. But way on down the page the conversation inevitably drifts into their own experiences with sexual assault or attempted sexual assault or utterly skeevy behiavior. One of them describes barely escaping from being date-rape-drugged by two guys. And then there was this:

christie: There’s also a lot of victim blaming. It’s your fault if you were drunk or in a vulnerable situation (alone at a bar).

colleen: A guy tried to masturbate on me on the subway last year, and when I got where I was going, I told my friend, and we were both like, “Ugh, I hate it when that happens,” the way you react when, I don’t know, the conductor closes the train doors in your face.

blythe: Oh my God.

colleen: The incident barely bothers me, but the fact that it doesn’t bother me does bother me.

christie: So gross! And yet, isn’t it telling that it’s like, bleh, another crappy subway ride.

colleen: Yup. The scenic 1 train, everybody!

blythe: Ha. I think that’s part of why I wonder if this tape will change anything, really.

And my first thought was WHAATT???? "I hate it when that happens"? WHAT??!!??

And I spent a few minutes shocked that they could be so blase about it, how insane it was that guys would masturbate at you on the public transportation. How could any woman's bar for tolerating harassment be set that low?

....And then I remembered, oh wait, yeah, that happened to me once too. I was driving home on an Interstate and a guy pulled up along side of me, not really good about staying in his lane. I thought he was drunk. But when I looked over and down (I was in a van, he wasn't) he had his pants open, his dick out and he was just leering at me and, well, you can picture it, I'm sure. Sorry about that. I made a point of letting him see me pick up my phone and call the highway patrol and I made sure to get the asshole's plates.

...But the thing was, I had totally forgot about the whole thing. I told some friends when I got home and we all went "Eww" and I wrote a column about Shakespeare's Richard III -- which I had been listening to on the drive -- and I made some jokes about "bent dick" but then, you know, life goes on. I just plain old forgot about the whole incident, until I was reading those women talk about their #WhenIWas moments, and was completely ready to be outraged on their behalf since they'd apparently been desensitized to it -- "men masturbating at you is NOT NORMAL, thank you" -- only I realized, I was right their with them. Give me the doubtful honor of being in the "men have masturbated at me" statistic. Great. Peachy. What a country we live in.

For me, this was the most affecting response to the Trump tapes that I read: http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2016/10/09/an_ob_gyn_and_her_trump_supporti...

It is not that this is shocking that makes it deplorable. It is that it isn't shocking at all, that it has happened to so many of us and is still dismissed as just locker room talk.

>129 southernbooklady: & >130 sturlington:

Sigh, yes and yes, to the overall point you each make as to How can it be that it's so prevalent as to be almost invisible?! Abuse as wallpaper, violence as decor. There's a point in the XX Factor article, as I recall, about how this soils everyone it touches, whether victim or onlooker or, yes, even perpetrator.

I do wonder how different this is from various other times in history, though. Is the primary distinction that we talk about it so openly? Which is no excuse, nor intended as one, of course.

For Many Women, Trump’s ‘Locker Room Talk’ Brings Memories of Abuse http://nyti.ms/2dSWWF6

>131 elenchus: How can it be that it's so prevalent as to be almost invisible?!

More to the point, how can it be so prevalent that it is almost invisible even to the people it happens to? That's what really floored me about the whole little exchange -- not that the subway incident happened, that just makes me angry and grossed out and reconsider my personal "no guns" policy. And not that it was "wallpaper" to the women talking about it -- that just makes me furious and more committed to feminism than ever. But to suddenly realize it was wallpaper to me in my own life -- I'm still trying to get my head around that.

I'm trying to think of other violations we're so acclimated to as a society. "Eh, I got mugged. It happens." "Eh, my house got robbed, it happens." "My identity was stolen! Eh, I hate it when that happens." ....Nope, not coming up with an equivalent.

>133 southernbooklady: ....Nope, not coming up with an equivalent.

Sadly, the parallel I see is PTSD and repressed memories from trauma, an adaptation of the mind in an effort to protect itself from a larger threat, even while exposing itself to a smaller and enduring one. Not everyone suffering trauma has that reaction, of course, and it manifests in various ways (dissociation, paranoia, others). But fairly prevalent, I believe.

>134 elenchus:

There's been at least one study (I think I linked it somewhere here) showing that even "ordinary" women (i.e. not soldiers or some such) exhibit symptoms of PTSD presumably linked to the risk of "living while female". That women suffer disproportionately from depression has been long known, and while it's traditional to blame them crazy girl hormones, I can't help thinking the first thing to look at would be the fact that women live sunk in the atmosphere of all-pervasive woman-hate from cradle to grave.

Maybe now that the deleterious effect of social media on girls specifically is getting increasingly more coverage, the hormone/moon/female craziness-blaming types will give a think to damn social conditions.

The problem with the #notallmen response to the locker room talk argument -- "Oh, that's just locker room talk. All men do it."

This was written by a man, but I think he gets it. http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2016/10/11/not-all-locker-rooms-but-yes-some-loc...

>136 sturlington:

Thanks for posting, I'm utterly unfamiliar with that blog and author.

>134 elenchus:

I can still recall living in a besieged town where we were being shelled regularly when, after one particular night of bombardment, I wandered down to the market place to get news of how many people had been killed. When I was told two or three, I replied, "Oh, that's good" - well, it was good that it was only two or three, not two or three dozen, but later I realised how numbed I must have been to say something like that. I also said something similar during a famine in South Sudan where the people were reduced to eating grass, saying that they were "lucky" compared to the people suffering from famine in the deserts of north Sudan who didn't even have grass to eat. It took me some years to realised how traumatised I was at that point in my life, thirty-odd years ago.

It's a strength of the human animal, that capacity to adapt and survive. But of course, we aspire to being more than animals, and that's what I fear is happening, at some level: merely surviving, in a biological sense.

ETA I should clarify, at this point, that I sincerely believe other creatures also aspire to being mere animals (and part of our aspiration is at minimum, not to interfere with that aspiration in others). A slip of the nomenclature.

>138 John5918: I can still recall living in a besieged town where we were being shelled regularly when, after one particular night of bombardment, I wandered down to the market place to get news of how many people had been killed. When I was told two or three, I replied, "Oh, that's good"

I just want to point out that there is a difference between surviving an event like a war, and living your whole life in a society where abuse is what you are for. A war, ostensibly, has an end. A woman can't exactly escape patriarchy. She must learn how to be a full human being despite everything around her telling her she isn't one.

>140 southernbooklady:

Of course, I agree absolutely. Just reinforcing elenchus' observation that we develop internal defense mechanisms. These mechanisms are actually inappropriate in "normal" terms, they just work in the short term for such extreme situations of trauma. People should never by put in the position where they develop such mechanisms in normal life, and it is appalling that women are put in that position.

Mind you, there are plenty of places in the world where people live their whole lives in wars which don't have an end. Women tend to suffer worst in those situations too.

The time has come to resurrect this thread...

Which I will do in stages...

Because...

A new thread, yet linked to this one...

would be nice.

Yes.