The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    The Evil that is Hillary

    By PeraclesPlease on Tue, 12/13/2016 - 7:11pm |

    There's a famous line in The Godfather where Brando exclaims, "how did things ever get so far?"

    I thought of that while reading Paul Waldman's late October piece on Hillary. 82% of Republicans think Hillary's home email server is worse than Watergate, a physical break-in on the campaign headquarters of a presidential opponent that led to Nixon's resignation. The ease with which epithets like "whore" and "murderous, no good, pious bitch" roll of the tongues when her name comes up...

    And despite Paul's best intentions, it's certainly not just the GOP. Any article that mentions Hillary will have half the comments about her entitlement, her arrogance, her deserving jail or death and a variety of obscene expressions coming from "progressives". 

    I don't get it. I watch a woman who's usually in a good mood, who doesn't much insult anyone (okay, a poor pun re: Qaddafi - should have kept it simple like "Mission Accomplished), who doesn't seem to me as that boisterous, more priding herself as a wonk and a workhorse, seems to be more of a team player than anyone else I know in politics. Her social policies are quite liberal, and while she's built up her security credentials, her votes and positions are unremarkable in Washington, especially against folks who can't find Aleppo on a map or think Obama launched a false flag operation to steal the Democrats' chances and blame it on the Russians. Or the myriad of crazy shit they can believe in mass numbers just because someone tweeted it or they heard it or something, though none so outrageous as thinking Trump would make anything better.

    Call it 50 Shades of Hillary, but I'm in the mood for some masochism now. I understand hardfought primaries - lots of nonsense was said in 2008 and forgotten within a month from California (yes, in June, when campaigns always end). But there's always something more visceral with Hillary - I mean, "Goldwater girl" - my Lord, the long memories and unforgiveness. And then the debates I've had over whether it was okay that she didn't divorce Bill. And so on. But what is it? What makes her so special? I understand Sarah Palin and Carly Fiorina, but still...

    Because I have 2 feelings - one is that we chewed up one of our best and brightest just to say we could. And that like the Birthers and Swift Boaters and the way Gore was picked apart, we're fooling ourselves if we think it's going to get better & easier without her. Hell, we even shoved Michael Moore out of the next because he was too controversial. We can blather on about "campaigning in poetry, govern in prose" all we want, but Dean burned out his poems by New Hampshire, and the likes of John Kerry, Michael Dukakis, Walter Mondale, etc. ran fairly somnolent campaigns that no one seems too bothered by, especially running against kinda slow Bob Dole and Bush Sr, while Gary Hart's "catch me if you can" took campaign excitement a bit too serious.

    Even in defeat I hear more venom against her than I ever heard towards Kerry, and he was a decorated vet running against a guy who lied his way into Iraq, lied his way out of his Guard service and broke every campaign promise he made. [and contrary to conventional wisdom, it appears Hillary carried the rust belt for those worried about the economy and foreign policy, but trailed way behind for ... drumroll please... immigration and terrorism]

    The last 2 years around here have been a pretty hard slog - folks like Wattree and Hal and a few others have taken a pretty harsh stance towards Hillary, even so far as to play the "genocide card". I remember the '92  campaign as pretty positive, feel-good. This one felt like shoveling shit the whole time, except those illusory 2 weeks when it seemed like things were panning out. We never much got to discuss uh, say policy because we were too busy swatting away all those pizza-parlor-pedophile-rings and the "no, she's not trying to start World War III" tempests 24x7.

    So what is it - Whitewater? Travelgate? That she didn't get health care passed in '93? was it the "neoliberalism" and triangulation and pro-business 90's? (with NAFTA/welfare reform/the crime bill/the balanced budget)? It started long before those speeches. She was 1 of dozens of minority Democrats  who voted for the Iraq War AUMF while hoping the sanctions would work, but this has made her in particular a "warmonger" even moreso than even Bush who actually started and ran the fucked up war.

    But really - something in the 90's (or before?) dipped the evil seed in the soil, and it took root there. Even more than running against Bill's actual record - which we as a party seem to enjoy doing much more than actually running against the disastrous Republicans - even with his policies now gratuitously ripped apart in retrospect as a disaster leading to all the ensuing travails of the last 16-20 years, I don't hear him called a "dick" or a "warmonger" or "evil" or anything 1/10th as vicious as Hillary gets. Was it attacking Bill's bimbos? Was it hanging dildos from the White House Christmas tree (as rightwingers have claimed - presumably the grossest war on Christmas yet) - or something she did in Washington back on the Watergate hearings, or on the McGovern campaign in Texas? what is it that gives her the edge on contempt, and as she fades out of sight, will we obligated to create another golem to take her place?

     

     

    Comments

    When Trump fails the right wing will blame evil Hillary (can't forget Benghazzzi), Obama, 'liberal media' and union 'shirkers' like the one in Indiana, and scream that Trump was sabotaged and held back by regulations, Democrats and job killing lefty bureaucrat dead enders.


    by NCD on Tue, 12/13/2016 - 10:12pm

    What will the left do? My candidate won 52% of the vote despite 2 years/25 years of character assassination and open calls to shoot her and lock her up. No one will be asking me what went right in the election - it will be "starting from scratch", remaking the Democratic Party for those who aren't even in the party and don't typically have time for the boring but difficult work of party building.

    There *will* be a new generation of women involved in politics voting not just with their vaginae but also their brains, hands, backs, organizational skills and rugged determination, and at this juncture, pissed off recognition of how bad they've been pissed on and will continue to be without action. TMac thankfully will be among them - whether she thought of herself as "new generation" or not, she's fresh meat and brains for the cause - it's never too late to be reborn.

    I'm not thrilled that Debbie Wasserman-Schultz has become the image and anchor of the DNC - she was picked by Obama, not Clinton - and I don't think enough people recognize the damage done with the coordinating committe constantly under attack for 1 1/2 years including having their own emails leaked and used against them, rather than trying to do their jobs in a very important election. I don't know if the DNC is normally efficient, but crippling our organizing team and then asking why we didn't do better is major chutzpah. If one of Bernie's supporters ran the DNC, would we be surprises to see what kind of candidate he/she preferred and actions taken that put a "thumb on the scale"? The left-leaning president of a Nurses Union used fracking and trade deals as key litmus test for who should get their support - A-okay for those who share those interests, bizarre for those of us thinking a nurses union would focus on health and working conditions as priorities. The "new normal" in the DNC will look bizarre or great depending on your views and level of pragmatism - there will be many more fights, and I'm concerned the skillful and intelligent will want nothing to do with such a self-destructive carnival.


    by PeraclesPlease on Wed, 12/14/2016 - 1:23am

    If one of Bernie's supporters ran the DNC, would we be surprises to see what kind of candidate he/she preferred and actions taken that put a "thumb on the scale"?

    Given some time we may find out, if and when Keith Ellison gets the nod.


    by barefooted on Wed, 12/14/2016 - 11:04am

    PP, at least your rantings are beginning to sound like a Red Queen obituary which is how failed vanquished political parasite's careers should be presented even if you have to fudge the reality quite a bit.

    I doubt many people will waste their time reviewing her skanky record, real or imagined  because she is history now not relevant anymore to anyone except a few true believers.

    If you have been watching the democrat party is finishing digging their own resting place with their pathetic attempts to overturn the election but they do have the CIA working overtime on 'The Russians Are Coming' so the post-truth forces still have a few weeks to make trouble before they are purged.

    The DNC should put Rahm Emmanual in charge, he knows how to keep the 'fucking retards' in line while this token Muslim Ellison doesn't seem too impressive.


    by Peter (not verified) on Wed, 12/14/2016 - 1:31pm

    Right now I'm so depressed I can't even begin to think of what the next election will look like. An amazing woman was brutalized by first by the "right wing conspiracy" that started long ago, Bernie was passive/aggressive in his attempt to bring her down, and in the process poisoned the minds of a lot of voters and pave the way for Jill Stein to "nader" her, and then we all know about the Russians, and donald's fifth, with our own FBI piling on. 

    If we can't elect one of the most qualified people in the country, I have no idea who we put up next, because obviously, being "qualified" is a bad thing. Will we have such a terrible donald experience that people will re-think that? It's too early to tell.

    In the meantime, I'm sick to my stomach 24/7, and absolutely dreading the next 4 years (or dare I say, 8 years?) Demoralized doesn't even begin to cover it.

    Every day brings a new horror, not only in his conflicts of interest, lack of intellectual curiosity, unwillingness to learn what he needs to know, but the "across the board" appointment of people who are not only the very insiders and elites he campaigned against, but hostile to the agencies they will charged with leading. And at the same time, the repubs in congress are going forward with their own plans to destroy Obamacare, Medicare and Social Security (the latter we were assured by the donald would be left alone) and make it next to impossible for a woman to control her own reproductive destiny.

    It's overwhelming.


    by stillidealistic on Wed, 12/14/2016 - 9:43pm

    Right, how did it get this far? This is the psych trick of closing your eyes and going back to when you think the problem started, and further. What has made her such a magnet for hate, when did it start, how did she come to embody "evil" including for so many presumptive like spirits, what lesson about us and US political life can we draw from this? Hopefully to learn from, make the pain subside, do something besidees repeat an inglorious past.


    by PeraclesPlease on Wed, 12/14/2016 - 11:43pm

    How did we get here? I can't figure it out. I read an article a week ago that claimed 75% of Trump supporters want to increase renewable energy. Can't find it now but here's an article that talks about Trump supporters who don't want Obamacare repealed.

    Why Obamacare enrollees voted for Trump

    There was a persistent belief that Trump would fix these problems and make Obamacare work better. I kept hearing informed voters, who had watched the election closely, say they did hear the promise of repeal but simply felt Trump couldn’t repeal a law that had done so much good for them. In fact, some of the people I talked to hope that one of the more divisive pieces of the law — Medicaid expansion — might become even more robust, offering more of the working poor a chance at the same coverage the very poor receive.

    Apparently some (many?) Trump voters voted for the person who didn't support their policy goals and often said he would do the opposite of what they wanted because they didn't believe he would do what he said he would do. WTF?


    by ocean-kat on Thu, 12/15/2016 - 12:59am

    Right, but I still feel the problem goes back decades, so they've tuned out everything Hillary says as "nasty woman", "Red Queen", "murderous", "corrupt", etc., so then it becomes a matter of justifying the 1 horse in the stable they have to ride. I saw a psychological study that noted that smart people are even better at justifying things that contradict their logic than dumb people, which leads me to the conclusion that everyone's easy to self-delude if they feel so inclined. File under "how smart people make dumb decisions". We rank as the #8 most educated country by 1 score - how can we make this impossibly bad choice, with all the obvious contradictions and evidence? Again, it's the daemon seed that's spawned this bizarre anti-reality over the decades.


    by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 12/15/2016 - 2:48am

    I agree. My point was that it doesn't seem to be mostly about policy. Other factors seem to be in play. The decades long false attacks and endless failed investigations were probably a big part of it.


    by ocean-kat on Thu, 12/15/2016 - 4:56am

    Yeah, policy's all over the place. Over 50% of the GOP loves them some Putin now, concern about Syria as Axis of Evil is dead. Deficit concerns are gone. They no longer believe in contraception even, the right to privacy is non-existant, but pussy-grabbing locker room talk is normal for the family values set. Tax evasion is now "smart". Government intervention in business and calling winners & losers is preferred as long as a billionaire does it. 

     


    by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 12/15/2016 - 6:56am

    It goes back to before her arrival in DC, when she got a reputation in Arkansas as a feminist who gets things done. The menfolk didn't like that, although I remember one influential person in Arkansas saying they had perhaps backed the wrong Clinton. From there it went on to her early comments about baking cookies, and defending her husband from the attacks on him (and I'm sure she didn't WANT to believe they were true, what wife who loves her husband wouldn't until she HAD to?)

    David Brock, in particular, was a big influence on people's perceptions of her. Since then he's mended his ways, but too little, too late (sorta like the guy who "created" donald in "The Art of the Deal" and now admits he made stuff up and twisted the truth into a pretzel.

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/oct/18/hillary-clinton-why-hate...


    by stillidealistic on Thu, 12/15/2016 - 3:01pm

    Good article. 


    by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 12/15/2016 - 4:09pm