All Clinton Opponents are Sexist

The DNC continues and I will have a full write up of it after the whole thing is over, it isn't the dumpster fire that the RNC was so there isn't really a point of breaking down exactly what horrible thing happened every day as generally horrible things don't actually seem to be happening.

Today I want to talk about Hillary Clinton, specifically an angle on her opposition from the left that my friend Karl brought up on Facebook earlier today, here is his post in its entirety:

Hillary is not only a Clinton, she's a woman who doesn't know her place. She's not deferential. She's not "hot." She doesn't put people at ease. She speaks with authority and she's been in the political game a long time. The funny thing about discrimination is that it's still discrimination when you're doing it unconsciously. "Hillary is a corrupt politician," they all say. Yeah. And as opposed to who? At every level of government, politicians and bureaucrats embrace corruption and cronyism. That's how the game is played. The miracle of our country is that works in spite of corruption. That simple reality doesn't bother most people when it's a man at the helm - as long as he's even half-way competent and he makes some of his constituency happy, people like him. But when it's a woman? Never mind that she's an intelligent, experienced, incredibly competent woman who could actually draw support from across the aisle and get shit done. No, no, no, she's CORRUPT. She's PART OF THE SYSTEM. She could have been a CONTENDER but she's just part of the Washington elite. Get the fuck over yourself. You didn't vote for a contender then and you're not voting for one now. I know Hillary's part of the system that's driving economic inequality. They all are. But she's more than qualified to be president of this big-ass country.


I think I agree with Karl here, except for the part where she could draw support from across the aisle, if there is anyone in America Republicans hate more than Barack Obama it is Hillary Clinton, and under her presidency I would expect obstructionism very similar to what we have seen under Obama. But leaving that aside his point is pretty clear, it is interesting to me that for eight years the left has been pretty well united under Obama, not universally of course, the drone program comes to mind as something that he gets a lot of flack from the left for, but during his reelection campaign there was not this vitriol that we are seeing now, and lets be honest here, his first term was not really the greatest ever.





The point I am trying to make is the Bernie or Bust types weren't railing against Obama nearly as much as they are against Clinton, and why is that? Surely not because Clinton is more conservative than Obama, I mean the man passed a watered down health care bill sure, and did a fair amount of work(with a bit of pushing from Biden) on LGBTQ issues, but he hasn't shied from military intervention, he helped write the TPP, something that we all hate for reasons that remain nebulous. And his presidency has had some pretty shady issues come up now and again.
Yet he is riding a wave of popularity that he hasn't had since his first election, while Clinton, who worked hand in hand with him has massive unfavorables and the far left of the party seems to want to eat itself alive rather than support her.


Why is it suddenly an insurmountable problem for a woman to be perceived as untrustworthy but for a man it is just shrugged off as "business as usual"? She isn't young and hot, she is not a stirring orator or incredibly charismatic, she is a huge politics nerd who spent her life developing knowledge and experience in her chosen field rivaled by very few others in the world and she isn't shy about showing that.



The sexism inherent in our culture is not always, or even mostly, as simple as people saying "I hate her because she is a woman" competent, confident women tend to have a perception problem that is in no way their fault, because our culture associates confident with "bitchy" if it's a woman, and we don't really associate competent with them at all, so there is a level of dissonance when we turn on the TV and see a woman like Clinton asking us to vote for her that we don't consciously realize is there, we are programmed to distrust women seeking positions of power.



Now I am not saying that every piece of her opposition from the left is based on sexism, much of it is based on other aspects of privilege that I have gone into before, and much of it is also based on valid problems with her history and platform. However I would suggest that because of her gender too many on the left are allowing those problems to be bigger obstacles than they would be if she was a he and they are allowing that to drive their decisions more than they realize.


Ask yourself, if it was Joe Biden in her place right now, or hell Obama running for a third term, would you still feel so inclined to vote against them? Remember Biden, as much as I like him, is more conservative economically and in matters of foreign policy than Clinton, and the problems with the Obama Administration are numerous and well documented. But based on their favorability numbers my guess is if the convention was their party this year we wouldn't be seeing the protests we have, and my Facebook feed wouldn't be full of articles kissing Jill Steins ass.


Like I said, I don't think her opponents from the left are asshole sexists basing their choices on misogyny, certainly not consciously, mostly, but I do think the sexism inherent in our culture is informing the decisions of more people than we would like to think, and doing it more thoroughly than we would like to believe.