Considering that we know that the more competent a woman is perceived, the less liked she is, should we really be surprised that a lot of Americans think Hillary Clinton is “dishonest?” I’m not. It’s better for a woman running for president to be seen as competent and unlikable rather than incompetent and likable.
Who’s voting to make Hillary Clinton his or her daughter, wife, mother, aunt, grandmother, the Virgin Mary, Pope of Rome, or Patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox church? I think she’s running for president. I’m not sure people’s suspicions about her honesty will make a difference. Do we want someone to be honest in her dealings with Vladimir Putin, Bashar al-Assad, or Mitch McConnell? Or do we want her to execute multiple mindfracks while playing twelve-dimensional chess in order to pursue the best interests of the United States?
(Have these people never watched House of Cards, in either of its 1980s or 2010s versions, or even the goody-goo-goo West Wing, sacre bleu?)
Hell, some conservative Republicans like neocon-friendly foreign policy expert Robert Kagan and John McCain’s former Chief of Staff and campaign advisor Mark Salter are vowing to vote for her instead of Donald Trump, if he becomes the Republican nominee! All of the counter-claims that Trump is Clinton’s worst nightmare, and that the Republicans are just dying to run against Clinton (instead of Bernie Sanders!) are just hilariously unbelievable. Like fun they believe that the 74 year-old Vermont Socialist with a flyaway combover is going to be a tougher candidate to beat in the general election.
(Not that I think the votes of a few writers and readers of the National Review and Foreign Policy are going to make a huge difference to the Clinton campaign. And I still think that they’ll vote for the candidate of the Green or Constitution parties before they’ll actually pull the lever for HRC. But still: it would be a neat trick for the old Goldwater Girl!)
Clinton would rather be feared than loved, and it’s very clear that a large number of Americans fear Clinton and everything she represents. (And that’s why I like her so much!) She’s the best next U.S. president to bet on to echo Franklin Delano Roosevelt in his second inaugural address:
Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me–and I welcome their hatred.
I should like to have it said of my first Administration that in it the forces of selfishness and of lust for power met their match. I should like to have it said of my second Administration that in it these forces met their master.
Sure, she’ll undoubtedly go back on her promises, or be unable even to begin fulfilling them. She’ll be a disappointment, like every single one of the forty-four presidents who preceded her. But do you want to behold a screaming, five-foot wide decaying baloney face for the next five to nine years? His schtick is getting old already, and his sell-by date is approaching fast. Clinton has more stones than all of the men who ran or are running against Trump for the Republican nomination.
(But who knows? I’ve been wrong before.)
That said, the days of landslides like those of the 1960s-1980s are long gone. If the Republicans nominated Daffy Duck (and many Republicans prefer that cartoon character to baloney-face), it would still be a pretty close election because we are a deeply polarized nation.
Historiann 
Of Trump’s “sell-by” date, I’m reminded of the old joke about the tycoon who said to his rival tycoon that “I could buy and sell you.” And tycoon two said in reply “I could buy you, but I could never sell you.”
The prefatory interjection “Honestly…” followed by some nondescript ordinary declarative sentence, pretty much says it all about what almost everyone perceives about at-least Lincolnesque levels of honesty as a basic human attribute.
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Good one! Indyanna FTW!
Especially because I see now that BREAKING NEWS Chris Christie has endorsed Donald Trump for president!!! The amateur bully endorses the professional bully: of course.
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I just, like 10 min ago, came across this video http://www.businessinsider.com/hillary-clinton-stephen-colbert-lie-2016-2 , which kind of illustrates how honest she is compared to other candidates/presidents (then right after I ended up on a video of “16 times Hillary Clinton was actually funny” from Salon which made me love her so very much).
Most of the people I talk to, including #2 on our blog, who are voting Sanders are doing it because they know he’s making promises that he can’t keep, but they love the vision and don’t want to give up on the vision. Clinton is tempering expectations and promising things she has a shot at and is more likely to get things done. I like her more and more all the time.
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HAHAhaha!
I don’t like Sanders’s vision, which is too narrow for my tastes. As I’ve seen on another blog recently (Shakesville, I believe): We know trickle-down economics doesn’t work. What makes you think that trickle-down social justice will do any better?
Many of the starry-eyed Hopey-Changies who lectured me on my own blog 8 years ago and called me stupid and Hillary Clinton irredeemably corrupt have apologized to me and told me I was right all along. I’m sure it will happen again, whether Clinton or Sanders wins the nomination.
I think realism is actually a strong vision for leadership, and an optimistic position too. It means you understand what might be possible, AND you have a PLAN to achieve it, and maybe a little bit more. Just waving your hands and screaming “Revolution!” is not going to accomplish anything but high ratings for Saturday Night Live parodies by Larry David.
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I do think Bernie Sanders is starting to see that class-based policy won’t help everyone equally, but you’re right that Hillary Clinton seems to have really internalized that message to a much greater extent. She gave a wonderful speech recently that really underscored that difference. Personally, after the Treyvon Martin shooting, I do not understand how *anyone* can believe that being a white kid (or parent) in the US is anything like being a black kid (or parent) in the US, even if you’re both low SES. Economic policies alone won’t do it without targeting.
That online survey thing that tells you which candidate your views are most like paired me with Sanders (by like 2 ppt, though I don’t recall it actually touching on race issues at all). So according to an online thing, my vision is more like Sanders. But I don’t think he’s going to be able to get ‘er done the way Clinton will.
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The more hate they serve up, the more gleefully I stump for Hillary and any other Democratic woman I can find to support from abroad. . . .
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Reblogged this on The Stories Behind the History and commented:
I’m reposting this column because I think it contains things that need to be said. You don’t need to agree, but you need to at least listen. The original writer teaches in the history department where I got my start as a college professor, so I have something of a personal connection to her, alkthough we have never met in person. Must be something about that mountain air!
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Thanks!
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I am so fucken excited to vote for Clinton!! 🙌
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I’d rather vote for Koko the talking gorilla than for Hillary Clinton, personally.
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It seems like the Republicans are granting your wish and furnishing you with that option!
Dog bless.
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