America, you are breaking my heart.
This election cycle has been exhausting. At the beginning, I was riding high on the Bernie wave, but as it gained momentum, it started to get to a place where it was targeting Hillary in a way that was both cruel and unjust. So I started backpedaling, reflecting, and trying to find a vantage point that felt true and fair. But the wave kept moving without me, and it almost feels futile to interject now. Still, I feel that it is dishonest to who I am to say nothing as I watch and hear a woman subjected to a progressive-led witch hunt in the national spotlight.
To ask anyone, let alone a politician, to prove that they are not dishonest is to demand they prove a negative. It is impossible. Because you are admittedly inquiring with prejudice. Because ultimately, you are not asking someone to provide evidence of their honesty, which is the only thing anyone can do to refute such an insinuation. It doesn't matter how many examples someone brings out to prove their honesty, because the interrogation only ends when we find evidence to prove their dishonesty. Which is why I understand (didn't say like) Hillary's stance on releasing the transcripts of her speeches, optics be damned. I would put money on there being some content in there that can be used to further propagate the assertion that she is too close to the big banks, but I very much doubt that the evidence would be anywhere close to a "47%" line. It would probably read more like someone being polite to the people who paid her so much to speak, but in the current political climate, being polite to big banks ain't gonna fly.
We are also holding her to an inhuman standard. Everyone is dishonest to a certain extent. Politicians more publicly. But maybe what sets me on edge the most is that it is the height of hypocrisy to belligerently demand a simple answer to complex problems and say you care about honesty. You don't. You care about conviction, about clarity, and about consistency, but not honesty. Honesty would be saying "I have no desire to deport children, but I know that the complexities of our immigration laws will make it inevitable, so all I can say is I will focus on reducing the number of children deported" (you know, what she tried to say before being badgered into a lie). Honesty would be saying "I always try to be honest" (oh, wait, that's totally what she said, until Stephen Colbert mocked her into a lie). Honesty would be saying "the bulk of mass incarceration in this country is under state jurisdiction, so what I can do as President is work with the states, but I can't promise anything more" (whoops, did it again). The list goes on and on. So when Trevor Noah suggests "this should be easy"--for a candidate condemned as dishonest, yet mocked for her honesty, it is not easy.
Bernie Sanders is honest--about who he is, about what he believes, about what his vision is. But he is dishonest about the complexities of reality, and about the powers of the Presidency. He avoids discussing political strategy. He conflates the methodology of political activism with the machinery of official politics. But I do not consider him pathologically or intentionally dishonest. He has assessed the Democratic Party in terms of whether the working class believe that the party is on their side. And it is this desire for camaraderie that his approach appeals to, not honesty. "Will you deport children? No." It is a falsehood that tells us he is on the side of those who fear their children may be deported, but it is a falsehood nonetheless. I have no wish to denigrate such a desire. The heart of a representative democracy lies in our belief, as citizens, that our needs are being represented. And yes, with the state of our campaign finance system, it is hard to believe that is the case. I get it. But to impugn Hillary's honesty when her biggest fault as a campaigner is that she's too honest is insufferable.
And it is a no-win scenario. What on earth does she have to gain by moving more to the left for us? Our support? Our vote? Our trust? What evidence have we given her that we wouldn't just move the goalposts again, saying it's not enough to support these stances now, you had to support them from the start or it doesn't count--in fact, your willingness to embrace our demands is further proof of your dishonesty! Trevor Noah and the SNL crew said pretty much exactly that, and it was shared it like it was the searing critique we've all been waiting for. No. It's just self-destructive politics, lazy argumentation, and an example of the crippling double-bind that has turned Hillary into the calculated politician we love to hate.
Hillary's honesty doesn't always sit well with me, either. Her response to the exonerated death row inmate made me both sad and somewhat hopeful. She is grappling with it, she is conflicted, and that gives me hope. But I wish she recognized, in the same way she argues for a $12 minimum wage, that the federal government can take the lead on issues like the death penalty, setting an example for the states to follow, rather than hoping for the Supreme Court to weigh in, or the states to see the light. And yet you can bet your ass that if she comes around to this line of thought, I won't doubt her sincerity or question her motives, rather I'll cry tears of joy that I have gained an ally in the form of the most powerful woman in America.
For some context on the reason for this post, a few things that happened on my news feed the other day:
A man responded to a link (by a Bernie supporter) to an article about Joe Scarborough telling Hillary to "smile" by saying, "Now you know how Sanders's supporters feel..."
Really. That happened.
As though the last 25 years have passed with no other instances of gender-coded criticisms of Hillary to speak of. As though it is a problem that didn't exist until a man experienced it. As though anyone, even among her most ardent defenders, is adopting Hillary's volume, determination, and anger as a badge of honor the way they have Bernie's disheveled appearance. As though the criticisms of Bernie's appearance affect Bernie's supporters the way the sexist criticisms of Hillary's appearance affect the lives of women everywhere. As though the injustice of being judged on one's appearance when running for president is an experience as prevalent as a woman being told to smile. Right.
A friend posted a picture of Hillary next to a picture of innocent victims of drone strikes, with a caption reading "Drone Strikes for Everyone," and with the comment that she would not vote for Hillary because her conscience couldn't support these acts.
To which I have to wonder, I have to ask, "did you vote to reelect Obama?" Because those are his campaigns. They happened on his watch, under his leadership and advisement, and they were happening long before 2012. If not, fine. I respect your commitment. It's something I feel strongly about as well. But if you did vote for Obama a second time, or if you would be willing to hold your nose and vote for him again if that were possible, then your stance, if it holds true for the general election, is a double standard. And yes, it is a sexist double standard.
I reposted this:
And a friend cautioned me about being too divisive.
As is always the case, FB doesn't provide the adequate environment for a proper response. Which is this:
I believe we must stand together against Trump. I believe we must come together as a party. I believe that Trump "poses an existential threat to our country" (and yes, I am aware that this implies I think he's a terrorist). I believe that the time for divisive language is past. Which is one reason (apart from the fact that I don't believe it) I will not be posting anything disparaging about Bernie or his supporters. I don't care about our differences of opinions or priorities or approaches. Not anymore. I have opinions, but they served little purpose before, and can only be detrimental now.
But I will post about sexism. I will post about double standards, and double-binds, and casual misogyny. I will post about a witch hunt when I see it. Just because the victim is Hillary Clinton, and just because her accuser is Bernie Sanders does not make this about politics. Women vying for admittance into male-dominated spaces almost always experience a similar pattern of interrogation. Whether it is female gamers proving their bonfides in order to earn their right to play, or any woman anywhere asking for a promotion, this shit looks the same. 100% of credentials met is the bar for entry, and if you have them, you are trying too hard. You want it too badly, and isn't there something suspicious about that? You are either incompetent or a fraud. You shall not fucking pass.
One of the reasons I think it is harder to parse the sexism from the politics is that we are only pulling from a data pool of one. Not that women haven't run for President, or haven't done impressively well before now. But that, in this era where there are numerous places dedicated to the awareness of and fight against misogyny, where we are forced to confront micro aggressions on the daily, where there are statistical analyses a-plenty breaking down what the social and professional divides between men and women look like, we have only had one woman as an example of what that looks like when leading the race for President. So it is easy to say "it's not sexism, it's her." But all of the accusations against her can be leveled against nearly every liberal male politician, yet they have never been attacked with such fervor on these counts.
I know that a portion of it is that the issue of money in politics has never (in recent memory) been as much in the forefront of political discourse as it is right now. The point is not that you have to vote for her, or that you cannot hold campaign funding as a core principle, or even that the importance of that principle cannot have strengthened over time, but simply that she deserves no more condemnation on this count than nearly every other male Democratic presidential candidate. You may dislike Obama's policies, the sheen to his presidency may have worn off, but most of the people posting about Hillary's supposedly blatant corruption on my feed have also been posting nostalgic reminiscences of his time in office. Yet he took SuperPAC money. He took money from Wall Street and the banks. He executed drone strikes. He made the final call on Libya. He hasn't pardoned Snowden. He "came around" on gay marriage. He is in favor of the TPP. And if you are dissatisfied with Obamacare, well . . . maybe you should have voted for Hillary in 2008. I didn't. But that was when the door to move on healthcare was open. Yet for all of that, I don't see anyone on the left condemning him as a greedy, corrupt politician. You may condemn these stances, sigh with disappointment at his compromises, but until he is vilified, his integrity called into question on the left in the same way Hillary's is, it is not politics but sexism.
I have many friends who openly criticize Obama for these things and many more. I have many friends who feel that Obama's policies, the way they have failed to address, and in some ways have exacerbated our many problems, should be rejected as false promises and false hopes. That's fine. I disagree, but I don't care. We can disagree. We should disagree. It is healthy. But until those criticisms morph into personal attacks on his character, it is not the same.
Internet culture makes it seem sometimes like we are surrounded by women successfully condemning the patriarchy. How many posts of "YASSS, queen!!!" feminism do we see daily? It is great. Beautiful. Heartening. The trouble is, the Internet is a void we scream our ire into. There is almost always an option to isolate ourselves, to shut out comments. But if you take most instances of one-on-one argumentation against misogyny in the media, in the news, or in daily life, what we see does not generally end on a "Q.E.D." but rather an ellipses. A pregnant silence. A loss for words. An exhaustion. What we see, what we usually experience is women enduring misogyny, not beating it. Our victories come in the form of our survival, our resilience, not laying waste to the fallacies of patriarchal logic. The same can be said for racism. For homophobia. For Islamophobia. For trans-phobia. And in this sense, this election has been a sobering slap in the face.
We may think of it as progress when a woman is so close to the highest office, and it is. But it also means that women and young girls watching have to endure the coded and not-so-coded misogyny for months on end. And saying it's ok because you don't like her politics is harmful. It is harmful to every woman who will ever find herself discussing the promotion of another woman with coworkers who blur the lines between legitimate concerns and savage mockery. To every woman who will consider putting herself up for promotion, or otherwise enter into a male-dominated space. It is painful. It is degrading. It is personal in a way that has nothing to do with politics. And I know that women in general and Hillary in particular will come through this election with our sense of self bruised but not broken. But it is always worth trying--to hope for more than just endurance. To hope for a fucking win.
And winning on this point--that the portrait of Hillary as intentionally compromised and suspiciously electable is inherently sexist--is important now. It is important in the orange-tinted face of America's new flirtation with fascism. It is important to establish agreement on the terms of a fair fight now, before Trump starts using our own words against her, and instead of condemning him for prescribing a double standard, we admit that we can kind of see his point. Before this:
gets too much traction. Before we descend so far down this path that our priorities shift from protecting the people most at risk from Trump's rise to making sure Hillary gets taken down.
So I am sorry if this sounds divisive. But to be clear, the people on my feed making these comments are not sexists. Most of them are ardent feminists and activists on pretty much all other fronts, and are all-around total badasses. But you don't have to be a misogynist to propagate misogyny. Much like sharing a falsified quote on the Internet, an aspect of the sentiment behind it appeals to us for some reason (good or bad), and we share it without investigating thoroughly. I say "we" because I am guilty of this just as much as most, both in the literal and metaphorical sense.
So in the interest of that hope, I will say this. Fighting fair doesn't mean it's not a fight. You do not have to like Hillary or her policies. But would you say the same things about Obama? Being as dissatisfied or angry with him as you may be, does that make him inherently untrustworthy? Is he a liar? Is he "hawkish?" Is he power-hungry? Two-faced? A shill? I am picking Obama because he is the closest, in terms of factual record, to where Hillary lies on the scale from liberal to conservative. But again, it could be any male Democratic candidate. Even Bernie on some issues. Why is it worse for Hillary to do the same things? And if the answer is that it isn't worse, but those things matter more to you now, then of course vote for Bernie! Just stop with the sexist double standards already.
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