La La Land: To the Ones Who Dream

How can romanticism survive in the cynical, postmodern world? To me, that is the central question of "La La Land," one which is reflected in almost every artistic decision made by writer/director Damien Chazelle. 

The beauty of this film lies, for me, in the tightrope walking elegance of setting an unabashedly romantic film not in the past, where nostalgia makes romanticism feel comfortable and at home, but firmly in the present, where it is always at odds with the grimness of reality. There is also a wonderful dare at play in the proposition of the film, one that mirrors the artistic dreams of the characters, which is that the unlikelihood of the film's success in the contemporary world of cinema is itself pitting romanticism against cynicism.

This isn't a new idea, or theme. It's been done a thousand times. It is also, as someone who grew up in the theatre, a fairly juvenile reading of the "write what you know" mantra to write a story about artists trying to produce art in a hostile world. Every kid I know tried to write that play. They were, almost without exception, very very bad. But the fact that the premise is clichéd makes the success of the film even more exceptional. The real question is how? How does it succeed? The answer is the same for the characters in the film as it is for the film itself: do it anyway, and do it right. Do it honestly, and unapologetically. Ground your romanticism with ardor and conviction, and dare your audience to disbelieve. 

When I was studying theatre, a professor of mine talked to our group about an assignment he had given us. We were struggling to come up with a physical performance piece attempting to depict the phrase "giants waking on the face of the earth." And he told us to think of the exercise as though we were given a sphere, and were tasked with bringing it to life for the audience. The easy route, and the common tendency, is to decorate the surface of the sphere, paint over it with narrative clutter. But what he wanted us to do was to delve into the sphere, look at it, study it, understand it, so that every element of our work would always be in service to what the thing is. 

What is it to be an artist following a dream? It is to put all of your eggs in one basket. The fear of that risk is real. The consequences of being unable to sell that basket are real. It is much easier to be like the guy at the party in the beginning of "La La Land," offering up a never-ending stream of half-concocted pitches. Or like the samba/tapas bar, doing too much so that neither is what it should be. But the characters in "La La Land" dare to dream, and in so doing, experience that fear and those consequences, even though they ultimately triumph. However, the story of the film is so simple that Chazelle as a director is also putting all of his narrative eggs in one basket.  If the love story weren't compelling or satisfying, the whole thing would collapse. But he cast two actors whose chemistry and report are so clear that they were able to carry that weight. 

Which brings me to the point of one of the often-criticized aspects of the film: neither Gosling or Stone are excellent singers or dancers. This is frequently considered a failure on Chazelle's part to produce as perfect a movie-musical as those he so clearly is paying homage to--"Singin' In the Rain" and "An American in Paris." But first of all, let's face it: Gene Kelly was one of a kind. And rather than create what could only be a pale imitation, Chazelle looked to his strengths to make a film of his own. Kelly was also a performative creator, with his own particular performance style, which is different than a creator for whom the performance style is one among the many tools at his or her disposal. In Kelly's world, the direction is in service to the performance. In Chazelle's world, the performance is in service to the direction. But it is also somewhat myopic to suggest Kelly musicals were the only inspirations for the film. The tenor, if not the style, is more reminiscent of Demy's "Umbrellas of Cherbourg" and "Young Girls of Rochefort," a much more muted and subtle tone, rooted in the nuance of film performance rather than the immaculate perfection demanded of vaudeville.

In service to the simplicity of the narrative in "La La Land," it is far more important that the performers be good actors than that they be excellent singers or dancers. It is also in service to the vitally important contemporary feel of the film that the singing be rough, and often mediocre; that it be attainable. This film doesn't offer a vision of perfection or virtuosity, which when put in the context of a story about artistic ambitions and dreams becomes stifling and paralyzing. Too often artists are taught to believe that success is a product of excellence and genius, when in reality the work is what matters. Do it anyway. 

Of course, no review would be complete without addressing the love story of the film. At the outset, it is fairly standard. There's the meet-cute, the feigned animosity, and the eventual coming together. But that all happens in the first half of the film. There was a moment, after the fulfillment of the question, "will they?" where I was afraid that in answering the question, "what next?" Chazelle would succumb to cynicism, letting the grimness of their prospects as artists, and the mundane demands of everyday life drag the film down into the bleak world of compromise. And indeed, he lets it seep into the corners, like the water stain on the ceiling, but he ultimately manages to find the buoyancy again. And in one of the most glorious moments in any recent love story I can recall, the grand romantic gesture that brings the two back together ultimately isn't about Gosling's character getting the girl. It is about getting the girl what she wants, even if that means losing her. 

One of the things that has rarely been replicated since the era of Gene Kelly is the grande finale, a dance sequence that takes you back through the film in a surreal sort of abstraction. Chazelle manages to deliver on that promise without it feeling like a disconnected dream-sequence. He uses the format to finish the love story, giving us a whirlwind glimpse of what could have been, never suggesting, however, that when the dust settles, we should feel that what could have been is what ought to have been. Chazelle gives us what few love stories, let alone musical love stories, ever do: a world in which it is possible to have more than one love in your life. Where those loves do not have to be in competition, but can instead be representative of different parts of ourselves. It is not sad, not even bittersweet, to have the characters go their separate ways. It is not a matter, as in "Casablanca," another reference Chazelle utilizes, of duty over love. It is a gratitude, ultimately, for the past love that helped shape our lives into the ones we wanted. 

Our President-Elect Is a Narcissist, and Here's What That Means

I'm not the first to call Donald Trump a narcissist. In fact, during the election, a number of psychologists broke with professional ethics to offer their informal diagnoses publicly. But the vast majority of people are fortunate to have no real conception of what that means. I, unfortunately, do.

When most people hear someone described as a narcissist, it translates in their minds to narcissistic, which is not remotely the same thing. "Narcissistic" is a descriptor of certain types of behavior. "Narcissism" is a personality disorder. It is the difference between saying someone is acting like a "psycho," and saying someone is a psychopath. Most of us recognize the distinction between the erratic behavior of a jealous ex and a personality like Jeffrey Dahmer. Yet with narcissism, perhaps partly because the disorder inherently resists diagnosis, and perhaps because some degree of emotional dependency is necessary in order to experience the full brunt of a narcissist's abuse, the distinction gets blurred. 

But we are all as citizens, barring some divine intervention, emotionally dependent on a narcissist for the next four years at least. So buckle up for the abuse.

My knowledge comes from the experience of arguing my self-worth to a narcissist. I did it without knowing what I was dealing with. I did it in good faith, thinking I was speaking to someone who, if I couched my concerns and criticisms in a respectful tone, if I offered honest apologies for my part in our schism, and if I was open and honest about the pain I felt at the actions I was criticizing, rather than expressing any anger or resentment, I had a chance of being heard, and of healing our broken relationship. I was wrong. I was so wrong I didn't know which way was up. I felt like I had wandered into an alternate universe where everything looked the same, but all the rules were different. And eventually, after a long and demoralizing fight, I shut myself out of that world. And I did it by being intentionally hurtful. Not cruel, or malicious, but hurtful in the way only blunt honesty can be.

This experience was not helpful, was not productive, was not useful, and it did not make me feel better about myself or this person in any way. It was traumatic. Only after seeing a therapist, and being given the task by this therapist of researching Narcissistic Personality Disorder, did I find my footing again. Knowledge of what I had encountered, and what I would encounter again if I chose to open up that relationship, did not eliminate the damage, but it certainly helped me understand the rules of that world. 

I cannot tell you how triggering it has been to watch this experience play out on a national stage. To know that some of the family who supported me during that time voted for a man who exhibits all of the same behavioral traits as the person who reduced me to such a pitiful state. And to watch as democrats attempt to adjust their tone, make sure their criticisms are fair, apologize for their role in the situation, and maintain their stance of arguing in good faith, when I know in my bones it is a failed strategy. To watch almost an entire nation make the same mistakes I did is excruciating. So I will venture to tell you what I have learned. Both the hard way, and from research.

"Narcissistic," as a descriptor, implies an overinflated sense of self-importance. As such, it is natural to assume that "narcissism" is simply an extension of that. Early psychological understanding of the disorder fell along these lines, assuming that narcissists were likely people who had been told they were "special" too often by their parents. More contemporary understanding suggests the opposite. Though it is important to point out that little formal research has been done on the disorder to this day, since as I said before, it resists diagnosis, supplementing official research with personal accounts of those who have had similar experiences to mine can fill out the picture. It is also important to understand that most of these experiences, including my own, are with people who have never been formally diagnosed, since acknowledging the faults of one's behavior runs contrary to the mindset of a narcissist, so there is little incentive to seek help. What follows is simply my understanding, as a confluence of reading official research, secondary accounts, and from my own personal experience, of what the disorder entails. 

Most people have a core sense of self-worth. It can be battered, broken, or diminished, but it is there at the center of our personality. It is the foundation we build on. We also have a projection of ourselves as "good" people. But that projection is tethered to our actions. We understand that if we wrong someone, they are likely not to experience our "goodness," unless we are willing to go through the process of atonement. This is essential to understand when dealing with a narcissist, because a narcissist lacks both.

The core of narcissism is a complete lack of self-worth. Imagine trying to build a home on a bottomless pit. Or more to the point, a black hole, whose pull toward despair swallows every attempt to create a lasting, consequential structure. How do you build a personality on top of nothing?

The narcissist's response is not to, but instead to create a projected self-image often, though not necessarily, of greatness. This is where the connection to "narcissistic" behavior arises. While most people project an image of "goodness," the image of a narcissist is often (though, again, not necessarily) loftier. But more important than the exaggeration, it is stagnant. It is untethered to actions. 

This creates contradictions, but those contradictions should not be confused with inconsistency. "Donald Trump is a successful businessman." Four bankruptcies and testimony from consumers and contractors contradict that statement. And yet, "Donald Trump is a successful businessman." 

Normally, when we criticize someone's self-image, it is in relation to actions taken by that person. And normally, a person criticized thusly is able to maintain their self-image by addressing those actions, because they understand that their sense of self-worth is not reliant on their external projection of self. Nobody is attacking your worth, only your "goodness" in relation to certain actions. We all have a defensiveness that arises in such circumstances, but often we can recognize that what we are defending is not essential to who we are, and ease off of the defensiveness to address the particular issue at hand.

That is not the case with a narcissist. If your self-image is untethered to actions, then it is impossible to see criticism as targeted at anything but the whole. And if there is no core of self-worth to rely on, then that self-image is essential to maintain, and any criticism is therefore desperately important to rebuke, to deny, to delegitimize, or condemn.

It is also important to remember that the self-image of a narcissist is fixed. It does not change with circumstance. So any attack on that self-image is not just unacceptable, but also untrue. If Donald Trump respects women, any actions you can point to that contradict that projection are not just cruel attacks against his character as a whole, they are also completely false. It is axiomatic. It is true because it is true, and to offer any criticism is as preposterous as saying that "2+2=5."

During my experience, I was condescendingly told this was the case almost explicitly, and with absolutely no awareness that this understanding of human relationships ran contrary to everything I had ever known to be true. I was gaslighted in regard to specific, easily contradicted facts, and in regard to my general understanding of cause and effect, morality, and responsibility. It slowly transpired that the only options available to me were complete capitulation or complete rejection. I chose rejection, because capitulation required sacrificing my last ounce of self-worth to the belief that my right to criticize abuse should always be considered unwarranted and disrespectful. It was a question, in the end, not of personal dispute, not of specific disagreement, but of a vision of human interaction that fundamentally denied the importance or even existence of consequence.

My hope is that those reading this will have a similar experience to mine when I read the accounts of others who had confronted narcissists, which is to say, a slow unfolding of recognition. I do not offer any easy solutions for dealing with Trump, because my personal solution was to emotionally divest myself from the relationship, which is untenable when that relationship is with the President. But I will say that Donald Trump does not deserve to be given the benefit of the doubt. He does not deserve to be criticized in good faith. It does a disservice to the rights of everyone who needs protection from Trump to engage with him in good faith. Because we need our leaders to stand resolute that our self-worth is not a bargaining chip. It is non-negotiable. Because for Trump, his self-image is non-negotiable. We cannot attack it in any manner, polite or not, that will not result in swift and severe condemnation, so why be polite? It only sends the message to those whose rights are at stake that we must accept the abuse as martyrs to the cause. That the preservation of Trump's self-image is as deserving of our consideration as the self-worth of millions.

One of the things that shook me to my core was being driven to the point where I knowingly said things in my final correspondence that were meant to hurt, and to wound. I had never done that before, and I have never done it since. And it cost me. It cost me because I knew I was capable of it now. All of my moral upbringing taught me that the greatest sacrifice is to lay down your life. But to die for something isn't as consequential as it is to fight for something, because in fighting, there will come a point when you will intentionally cause harm, and that self-knowledge is hard to reconcile. 

It is also hard to reconcile oneself to the acknowledgement that there are people, not many, but some, that are beyond the reach of empathy or compassion. That exercising those tactics is fruitless. That you are going to an empty well. But this assessment of Trump is not arbitrary, is not normal, and is not one that I can ascribe to any other politician in my lifetime, Republican or Democrat. I hope that fact can be enough to convince some people that this is not about politics. And I hope that this explanation of what narcissism entails can help in dispelling the belief that Trump is, in some hidden capacity, within reach of appeals to empathy and compassion. That this trauma will only worsen if we do not adjust our tactics to the fierce and unrelenting protection of those who desperately need it right now. Hand-wringing about "going high" is itself capitulation to the premise that our causes are equally just. We can attack Trump without resorting to falsehoods or compromising our values. The truth is on our side. It is time we arm ourselves with that knowledge and prepare to fight.

The Milgram Experiments

For the past week, I haven't been able to get the Milgram experiments out of my mind. Leading up to this election, there were a number of studies and articles that suggested the best determining factor for whether someone was a Trump supporter or not was how authoritarian they were in their outlook. The studies used parenting preferences as an indicator, avoiding political affiliation in their questions. The more a person believed in strict adherence to the rules set by authority figures, and strict punishment for failing to follow those rules, the more likely they were to be a Trump supporter. There is a difference, of course, between Trump supporters and Trump voters, which is where the Milgram experiments come into play.

During the Nuremberg trials, the phrase "just following orders" came to be the chilling refrain of those responsible for enacting one of the most large-scale systematic genocides in history. To test the legitimacy of these claims, Dr. Stanley Milgram designed an experiment. An administrator (the authority figure) would ask a teacher (the test subject) to test a learner (an actor) on a series of questions. Every time the learner got an answer wrong, the teacher was to administer an electric shock. With each wrong answer, the level of the shock would increase, until the teacher was administering a lethal dose of electric shock.  The teacher received audio feedback of the screams of the learner (as this was an ethically-devised experiment, the screams were prerecorded, and nobody died, though it could be argued that the test subject certainly underwent psychological trauma regardless). Before conducting his experiments, Milgram polled experts to hypothesize on the outcome. Everyone he polled absolutely believed that all but a very small percentage of people would refuse to continue the experiment to its lethal conclusion. They were wrong. Across the board, across cultures and demographics, the studies found that roughly 60% of people would do the unthinkable. Against our conscience, and under considerable distress, most of us would administer a fatal shock rather than directly confront an authority.

There is a major cognitive dissonance that comes into play when confronted by such damning evidence of our behavioral patterns. We all operate under the belief that we are good people. So the immediate response is to identify ourselves with the 40% of people who did not see the orders through, even though the data directly refutes such claims. Even though the experiment never concluded that the 60% of people who were coerced into murder were bad people, we ascribe that judgment to them to protect ourselves from the actual conclusion, which is that good people can be used by authority to act against their conscience.

Even when we accept the evidence, our secondary response is to say that knowledge of this behavioral pattern is itself protection against that behavior. Much like a person suffering from depression, a diagnosis is not a cure. We cannot will ourselves to behave in ways that go against our nature, whether that be an individual's particular brain function or our species' need to trust in authority. 

So what do we do with this information? Again, much like mental health, there are two main corrective approaches, both serving vital roles. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is a process whereby you regularly address your patterns of thought and behavior, in an effort to maintain awareness of self-destructive loops, and learn techniques to interrupt those patterns. This is the role that education can serve. This is the legacy of American liberal education. In my experience, there are three tiers to our critical thinking pedagogy. The first is to critically analyze and examine information we are given. The second is to question and analyze the authority of that information. And the third is to question and analyze the authority of our instructors in giving us that information. Yet in our educational structure, few are encouraged or given the opportunity to pursue this pedagogy through the third tier, and the resulting hierarchy of intellectual accomplishment creates resentment in those that, for valid reasons, only ever reached the first tier.

The second approach to mental health is of course medication. It is no real wonder that this approach is more widely regarded with skepticism and often outright defiance. Being a subject of our mental faculties, using external methods to alter our brain chemistry flies in the face of our belief in self-determination. Yet anyone who has ever benefited from these drugs will tell you how life-saving they can be. What this sort of external correction looks like in regard to our broader social structures is the legal frameworks for protecting the populace from authoritative abuse. Again, it is no wonder that such measures are widely criticized. Especially in American culture, the idea of self-determination is at the core of our belief system. Legal measures to protect against discrimination are often regarded as unnecessary by those who do not directly benefit from them, because it directly contradicts our belief that what we get is what we earn. 

But to bring it back to Milgram, we need these measures not simply to benefit others, but to protect ourselves from the probability that our structures of authority can be corrupted, at which point good people can be used by that authority to act against our conscience. And to add even more urgency, the likelihood of positions of power to corrupt other "good" people can be horrifically viewed through another study, somewhat less ethically-devised, known as the Stanford Prison Experiment.

But here we are. Donald Trump, a man who fails every ethical and moral standard we should demand of our authority figures, is the President-elect. His cabinet is being filled with people who represent the worst of his promises. And all of the studies in behavioral psychology point to disaster. Point to the abuse of that authority in bending the will of people of conscience to unconscionable acts. Yet our fear of destabilization, and our deep need to believe  in our ability to confront authority, to believe that we are the 40%, not the 60%, makes efforts like court appeals on behalf of the popular vote seem extreme, or gauche. We trust in the system, even when the system has elected a man who goes against our conscience.

All of this is terrifying, but one of the things that truly frightens me is the aspect of Milgram's experiment whereby the test subject listened to the cries of their victims. With the democratizing of information made possible by the Internet, as well as the success of Fox News in separating our news into liberal and conservative, we now have a problem where half of the populace can choose not to hear the cries of the other half (this cuts both ways) or instead listen to explanations of why those cries are unjustified, or even worse, how they are actually threats against the listener. But my biggest fear is this: what happens when those cries are silenced, when the act of administering that lethal dose of electricity becomes no more difficult than pressing a button? 

To most, this seems extreme, and unlikely. But even before actually assuming power, Trump has threatened and tried to silence his detractors. He has cut off the press. He approves of little but his own pronouncements on Twitter, and even then, he operates with a masterful level of double-think. When he contradicts himself, it is not a contradiction, because he has always held the same position. Oceania is at war with Eastasia. Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia. He rewrites his own history without a moment's hesitation. And we are willing, by force of habit, to allow him into the office that has the authority to write our nation's history for the next four years at least. Our impulse is always to remain on the defensive. To parry every falsehood with a fact-check. To say to the women who accused him of sexual assault that we will defend them if he decides to sue them for defamation. To say we will fight him when he does something worth fighting against. 

I am in no way saying I'm not up for that fight. I am. But I do not think, given all of the evidence of the danger he poses--not just to the marginalized, but to the privileged who will not be prepared to confront the worst of his proposals when they come from the authority of the office he holds--I do not think it is extreme or gauche or petty or unwarranted to take every legal course possible to prevent his inauguration. Let Hillary file a lawsuit on behalf of 2.5 million voters. Let the people in the states call for a new Constitutional Congress to fix a system so broken it has endangered itself. Let us engage this threat with the full weight of the populist momentum this election has called forth. And if we fail, let us rally for impeachment with the same doggedness the Republicans had when they went after Bill Clinton, with the awareness that this is not about politics, but rather the soul of our nation, and that the evidence for impeachment is so strong that the question becomes which act to prosecute. Pence may be Trump's insurance policy, but let us not stall our efforts on his behalf. Let us take the offensive, because remaining on the defensive is to concede to a false defeat. The majority of people in this nation did not vote for Donald Trump. We should not treat that fact as consolation, but as a call to action. Before the silencing is complete. Before the authority is granted. Before we are demanded to act against our conscience.

Today

Despair is what happens when resiliency becomes a curse. When the fact that we will go on, there will be more, and all is not lost becomes a reality that no longer soothes our pain, but rather expands into a never ending vista of continued demoralization. I am prone to this type of thinking, and I will fight against it, for the sake of everything I hold dear, I will. But not today. 

Today I will feel it. 

There is no humor in today.

Today I will let the knowledge sink in that half of my country feels that me, my friends, many members of my family, and millions more ought to be considered by our government as less-than. 

I am staring at an expanse of rape cases, domestic violence cases, police shootings, anti-Muslim violence, anti-immigrant violence, deportations, anti-LGBTQ violence, ALL without the pathetic amount of good faith in the criminal justice system I had before last night. And I do not know how to have hope when looking at that. 

Every woman, every queer person, POC, and person with disabilities in this country had their humanity on the ballot, which is in itself painful enough. And our neighbors, our coworkers, our families voted against it.

So if you are someone who can smile or laugh today without sadness, without grim resolve, or without desperation in your eyes, then I cannot know you today. Give me some time and we can come back together, and I will likely forgive you your callousness, but I will not forget.

I will hold you to account. 

For not taking our lives seriously. 

I will not shake my head or roll my eyes or brush it off. 

There will be no fucks given for politeness.

Because you seem to think this was a choice.

That this was an election.

That this wasn't a witch hun,.

A lynching,

A cross-burning,

That Trump invited us all to join.

And our countrymen and women either signed up or didn't care.

I promise you this, though.

You haven't fucking seen nasty yet. 

What Sexism Means When We Talk About Hillary

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.

Shooting Pool as a Feminist

In the midst of this election cycle, I have been reminded of all the different facets of my feminism. Almost every article I have read about Hillary Clinton has called forth memories of how I used to feel about her, what I used to think of her, the type of image I had of her as I grew up. In one way or another, I have had an opinion of Hillary Clinton since I was nine years old. And it is only now that I am looking back on those memories that I am considering the possibility that maybe I grew up with bad information. Maybe, like how I thought pickled herring was traditional southern food because I associated it with my southern granddaddy--because he fell in love with it at my great-grandmother's when he was courting my grandmother in her Hungarian neighborhood in New York City--the assumptions I made about Hillary were based on a confluence of circumstances that I was unaware of at the time, and as someone who likes to imagine that I think for myself, I should look again and see if things are different.

So I am looking back, and I hear so many people yelling about Bernie and Hillary and what terms like progressive and feminist mean, and what those words mean a person can and cannot do, and I retreat further down this path. Because down this path is where I remember myself. My progressive, feminist self.

And I remember how I didn't call myself a feminist until late in high school. I knew what feminism was. I was raised by a feminist. I grew up hearing stories of how the Dean of the School of Design condescendingly threatened not to sign her admission to the then all-male school, and she replied by saying she'd "just have to forge his signature, then." But I also grew up thinking that feminism had to be adversarial. And I didn't feel very adversarial. I felt like a tomboy who just wanted to play in mud and wear osh-kosh overalls. I felt like a kid who idolized her brother. I felt like a girl who had crushes on boys, not someone who was angry at them. I don't know where the switch happened. When I realized that I could be all of those things and be a feminist. But I remember being frustrated by the word. And really concerned with what that word meant for me if I assumed it. The assumptions people would make of me. The instant dismissal of my views because they were tainted with the title. 

And at the same time that I was feeling the pressure of what I was supposed to be willing to do with boys I liked, pressure not from them necessarily, but from the general "in the air" expectations of girls my age, things I realized too late that I didn't want yet, or wasn't ready for, at the same time there was Hillary Clinton, and Linda Tripp, and Paula Jones, and Gennifer Flowers, and Monica Lewinsky. There was Nicole Simpson. I remember being confused that my sympathy for these women was consistently being negated in the media, and how that attitude trickled into the opinions of my feminist mother and all of the other role models in my life. If progressives were on the side of feminism, then why was I being told that it was okay to mock Linda Tripp's appearance, Paula Jones' nose, or Monica's weight? Why was the progressive stance on OJ solely about race, and not even remotely about domestic abuse? Why couldn't we consider both? Why was the defense of Bill Clinton from a sex scandal the progressive agenda, but considering his position of power as the President over an intern not a legitimate problem to address? Why was it necessary to paint Monica as a bimbo, or a homewrecker when she was an intern at the White House, a position for which I certainly never had the qualifications.. Even now, when she gave her TED talk, people were surprised that she was intelligent. But if all of those things frustrated me, or contradicted my initial impulse toward empathy, I was still young, still growing into myself, and I adopted these views in part as my own, because there was no other narrative available. 

As a tomboy, feminism becomes an assumed position. If you so clearly do not fall in line with gender norms, people tend to assume you are opposed to them. So the nascence of my feminism was rooted not in opposition to patriarchy, but rather in opposition to the other girls. You know the ones. The girls who liked girly things. If I engaged in girly things, it was always with a sense of irony or at least self-awareness, something I had that those other girls clearly lacked. This positioning allowed me to be a "cool girl" feminist. By not critiquing men on their behavior, but instead critiquing other women, I could still be seen as desirable or approachable by men. A trickle-down feminism, whereby just being is enough. I didn't need to risk anything, least of all offending a male friend or possible boyfriend by asking them to consider the way they talk to or about women.

This stage of my feminism lasted through my early twenties. And when I think about that period of my life, I remember shooting pool. I learned to shoot pool when I was about ten, in the attic game room of a family friends' house, and I was taught by a group of boys and men. I love the game. I love the physics, the geometry, the sounds, and the feel of pool. But I also loved the sense of power in defying expectations. I wasn't just another player, I was the girl who could hold her own. Who didn't need to have her hand condescendingly held, and who didn't act shy or offer a tinkly laugh when all of those condescending lessons garnered a pathetic whiff. And this sense of power turned into confidence around men, the confidence that I could wipe the floor with them. But embedded in that attitude of defiance was still a desire for male approval. 

I used pool to flirt, often shamelessly. Fully aware that bending over the table was provocative, I used the gestures of the game to my best advantage. I used my "girl who can play" status to tease, and distract. I had a lot of fun, had numerous short-term flings, and a couple of great longer relationships. But the longer I persisted in this path, the emptier I felt. Because it ended up being less about shooting pool than it was about playing men. I started getting tired of the trap. I would want to play just to play, and the result would still be a game of flirtation, even though I had no interest in flirting, wasn't attracted to anybody at the table, or just wasn't in the mood. Slowly this idea of being "the girl who can play" started feeling less like a badge of honor and more like a stigma. I could never just be one of the players. 

Now, when I shoot pool, I still fall into that trap, especially if I am sans husband. But my attitude has changed dramatically. When some guy makes a comment about how surprised they are that I know what I'm doing, I don't hear the compliment anymore, I hear the disdain. I am not proud, I am angry. Because what they are saying when they are so happily surprised that I can play without being taught is how little they think of the women who can't. I have had guys who are on a date with a girl they are "teaching" to play pool, that girl I decided a long time ago I was not going to be, pay me this kind of "compliment." And in these sorts of moments, when a male compliment toward me, or the type of woman I represent to them, comes at the expense of the type of woman I am not, I see the failures of my first ideas of feminism. The selfishness of it.

One of the traits of this concept of feminism for me was the idea that the ultimate act of a feminist position is to criticize another woman the same way you would criticize a man. This is an idea that I am slowly coming to hate, especially as I see it repeatedly used as a tactic against Hillary in this primary. Because it sounds good. It sounds ideal. It is, in fact, ideal. The ultimate result of equality would be a world in which people of all identity-markers would be judged according to their merits, their actions, their choices, and not because of a systemic bias for or against them. But we don't live in that world yet. Just like white parents teaching their kids "not to see race" will not help as much as teaching them to see race and racism clearly, assuming the position that we are even capable of not seeing gender when we criticize women ignores the very real circumstances that the women we criticize are dealing with every day. It is the trickle down positioning again. The non-racist, non-sexist, non-homophobic, non-transphobic stance that requires nothing of us. It requires no introspection, no risk, no confrontation. Being "anti" requires risk. 

It is the difference between fair and just. Fairness would be treating everyone the same. Justice requires us to treat each other differently based on the premise that our differences create different sets of needs. Affluent, straight, cis, white men don't need as much support in our society as anyone whose identity varies from that standard (and it is a standard) in any way. This is why it is never popular to argue for justice. Why affirmative action is resented on the right and on the left. Why a liberal man said to me the other day that "if you want to break the glass ceiling, you better be capable," in complete sincerity and with no regard to the fact that men can be terrible at their jobs and still rise to the top if they know how to promote themselves. 

In thinking about this idea of criticizing women fairly, I remember reading an article about how women should stop telling men at bars that they have a boyfriend in order to evade an advance, because it propagates the idea that men don't have to respect women's desires, only the claims that other men have on those women. I remember reading that and thinking, "Yes.That is true. That is what we are allowing those men to continue believing. That is a problem." But then I remember all the times I have used that line, whether I had a boyfriend or not, and I am angry that I am being criticized for utilizing a successful strategy in order to protect myself. Much like the "She's someone's sister, mother, daughter, wife" posters being amended to say "She's someone," this is a meta-argument about the ways we should argue. I consider that original poster and think that as much as I revile the idea that my worth is dependent upon a man's estimation, and therefore agree with the amended version, maybe that poster is not intended for me. Maybe it is utilizing a tactic shown to be successful in order to reach the type of men who need that reminder. 

I have never heard someone criticize women for walking home with key-claws, or with their phone set to dial 911, or whatever other tactic they may employ to safeguard themselves, yet it is the same principle. Much of women's behavior is dictated by the myriad ways in which we are threatened--physically, sexually, professionally, emotionally, and psychologically. And to truly criticize women justly, those threats need to be taken into account. 

This does not mean that women can't be criticized, or that everything a woman does is excusable, because patriarchy. The scales by which we measure what is and is not an acceptable level of compromise are entirely subjective, though. And it largely varies depending on our own experience of the pressures or threats in play. This is where the gender of the one offering the critique comes into play, because men are simply less experienced, and that experience is in turn less immediate, than women in this regard. It also affects our degree of sympathy for those in the spotlight, because few of us have ever been in such a public forum, and felt the exacerbated effects of those threats.

Which brings me back to Hillary. Long before she was an evil mastermind, she was a ditzy, flighty woman with ideas of a "politics of meaning." So she stopped talking about her ideals. When she clearly demonstrated that she was far too intelligent for that label, the attacks found a way to make that intelligence frightening. Her involvement in her husband's politics brought forth the condemnation of her not minding her place, and her failure to pass universal healthcare was gleefully mocked as a demonstration of why she should have done so. I am thoroughly grateful that she never stopped interjecting herself, or demonstrating her intelligence in order to stop these attacks. Playing off of Bill's indiscretions as well as the liberal desire to protect their President, she became the buzzkill wife, which allowed for her intelligence and competence, but tainted it with the stamp of annoyance. And then there was Monica, and I don't really know what to say.

I cannot imagine what it must feel like to have the continuation of your marriage be a subject of public opinion. I cannot imagine what it must feel like to be unable to show your emotions toward your husband when his defense is so necessary to the progressive agenda. I cannot imagine what it must feel like to have the only anger you can express be toward the other woman, knowing that your anger will be amplified by your position. I can say that the whole thing makes me sad. But I cannot call her a "bad feminist" because I know that I have compromised for less. I know that women have stayed with cheating husbands for less. I know that women have demonized the other woman for less. To accept that there are some games you cannot help but play does not mean you don't hate the game. 

And it is in considering these pressures where I wish Hillary could be honest. Not the many scandals attributed to her, but the ways in which the attitudes of those attacks have shaped her into the figure she presents. But she can't do that, because that would be "playing the gender card." I think about that fact and remember how Obama wasn't allowed to be honest about race, and how that affected the way in which he presented himself. That was something he couldn't say, so his supporters said it for him. But for Hillary, the pressures come from the right and the left, so her supporters can't speak to them without being called apologists by their own party. 

And it is here where we land in the space of comparing her to other women in order to show how our criticisms have nothing to do with gender. If these comparisons crossed political lines, liberals would be united in their denouncement of them as false or unjust. But the person most looked to for this type of comparison is Elizabeth Warren, and it is fair to say that she is less compromising than Hillary. It is unjust, however, to suggest that this preference for Warren proves that our criticisms of Hillary are not gendered. 

Here is the biggest example: trustworthiness. The right has been attempting to paint Hillary's character in these terms for decades. I do not think, however, that the attacks would be so successful on the left were it not for the fact that we have seen her self-presentation morph over the years into a very generic, composed politician, very clearly aware of the lines of demarcation surrounding her acceptable limits of speech. This morphing has everything--everything--to do with gender. And it gives her the appearance of being dishonest about herself, which in turn bolsters the argument for her being dishonest in other regards. So what is the safe route out of this trap, because I don't believe she is beyond reproach?

I have no answers for others, only myself. And for that I have been reading vigorously anything I can find where she speaks for herself. And I have read her words with the specific assumption that she is speaking as truthfully as she feels she can. I have gone over the cases against her, weighing the merits of the accusations without the added assumption that she is dishonest by nature. For me, this investigation leads me to a place where I see her as a person with intentions that I respect and admire, but whose decisions I occasionally disagree with (sometimes strongly). Which feels much more just than the picture of her as a greedy, power-hungry, two-faced monster.

But it is not just this that has set me down this memory-laden reevaluation. The instinctual sympathetic response I had as a kid watching Hillary, Linda, Paula, Gennifer, Monica, and Nicole is being repeatedly stirred again in this election, and again I feel like that sympathy is being denied. But this time I am not a child. I have a better understanding of how patriarchal pressures can manipulate a woman into contortions of character. And it feels personal, in an election where we are consistently evoking the ideal of equal pay for equal work, to have the most qualified candidate for the office of the President in my memory be so readily dismissed on the basis of what it seems to me amounts to likability. As a woman at a stage in my life where I am trying to find work in a field dominated by men, where I have watched as stores I have worked in regressively shifted throughout the course of a year or two to being predominantly, if not solely, run by men, where I have been in work environments where the concept of feminism was openly derided, where I have heard women I work with talked about by liberal men in deeply misogynistic terms as though those types of comments are valid criticisms of their work, it feels very personal. I am no longer afraid to call myself a feminist, but I have been made to feel like I cannot say so in my place of work. And that experience makes me deeply sympathetic to someone who can openly avow her feminism, and yet cannot openly defend herself against criticisms tinged with misogyny. 

Perhaps, too, this slow understanding that there are games, however repulsive, that we cannot help but play has led me to be less condemning of "establishment" politics. The presumption that we can somehow evade being caught in a game of patriarchal, racist, or any other set of unreasonable and insulting regulations of our behavior feels like the height of privilege. And having had experience acting within while simultaneously attempting to fight such games, I feel more sympathetic to those acting within the game of politics. I still despise it. I still want it to change, but I also find the belief that it can be avoided fairly naive. Like I am regressing back to that version of myself, playing men, thinking I was just shooting pool the whole time

About Hillary...

I'll start off this post the way almost all pro-Hillary pieces begin, and yet no pro-Bernie piece that I've seen does, which is by saying that I like the other candidate too. I like Bernie a lot. And this post isn't about me saying unequivocally that I'm voting for Hillary. I'm split. It's about addressing the vitriol.

But let's start with why I'm split. It's not a matter of conscience versus practicality, because my conscience is FUCKING FINE with a vote for Hillary. It's more a matter of idealism versus realism. A lot has been said about Bernie's plans being unrealistic, but I don't think a lot of people have gone into depth as to why. It's not that universal healthcare is unrealistic, because it works the world over. It's not that I don't think he can pay for it. He can. Again, it works all over the world. It's that passing universal healthcare through a congress that has tried time and again to defund and dismantle the half-measure that is Obamacare is unrealistic. And the most important distinction between Hillary and Bernie to me, namely the issue of campaign finance reform, is the least realistic in this regard. He can't executive order that shit. He can't. So tell me how he gets it through Congress.

Because I know he's reached across the aisle to get things done without compromising his values in the past. I. Fucking. Know. But there is a big difference between doing that as a senator and doing it as President, especially as a president against whom the right will double down for the simple reason that he is an avowed (democratic) socialist (the parentheses are there because, while I recognize and understand the distinction, his opponents do not and will not). The Killer Mike response to the question of "how" Bernie will accomplish his platform is that we stay the course and get out the vote in the midterms. It's true, of course, that midterm elections are vitally important if you want your president to accomplish anything, and I'm not so jaded to think that we couldn't mobilize people to get out and vote, especially if Sanders declares Election Day a national holiday, as it fucking should be (even though the working poor are the ones least likely to benefit from that holiday, and even though the President only has the authority to declare a one-time holiday, otherwise it has to go through--you guessed it--Congress). The problem is this:

That map is already drawn. The time to get out the vote for midterms was in 2010, and the Democrats blew it. Big time. Dismantling and rewriting laws to protect against gerrymandering is a massive undertaking. It is also, currently, within the power of the state governments, though there is constitutional language enabling Congress to intervene. Those battles always go smoothly, right? Easy to get a Republican Congress to take away jurisdiction from the states in order to dismantle the redistricting that ensures their reelection, right? And as for grassroots campaigns to bring out voters for local elections: again, I'm all for it, but if you think midterm elections are a tall task, local elections are a truly depressing obstacle. And I don't see how Bernie gets us riled up for every local election when he's running the fucking country. To be clear, this is not a surrender: voting in midterms is still vital and important; voting in local elections is vital and important, and I would gladly join in a groundswell of grassroots campaigning to bring election turnout up.

But before you condescendingly tell me what a revolution is, as though I don't know, and before you call my realism cynicism, explain to me in detail how a grassroots campaign is going to cut through this shitshow. Because until Bernie starts stumping to propose a national call for a Second Constitutional Congress, his revolution is just impressive campaigning within a broken system. And if that's what passes for a revolution in the imagination of the radical left of this country, maybe I'm not the one who's fucking cynical.

If I am swearing more than usual, it's because the tone of the Bernie defenders on the Internet has become noxious and smug. It's a tone every woman knows incredibly well: the tone that says "the only reason you don't agree with me is you don't know what you're talking about, so let me explain it to you." It is a tone that sends me into an apoplectic motherfucking rage. But I, like Hillary, like every goddamn woman I have ever met, know that we have to swallow that rage and speak evenly and respectfully, demonstrating that we did, in fact, understand what you said, and we can see your point, but...

But I want to spew the bile I just swallowed all over your fucking face.

So that's why I'm writing this.

I have no desire to touch on the Berniebro controversy, because while it is entirely believable to me that some assholes may say explicitly what a lot of my friends (yes, my friends) have said implicitly, I recognize that there are journalistic failures that have emerged in regard to the articles on the subject that make it messier than I have time or energy to deal with here. What I will address, however, is the attitude of those writing in response to the initial articles. First, for your instinctual response to be to disprove and discredit instead of to simply condemn is telling (yes, even if the thing you're condemning turns out to be exaggerated). Seriously, how fucking hard is it?! Secondly, there is an assumption that the only people who could possibly support Hillary Clinton are dupes or shills (or my personal favorite, voting with our vaginas).

That's a bullying tactic, used by every bully from high school to Donald Trump as a means to isolate and silence--by preemptive shaming--anyone who disagrees. By employing that tactic, you are delineating exactly the type of reception a rebuttal will receive, and by so doing, threatening the dissenter before they ever engage in discourse. And so any time I see this tactic used, I am immediately suspicious as to the validity of the claims being made. If your argument is sound, or if you are honestly seeking truth through discourse, then you should have no need to bully.

So in response to that, let me spell out why Hillary Clinton is actually an inspiring candidate (spoilers: it has nothing to do with her genitalia). It starts for me in 2008. I voted for Obama. I was for Obama in the primaries as well as the general. My reasoning, which I think was rare for the average Obama supporter at the time, was that he was the more moderate candidate. He was the candidate of bipartisanship. The candidate of reaching across the aisle and healing wounds. He was the candidate who proposed a more tempered form of healthcare reform, which I didn't agree with, but I thought had a chance of passing. But what I didn't predict, due to the massive groundswell of support in that election, was the extent of the backlash. And I don't think Obama was prepared for it either. As a junior senator, he certainly got his unfair share of dog-whistle and overtly racist hate speech thrown his way, but as President, the speech turned into elected officials whose sole platform proposal was a determination to undermine him every chance they got. And he was unprepared.

So if we take that lesson: that as much as this election cycle may bring out a groundswell of support for a socialist, or a female candidate, and riding that support may be inspiring and wonderful, what will undoubtably come will be a massive backlash to either candidate for those very reasons. Then consider who is more likely to be prepared to deal with that shit. The Bernie campaign seems to be operating on the same assumption that Obama's did: that the average American is with them, we only need the courage to speak up, and once we do, together we will be unstoppable. As much as we can blame Obama for trying to compromise as soon as he entered office, that's kind of exactly what he said he would do. But Bernie doesn't say that. And Bernie will be heading into a much more hostile Congress if he takes office. And for that reason, I think Bernie is less prepared than Obama was.

But Clinton? If there is anyone prepared for that battle, it is Hillary Rodham Clinton. All the reasons people hate her are reasons she stands a goddamn chance at winning battles against this bullshit Congress. Her willingness to compromise. Her tenacity. Her ruthlessness. Her political savvy. These are the things that get her labeled a liar, a bitch, hawkish, and robotic. And these qualities are precisely what will poke holes in the armor of Congress, if anything can. And I think that is fucking admirable.

Here is a secret: I don't believe in conspiracies--right wing, left-wing, doesn't matter. I believe in the banality of evil. Which means that I think the overwhelmingly vast majority of people are driven by a desire to do good, but that circumstances and backgrounds can prejudice people to form some truly vile concepts of what "doing good" means. This is what actors who play villains mean when they say that their character is not a villain.

Translated to politics, this means that the majority of politicians are in it because they want to serve the public good. Yes. Even Ted Cruz. His version of "good" is fucking reprehensible. But he doesn't see it that way. And that is key.

Something funny happens when I extend this simple courtesy to Hillary Clinton, though. Liberals everywhere come out of the woodwork to tell me how she only wants wealth, power, notoriety, or that she only wants those things for her fundraisers. Suddenly "bipartisanship" and "negotiating" become "political expediency" and "cutting deals," linguistically ascribing to those same actions nefarious motivations. And when you start talking about people as though they are motivated by doing ill, you are entering the world of conspiracy, and leaving the foundations of reality.

Let's be clear. Hillary has caved to the rules of a broken system in the same way Obama did in 2012, but while we may have been dismayed by Obama's fall from the poster boy of grassroots campaigning, not once did I hear anyone on the left question his motivations. Part of it is that Hillary caved a long time ago. Most people my age can't remember when they first started hating Hillary. That's because she's endured that shit for decades. We've been spoon-fed right-wing conspiracy theories about Hillary for so long we've adopted them as liberal ideas. And not only is she still standing, not only has she not shriveled into a self-hating hollowed-out shell of a person, she still wants to serve. She still voluntarily puts herself in the brightest fucking spotlight possible because she thinks she can do some good. And goddamn it, that is beautiful.

There are some pretty important points on which I disagree with Clinton. Her ready willingness to use military force is one. But again, when Obama ran in 2012, and we were all well aware of his condemnable use of drone strikes, liberals en masse did not call him hawkish, or ascribe to him any motivation other than making an unfortunate calculation of risk assessment that we disapproved of.

I don't like the way her campaign is financed, either. I don't like her connections to big banks, to Wall Street, or to the pharmaceutical industry. But I also know that she has spent her career fighting for universal healthcare, fighting against the gun lobby, fighting for women's rights, and, to a lesser extent, fighting for workers' rights. And I don't believe for a second that she has forgotten her fucking life's work. I think that she has learned the hard way, time and again, that accomplishing her goals requires compromising on the means by which she achieves them. I think those are valuable lessons that should not be dismissed as defeatist or cynical. In fact, her belief that she can still accomplish some good from within that system is the opposite of cynical. And on that point, Bernie believes the same thing, or he wouldn't be running for President, he'd be campaigning for change outside the system.

On the matter of hope. Sometimes I feel that fomenting hope is the left's version of the right's tactic of fomenting hate. It taps into a gut feeling of moral righteousness that feels more true than it is. Obviously, I think one is better than the other. I would rather be surrounded by people who hope than people who hate. But because they both operate on our base impulses, they both encourage a similar defensiveness against doubt. I remember when my boyfriend sheepishly told me that he had finally bought an Obama shirt late into the campaign in 2008. He said I wasn't going to like it. The shirt read, "Dare to Hope, Prepare to Be Disappointed." I told him I thought it was perfect. Even then I was suspicious of hope.

This year, I'm even more suspicious. And the longer Bernie stumps on the silver-bullet of revolution without once describing what that revolution looks like, except to reference his grassroots campaign, the more I am unconvinced. The more I think that this time, I will vote with my brain and not my heart.

And on the topic of revolution, I've heard many (cis, straight, white) men arguing that if Bernie doesn't get the nomination, we should all sit home on Election Day and let the right take it. The idea is twofold. First, that Hillary is as bad as the Republicans. And second, that if the Republicans win, things will get so bad that the people will rise up in a glorious revolution. With all due respect, fuck you very much.

That is an idea that could only be promoted by someone who has read some romantic fucking texts on revolution from the comfort of their stable goddamn society. It is an idea that easily disregards the very real price that will be paid by women, people of color, gay people, trans people, and poor people prior to your theoretical revolution ever taking place. And if you're wrong? How long do we have to pay for your shitty gamble? Fuck you.

It's funny, too, that you think a vote for Hillary is as bad as a vote for the Republicans, yet you don't envision things getting to the breaking point if she's elected. Huh. Look, if you don't want to vote for Hillary because your Marxist conscience couldn't live with it, fine. But don't encourage people who may prefer Bernie, but are willing to compromise on Hillary, to gamble with my goddamn uterus, or the actual fucking lives of people of color, or the marriages and protections against discrimination of gay people, or the tiny, incremental, hard-won advancements of trans people, or the stomachs of the poor. Seriously. Screw you.

Also, your memes are stupid. 

Please, tell me how the curmudgeonly old man who recorded an album of folk songs by the likes of Woody Guthrie is hep to Radiohead's discography, while Hillary is the type of out-of-touch grandma that thinks Coldplay is cool. Her husband won cool points back in the day by playing the sax and listening to Fleetwood Mac, but if she were to try that, man would that be pathetic! Seriously, projecting all your hipster self-righteousness onto Bernie as though, because he speaks to your economic and political interests, he would totally agree with your artistic and cultural preferences is the dumbest shit ever. But I wouldn't fucking care if you didn't simultaneously condemn Hillary for not being cool, because one side of this meme is tongue-and-cheek (I do have a sense of humor), but the other side isn't really a joke. You do think that Hillary is a robot, that she is dishonest, that she doesn't say anything that hasn't been pre-screened, and you do think that that estimation of her character is enough of an agreed-upon reality that we can all mock it with impunity. Oh, and please, invoke the image of Bernie, the man fighting for the working poor, as someone who would engage in the classist mockery of The Olive Garden. 

You're very funny.

Anyhow.

Bernie Sanders may be the politician we deserve. His platform may be the legislation we deserve. And I understand and fully appreciate the desire to stand up and demand the things you deserve. I also know how insulting and infuriating it is to be told you shouldn't aim so high. But I don't think Hillary isn't aiming that high, I just think she understands that showing her hand enables her opponents to mobilize against her. And that is really fucking smart. So though Sanders may be the politician we deserve, Hillary is the politician we need.