mom recently read
this oped by some guy arnovitz, about how popular animus toward hillary clinton is rooted in sexism, and asked pop, bro-in-law and myself what we each think, via email. bro-in-law got there first. i do not post his words or paraphrase, except one choice bit, in which he pretty much suggested he cannot be sexist because his mother went to bryn mawr, his wife to brown and his sisters to other sort of "seven sisters" type schools, which i could not resist lampooning. his response is worth quoting (i have not sought his consent) or paraphrasing (which i don't think i can do with what could be seen objectively as fairness). he did open with a brief contemptuous dismissal of liberal strawmen and invite his readers to not read further; i also echo that invitation, but i don't mean it.
my response took some time: two metro rides plus about four hours. it is maybe the longest thing i have ever written on the stupid virtual keyboard of the handheld device. with all that time for reflection, somehow i failed to note the author's name, and called him "aronson" in the response. i think i've fixed all instances with the author's actual name, but am by no means certain. maybe the fact that i didn't bother learning his name when i read the oped may function in place of the executive abstract of the quite lengthy email that follows.
If you don't just absolutely love John Philip Sousa it must be because you hate music.
Feel free to not read this at all. It does go on for some time. (much later: sorry for the dissertation; you asked for it)
Well I am certainly the last person one should trust to evaluate whether or how much I am a sexist (you know I have a sister who is a doctor and went to brown, and selected a woman to be the mother of my child; I have also ogled many lovely and some not as lovely women, so stick that in your pc-meter! also I have endorsed my own production by a woman, albeit after the fact ;). If you did trust me to make the evaluation, you'd have to decide whether I have been sincere the many times I have called myself a misogynist. I am not certain.
I don't think my problem with her is that she's a woman, but it could be. There are other reasons than her gender to mistrust her: she's a politician and she's a Clinton. Must one really have more reasons?
I strongly agree with Arnovitz when he says "I am no political historian." He could have stopped there. That he didn't, but took his conclusory view as an acceptable starting point for discussion, tends to undermine his credibility, in my view.
Submit that honesty, as a character trait, means something more than not telling lies.
I think my first problem here is Arnovitz seems to recognize two types of people, those he calls conservatives and those he calls liberals, and that persons so described must share the views of others so called, respectively. The political spectrum is broader than that, and increasingly, the two parties do not reflect the views of their presumed adherents -- or, the values of voters do not align with those espoused by their respective parties, whose job is to perpetuate themselves, rather than govern or represent their constituents.
I also am skeptical of polls and fact-checkers, and their claims. Polls principally because they routinely depict a world lacking people like me; fact checkers because they do not seem to get the whole project right.
There is a perfect example in this story: Arnovitz characterizes the lack of charges brought against Hillary as an "exoneration" which proves her "innocent," when no such conclusion is required, or even permissible.
Indeed, in (improperly) stating "no reasonable prosecutor" would bring charges, head of FBI, investigating one narrow aspect, was pretty clear that she did mishandle classified information and did lie about that (and other aspects of her private email setup), while describing her and her staff as willfully careless. He said that is less than the "gross negligence" the statute in question requires, but that is by no means clearly established. Anyway, all that to say that declining to charge her is quite different than demonstrating her innocence. I have done things that I did not go to court or jail over, too, but that does not mean I'm innocent of those things.
The comparison with Petraeus is interesting, as are the author's assertions about the respect he still seems to command among Hillary's "conservative" detractors. Most of us don't know the scope of Petraeus' disclosures or standards required of him; the full scope of Hillary's email shenanigans likewise will likely never be known. I am not inclined to credit assertions about either of them beyond basic outlines, because I don't trust reporters to get it right or pundits to be truthful; mere partisan voters, like myself, have nothing to go on but the, for want of a better word, propaganda of those involved in propagandizing the consumers (e.g., press, spokespeople, advertisers, pundits).
Judicial opinions and peer-reviewed scientific reports tend to be most credible insofar as they represent, and operate within, two epistemological traditions that share "data" and build on predecessors in a systematic fashion developed to preserve continuity with precedent. Of course jurists and scientists both can and do err; both systems can be manipulated by bad actors. But both systems tend to show their work -- data/facts and reasoning.
I do think truthfulness is a strange criterion on which to judge apex politicians at this late date... but there is little else by which to evaluate them. I do not believe that Hillary is the least untruthful politician; I don't even believe that can be a meaningful question. (sort of relevant oped in the Post today from Fareed Zechariah distinguishing persons on the true-false spectrum from outright bullshitters, based on some academic's book on same; not typically a fan of that writer, but the angle is interesting).
Arnovitz's discussion of speaking fees is as faulty as his evidence of innocence. Her fees only show her to be venal; it is her refusal to disclose Wall Street speech transcripts (on top of her "I went to Wall Street and said 'cut it out'" canard, in addition to her long record of financially benefiting from exploitative industries - notably private prisons, and sitting on the board of wal-mart while it dodged its obligations to its employees). Arnovitz doesn't even address these. That she is an apex politician seems sufficient to sustain suspicion of her venality, likely corruption or, at least, susceptibility to impermissible influence: fish don't feel they're influenced by water.
Attributing to sexism opposition to, or merely declining to support, Hillary is a worn trope: Hillary's proponents asserted this directly and indirectly throughout her race against Sanders, with some notable successes: wide acceptance of the word "BernieBro" to characterize supporters of Sanders, for one. Since the primary race this trope has been pushed even harder.
(an alternate view may be that this equation of sexism with criticism of Hillary is not intended to shame the 'bros so much as it is to help Democrats' "us" close ranks and feel energized. or, if you'll recall that time Gloria Steinem said all the girls were voting for Bernie because his campaign's "where the boys are," consider that Arnovitz is merely doing his best to give this charge a plausible intellectual foundation in order to ingratiate himself with the doctrinaire Democrat ladies. zing!)
It will continue, and will be thrown at supporters of that narcissist bullshitter too, but for now it is still mostly being used to try to shame the very many voters further to the left than she on the political spectrum to close ranks behind her: They're the ones believed to be susceptible to such pressure; those on the right have hated her for more than a generation, which is not sufficiently explained by sexism, and are not moved by the left's charges of taboo bias, or anything else, anyway. Moreover, over that period, party partisans -- and the fringe propagandists who exercise their dogwhistles -- have promoted greater intolerance and kneejerk hatred of the other side:
That she is a Democrat is sufficient reason for Republicans to hate her;
That she is an ascendant star in the party is sufficient reason for Republicans to hate her;
That she seems to be impervious to any scandal, that her trajectory remains despite any obstacle, is sufficient for Republicans to hate her;
That she is that party's apex politician at a time when social and demographic forces connive to make a woman president conceivable -- or popularly desirable -- is sufficient reason for Republicans to hate her;
That she is named Clinton is sufficient reason for Republicans to hate her;
That she was Secretary of State in the administration of Barack Obama is sufficient reason for Republicans to hate her.
Now, I like to imagine there are Republicans and Democrats out there, and beyond them "conservatives" and "liberals," and beyond them leftists and rightists out there, whose regard for persons elsewhere on the political spectrum is informed by something other or more than mere tribal hate of the other (& i'll admit i have a hard time conceiving extreme "rightists" as driven by any principle other than hate...not sure what principles might exist that are more conservative than those I might impute to right-of-Republican conservatives, but symmetry requires that I do imagine the possibility of non-hate principles on the extreme right to balance the non-hate principles I know may animate the extreme left), but, to some degree, hating the enemy increasingly seems to be required of those electing one of those identities as we all become more isolated, shrill, brittle and angry, as our communities erode to mediated, remote experiences enjoyed in solitude while embedded in crowds of strangers.
As to some Democrats, and some non-Democrat leftists, well, I can't speak for them either. We've all been subject to an unremitting barrage of hate for Hillary since Bill was first elected. It has continued unabated (like her political trajectory), scandals real and unreal, and endless howling in support of and opposition to her by parties exhibiting little regard for clear truth and thus meriting little authority. Authority, truth, facts don't matter though: trees in forest, drops in torrent, if there is truth (with respect to any particular scandal, issue, question of improper influence or malfeasance) it is infinitesimal and we have no access to it nor ability to confirm it. There is just a steady inchoate shriek which, after 20 years exposure, is hardly noticeable anymore. We've lived immersed in that. I have struggled over the years to remain aware of the exposure in order to minimize its subconscious influence (as w/ advertising), but it is exhausting.
Against that background anyone (trying conscientiously to come to his or her own sound conclusions) would evaluate her performance against her professed principles and stated goals, keeping in mind as the normative background such performance of other politicians.
Here I think we see a workhorse. There is not a single radical thing about her, except, possibly, her gender, and in the LGBTQetc-age, being a cisgender woman (married...etc) is not remotely radical, not even as a head of state. It has been not even remotely radical for my entire adulthood. For a woman to be elected President of the United States would merely tick a demographic box promising safe-harbor from charges of sexism like the election of Barack Obama ushered in a postracial era of harmony. It probably was radical when she first aspired to politics, but that was a long time ago.
She has an immense amount of experience politicking.
She reportedly politicked very effectively during her husband's administration, count as evidence a) the enduring hate of half of the political spectrum (& certain insurance executives, lobbyists etc) and b) the Obama administration's attempt to implement universal healthcare. As a Senator she did nothing to distinguish herself to my knowledge, except a few times she voted with the pack instead of making a principled stand; she was not my senator. As Secretary of State she seemed able, but she also seemed a little cavalier with respect to some of the rules: it is unclear to what extent. Perhaps her behavior in that role did not reflect the values she espouses (a coup or two; some clumsy ill-starred warlike gestures; widespread promotion of "fracking") but that role may require one to pursue one's principal's goals over one's own principles; perhaps those are the values she espouses (aspirational political language is vague; Hillary is apparently deliberately vaguer).
She does seem to share Obama's embrace of a vision of the "unitary executive" branch he inherited from Bush in a way that chafes against constitutional separation of powers principles -- which each party abhors in its opponent's president.
She's a bit hawkish -- with normal metrics; on the whacky scale of what that narcissist says she doesn't even register. Except you can't believe any particular proposition articulated by that narcissist who has no record of statespersonship, whereas she has voted in favor of apparently unlimited power to make warlike gestures worldwide forever as a duly elected representative of the people of a state at a time when that vote might really have mattered, and other times.
(I think that one vote is enough to damn her, for me, though I will have to go read up on her voting record for more -- a lot of terrible laws were passed under her watch, over and above the normative background of terrible laws.)
Anyway, that sums up to a pretty solid resume.
I think she got disbarred, or, if she did not, then went inactive as a bar member under threat of disciplinary proceedings. One datapoint ain't much, but I am acquainted with a man who got a five year suspension because his immense drug habit somehow led to egregious, wanton violations of ethics for no reason and at great cost to his client, firm and his sacred honor. He was not disbarred. but disciplinary proceedings may be their own Kafkaesque punishment: it took most of the five years to get the sentence, and the rest of them to argue, successfully, that they should count from the date of the commencement of proceedings. Different state; different authorities.
Did I mention her vote for war?
She dissembles reasonably well, though she lacks the gifts of charm and eloquence that Bill and Barack both exhibit. What we'd forgive as a misstatement from any Bush, we hold her to, or suspect her of conniving at.
She has exhibited secretiveness and a disregard for or willful tendency to bend the rules. She has made inconsistent statements, held inconsistent positions; it is fair to consider whether these evince hypocrisy or growth--but when she says "I have always supported x" (whatever supported may mean) and she has demonstrably opposed x on the record, well politifact or whomever ought to count that as a lie, even as it may appear a mere rhetorical flourish rather than assertion of fact.
Some of what she did wrong with the email is against the law; some may violate national security. Some she has in common with her predecessors in office; some is unique to her office. The question the justice department asked the FBI to investigate was quite narrow; there is a much broader review of compliance with other laws done by the inspector general of the state department. It is pretty damning of her office, not least because whereas her four predecessors in that office cooperated fully with the IG, Hillary did not. All of them did not fulfill their legal requirements with respect to record keeping, communication and FOIA; Hillary a bit more so.
It is not clear to what extent she participated in her party chairperson's favoritism of her campaign as against those of other primary contenders if any, but she doesn't help her credibility by saying immediately afterward that that shamed corrupt politician (who violated party rules about fairness) would "continue to" work as her "surrogate."
That's the person who isn't Donald Trump. She's a real solid politician, eminently qualified for the office; she also gives every appearance of being dishonest to the bone. I'm confident our government and constitution will be here, more or less intact, when she's done with them (and am more than a little curious what she would try to do once there's no higher office to carefully position herself for); I have no such confidence in that other guy. Moreover, if we must have parties with platforms, which we understand to be goals those parties' candidates will seek to attain once in office, then I am more comfortable with her party's platform than that of her opponent.
So, overall, I think there are plenty of good reasons to remain critical of her -- and to strive to see her clearly -- that needn't be based in any particular individual's sexism. Plenty of rational reasons for a person who identifies with a party or otherwise.
It is distressing that a "with us or against us" argument should be made by her advocates, and disappointing that it should be so crude in conception and poor in execution. And telling: Arnovitz doesn't know that he has no authority to tell me what is true (or to passively indicate an unauthenticated source of truth), or to instruct me in the use of my capacity to reason. That he doesn't know that damns him and his project, but is pretty much run of the mill for . . . I think the same insular bubble of news and commentariat that "conservatives" deride as "the liberal media" but i, identifying as further to the left than who-are-called-liberals(-in-USA) cannot so designate.
Anyway, it is worth asking, from time to time, whether one's critical view of a class or member of a class is due to the influence of a taboo bias. Arnovitz has his answer, and many people who already agree with him will agree with him without engaging their rational capacity at all. Those whose views of Hillary are driven by a sexism of which they would be ashamed if they were not unaware are probably quite few.
What do I know. Maybe all the sexist kids these days look to a middle aged male columnist for morally sound political direction. I don't think so (tho do have reason to believe reasoning such as Arnovitz's to be common among the politically active social-media generation).
So, you tell me: misogyny or nah?
Love,
oomph