Hillary, Misogyny and the Republican Party Convention
The verbal assault on Hillary Clinton at the Republican Party convention seems to have no boundaries. Anything goes, anything can be said. Nobody – certainly not Trump – shows any disposition to rein in this ugly, unapologetic rhetorical cascade of hate and misogyny coming from the speakers’ platform and the convention floor.
What is troubling is the silence of the major media about this uninterrupted and unprecedented hate barrage. While some commentators have mentioned it, no one seems particularly outraged. In their view, it’s just a tactical mistake by Trump’s team – too much focus on Hillary and not enough on their own standard bearer.
But this misses the main point entirely. This unrelieved sexist gang up on Hillary, expressed in multiple forms, has no place in politics or anywhere else. And make no mistake about it; this isn’t only an attack on Hillary – her looks, voice, hair, dress, integrity, and fitness to be president – as bad as that is; it is an assault on every woman – young and old – who dares to challenge barriers to gender equality.
What we have seen over the past few days in Cleveland is on a similar scale as the racist backlash that followed the election of President Obama in 2008. And, as we know, that gave rise to the Tea Party and the Republicans’ recapture of the House of Representatives in 2010. This wave of misogyny, closely intermingled with a new surge of racist and anti-immigrant-Islamophobic invective, has obviously bigger ambitions this year. Its aim is to mobilize tens of millions to vote for Trump and the rest of the Republican right-wing gang as well as discourage and demobilize a section of voters who might otherwise come out for Hillary.
It is said that Trump’s ascendancy to the top of the Republican Party is explained by the economic alienation of white men. Some truth is found here, but we shouldn’t take it too far. The main mobilizing pillars of his unexpected popularity were the ideologies of hate, division, and oppression.
Thus, Hillary’s supporters, and especially her white supporters, have to patiently – not self-righteously – and drawing from their own experience and feelings, discuss the nature and consequences of these inhuman and destructive ideologies with other white people wherever they gather – homes, workplaces, churches, union halls, bars, gyms, and college campuses. And the purpose isn’t to score points, but to move people to higher ground, where their future and the path to get there come into view in entirely new ways – including the necessity to defeat Trump and elect Hillary in a landslide this fall.
Written by
Gee I dunno Sam, I am a lifelong Democrat supporter or to the left of that most of the time and my contempt for Hillary has nothing to do with her being a woman, rather it involves every obnoxious revolting thing she has done her entire political life. She is on the wrong side of every progressive issue, of import, yes, domestically on social issues she is fairly progressive, but on all the more important things that impact all regardless of sex race or creed she is terrible. She pushed NAFTA, her and Bill. She and Bill pushed Bank deregulation and gave us the creepy Neo Liberal Financialization that today is the house of cards we call an economy. She pushed the TPP and only changed tune as a political tactic, but anyone paying the slightest attention knows in which hand she holds the dagger. Her tenure as Secretary of State was an abomination, she pushed the atrocious military action into Libya and championed the Jihadist push into Syria and that was what Benghazi was all about, they were playing with fire and got burnt. Her rhetoric toward Russia and China is 100% confrontational and as foreign policy is purely a continuation of the Wolfowitz doctrine of PNAC; i.e. she is yesterdays Republican on foreign policy, just as Obama has been. She fomented the Coup in Ukraine and has the nuclear trigger on hair alert; Russia is rightly terrified of her dementia and disgusted at the prospect of her election, as the entire world should be. So frankly, your beating the drum of misogyny, seems quite like pathetic bleating, when applied to Hillary, people of all denominations really do viscerally hate her for WHO she is.