If there’s something that the Berliner John Fitzgerald Kennedy Institute taught me, is that it is just silly to make crazy and hype remarks about politics just to show your face off. Especially in the US, if you want to make political journalism you have to be careful and prepared – otherwise you last no longer than a week.
A person cannot praise or criticize someone based exclusively on rumors and un-authorized sources. Every claim has to be tested and proved. That’s why I can say, having read many articles about her, that I don’t support and I don’t like Hillary Clinton.
I’m a woman, I believe in feminism and I am gay. I carry around a flag that in the States will automatically put in the “Clinton fanbase” box. I could be the perfect target for their communication plan – no joking. Yesterday morning a guy that was talking to me began a question with this intro “What about you, Clinton supporter?”
I’m sorry but no. I don’t like her and I don’t give her my support. Here’s the reason why.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcrA8ehw2e4
- The “woman card”
If you take a look at the video above, you will see how all the answers to “Why do you support Hillary Clinton?” are “Well, she’s a woman.” No argumentation about her campaign points, no details about her internal and foreign politics, no mention of the values she’s trying to carry around and her personal beliefs. Nothing.
American support to this woman is merely related to her sex. But hey, I don’t think it is entirely Americans fault this time: I think that behind this narrow-minded answer process there’s one of the goal of Clinton’s communication system: the “woman card”.
This so-called card is about Hillary constantly saying that she’s a woman, a female, XX chromosome (cis-gender case, of course). She just have to say it, she’s a woman. It’s the perfect fit against any verbal attack during a debate, is inserted in many list of disadvantages and difficulties that she claims she’s struggling with, it’s the typical cherry on top for politically correct sentences.
Charlie Houpert, author and YouTube personality, cleverly argues that if Hilary goes on and keep follow this path she would be eventually perceived as “anti-man” and then push men that usually vote democrats to support the other side of the political field.
The funny thing is that Hillary herself doesn’t realize how tricky it is to play the “woman card” all the time. Personally I think is a position that can be perceived offensive from feminist groups and out of time for a 2016 perspective. It’s like women are incapable of doing anything else than being women.
Hillary can have other points on her hand, like her work for the Child Care reform and her work as a US representative abroad – she doesn’t have only a gender among her cards.
- Woman = Outsider
DICKERSON: Everybody wants an outsider, and that kind of puts you in a fix. Tell us why it doesn’t put you in a fix. CLINTON: I can’t imagine anyone being more of an outsider than the first woman president. I mean really. Think about that.
I’m sorry Hillary, I don’t think about that. You are not a 17th-century Pocahontas, you’re not a foreign kid put by Mexican parents in an unknown school in Florida, you are not a homeless person in Berlin, you are not a special needed guy who’s trying to learn how to count. You are not an outsider.
You were the First Lady of the United States for eight years, you served the nation as New York US Senator for other eight years and later as State Secretary for four years. Your resume tells everything BUT being an outsider.
I now add that, as a woman, I don’t feel like an outsider at all. This claim is totally against third-wave feminism and the concept of man-woman equality and a mutual respect that left aside gender.
I genuinely hope that Clinton was not referring to the fact that a woman president and political leader can be considered an outsider position: I’ve never heard Angela Merkel or Queen Elizabeth come out as outsider – It would have been funny, though.
- Hillary and money
Hillary Clinton presidential campaign is currently (update: July 2016) spending $290,416,114 for campaign committees. We’re talking about an amount of money that – compared with Donald Trump $74,538,404 millions – seems like putting an elephant next to a dog. If we think about an average American family under health insurance Medicaid, the comparison is between an elephant and a tiny bee.
Clinton through these recent years has been financed by some of the main economic giants in the American market; one is for example the chain Walmart. Alice Walton, who ranks #12 in the Forbes 400 with more than $32 billion in personal assets, gave $353,400 to the Hillary Victory Fund — one of the funds backing her presidential campaign. Too bad that Walmart is a controversial firm accused of gender discrimination and unfair employees treatment.
If we are truly feminists and we worry about women in structured capitalism and American imperialism, it becomes necessary to elect a president who is capable of changing this status quo. We need someone that puts human decency in front of incomes and truly cares about citizen’s integrity – we don’t need a “cash eater”.
We need someone who chooses finance providers according to her own values and presidential plans for the future – not exactly the opposite ideology just because the founds provided are terribly appealing.
- Coherence, anyone?
Clinton has stated multiple times that she will do everything she can to win this presidential election. What’s the effect of this sentence on her campaign and on her personal coherence? Apparently not a good one.
During the last Democratic debate in New Hampshire, Bernie Sanders referred to Clinton as a “piece of the US political establishment”. Hillary, who realized in a second that the oligarchic term “establishment” cannot be good advertisement and bring bad resonance in terms of television and newspapers, replied firmly that she is no way a part of an establishment.
Too bad everybody know that there’s a so-called Clinton dynasty which is politically rising, that Hillary has been inside the political field (high level politics) for over two decades and we all know about her role as State Secretary. But, still, she denied it and lied in order to have a safe outcome inside next day’s newspapers.
This is all, believe me. Right after denying being a part of the political establishment, she justifies her outsider position by reclaiming that – hear that – she’s a woman. Once again, “woman card”. Everything is written here, in the Washington Post official debate transcript.
The second example of incoherence is Clinton’s controversial relationship with gay marriage. If we draw the escalation of Hillary position about that it’s quite funny:
- 1996. Hillary supports the “Defense of Marriage Act” signed by his husband, which states that marriage is an institution founded by a man and a woman (only).
- 2000. In January Clinton stated “marriage has historical, religious and moral roots which are draped since the beginning of times, that’s why I believe that marriage is an institution in which a man and a woman are the parts.”
- 2000. She proclaimed herself supportive of Vermont’s gay civil partnerships. Change in the air, perhaps?
- 2004. Clinton spoke on the Senate floor against a proposed federal amendment to ban same-sex marriage. Though she opposed it, she said that she believed that marriage was “a sacred bond between a man and a woman.”
- 2006. Hillary Clinton supports homosexual partnerships in the state of New York.
- 2007. In response to a question about whether marriage should be made legally available to two committed adults of the same sex, Clinton marked that she was “opposed” though she stated she supported civil unions.
- 2013. Public pools change, the American public seems to be supportive to gay marriages. Television hosts talk and demand equal rights, from Oprah to Ellen. What’s the reaction of Hillary to all of this? A drastic change of mind. She was getting ready for her second run toward the Presidential seat, so she adjusted to a position that was more popular and in line to her voters’ target. During a speech at the Human Right Campaign event, she declared her support to gay marriages.
- 2015. Gay marriages are legalized in the United States. Clinton tweeted: “Every loving couple & family deserves to be recognized & treated equally under the law across our nation. #LoveMustWin #LoveCantWait.”
I get idea shifting, especially on the political field. But this is different. She didn’t change her mind because of a better notion of the subject (like in the case of technology or science, for example) – she changed her mind exclusively to follow a popular trend that has been going on for some time on the media and in the streets.
Politics for Clinton shifted from a communication method to a simple mirror of majority ideas, in the hope of getting as many votes as possible. And this is not the behavior of a leader, of a convinced and convincing politician. Personal integrity and coherence are, once again, smaller that vote numbers for Hillary Clinton.
She’s here to be hired, just like a girl during a job interview who tries constantly to give the right and appropriate answers in order to get the position.
This article wants to be a “pay attention ring-bell” for all the girls and women that support Hillary Clinton blindly, for whoever goes inside her political proposals and ideology. It’s my way of saying: move further, explore what’s inside this “woman” president and think if she’s really a good feminist candidate or not. Hear speeches and read articles about Clinton’s support to Afghanistan and Iraq wars, read about private guns property, go beyond the gender card she’s playing.
I think we can fairly wait to have a woman US President, it’s just that sadly right now we have Donald Trump on the other side of the game field. One way or another, it’s going to be a sad November.
And it’s not like we don’t have good women profiles inside American politics. Without mentioning the graceful and competent US First Lady Michelle Obama, there’s the example of the former South Carolina First Lady Jenny Sullivan Sanford. In my opinion, she could be a good feminist model inside the political field.
Sanford was a professional and successful banker way before she met her (now former) husband Mark. And he wasn’t a senator yet. During his campaign she served as a campaign manager and founds & finance account. She wasn’t just a lady set in the second raw and waving her hand at the end of every speech. When Mark cheated on her, she didn’t forgive him. She asked for the divorce papers – she didn’t need him in order to gain visibility and a prosperous career because she built a strong one all by herself way before.
Jenny Sanford is way distant from Hillary, who at the times of Lewinsky scandal protected her husband like he was a sweet lamb and called Monica a “trailer trash”, letting the young girl under the pressure of one of the biggest sex scandal of the past century.
What do you think guys, should we take the suffragette stamp out from Hillary jacket?
