Icon from a picrew by grgikau. Call me Tir or Julian. 37. He/They. Queer. Twitter: @tirlaeyn. ao3: tirlaeyn. 18+ Only. Star Trek. The X-Files. Sandman. IwtV. OMFD. Definitionless in this Strict Atmosphere.
We have to heal the divides in our country. Not just on guns. But on race. Immigration. And more. That starts with listening to each other. Hearing each other.
Trying, as best we can, to walk in each other’s shoes. So let’s put ourselves in the shoes of young black and Latino men and women who face the effects of systemic racism, and are made to feel like their lives are disposable.
Let’s put ourselves in the shoes of police officers, kissing their kids and spouses goodbye every day and heading off to do a dangerous and necessary job. We will reform our criminal justice system from end-to-end, and rebuild trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve.
We will defend all our rights – civil rights, human rights and voting rights… women’s rights and workers’ rights… LGBT rights and the rights of people with disabilities!
[…]
And though “we may not live to see the glory,” as the song from the musical Hamilton goes, “let us gladly join the fight.” Let our legacy be about “planting seeds in a garden you never get to see.”
That’s why we’re here…not just in this hall, but on this Earth. The Founders showed us that. And so have many others since. They were drawn together by love of country and the selfless passion to build something better for all who follow. That is the story of America. And we begin a new chapter tonight.
Yes, the world is watching what we do. Yes, America’s destiny is ours to choose. So let’s be stronger together, my fellow Americans. Let’s look to the future with courage and confidence. Let’s build a better tomorrow for our beloved children and our beloved country. And when we do, America will be greater than ever.
these are wise words, enterprising folks quote ‘em [x]
It’s hard to remember these days, but just a few years ago, everybody loved Hillary Rodham Clinton. When she stepped down as US secretary of state in January 2013 after four years in office, her approval rating stood at what the Wall Street Journal described as an “eye-popping” 69%. That made her not only the most popular politician in the country, but the second-most popular secretary of state since 1948.
The 2012 “Texts from Hillary” meme, which featured a sunglasses-clad Clinton scrolling through her Blackberry aboard a military flight to Libya, had given rise to a flood of think pieces hailing her “badass cool.” The Washington Post wanted president Barack Obama to give vice president Joe Biden the boot andreplace him with Clinton. Taking stock of Clinton’s approval ratings, Nate Silver noted in a 2012 piece for the New York Times that she currently held “remarkably high numbers for a politician in an era when many public officials are distrusted or disliked.”
How times have changed. “The FBI And 67 Percent of Americans Distrust Hillary Clinton,” booms a recent headline in the Huffington Post. Clinton’s favorability ratings currently hoveraround 40.8%. Bob Woodward complains that “there is something unrelaxed about the way she is communicating.” “Hillary’s personality repels me,” Walker Bragman writes in Salon.
How can we reconcile the “unlikable” Democratic presidential candidate of today with the adored politician of recent history? It’s simple: Public opinion of Clinton has followed a fixed pattern throughout her career. Her public approval plummets whenever she applies for a new position. Then it soars when she gets the job. The wild difference between the way we talk about Clinton when she campaigns and the way we talk about her when she’s in office can’t be explained as ordinary political mud-slinging. Rather, the predictable swings of public opinion reveal Americans’ continued prejudice against women caught in the act of asking for power.
We beg Clinton to run, and then accuse her of feeling “entitled” to win. Several feminist writers have analyzed the Clinton yo-yo. Melissa McEwan sees a deliberate pattern of humiliation, which involves “building [Clinton] up and pressuring her to take on increasingly prominent public challenges, only to immediately turn on her and unleash breathtaking misogyny against her when she steps up to the plate.”
If you find this hypothesis unlikely, there’s Ann Friedman’s explanation: Clinton makes people uncomfortable by succeeding too visibly. Clinton is trapped in “the catch-22 of female ambition,” Friedman writes: “To succeed, she needs to be liked, but to be liked, she needs to temper her success.”
Yet it seems odd that even when Clinton ascends to ever-greater positions of power—from first lady to senator, from senator to secretary of state—we start liking her again once she’s landed the job. It’s not her success that seems to arouse ire, but the act of campaigning itself.
This issue is not specific to Clinton. As Slate writer Jamelle Bouie has pointed out on Twitter, even progressive demigod Elizabeth Warren was seen as “unlikable” when she ran for the Massachusetts senate seat. Local outlets published op-eds about how women were being “turned off” by Warren’s “know-it-all style”—a framing that’s indistinguishable from 2016 Clinton coverage. “I’m asking her to be more authentic,” a Democratic analyst for Boston radio station WBUR said of Warren. “I want her to just sound like a human being, not read the script that makes her sound like some angry, hectoring school marm.”
You won’t see Hillary Clinton in the same light ever again. Read Meryl Streep’s introduction of Hillary Clinton during the recent 2012 Women in the World conference:
Two years ago when Tina Brown and Diane von Furstenberg first envisioned this conference, they asked me to do a play, a reading, called – the name of the play was called Seven. It was taken from transcripts, real testimony from real women activists around the world. I was the Irish one, and I had no idea that the real women would be sitting in the audience while we portrayed them. So I was doing a pretty ghastly Belfast accent. I was just – I was imitating my friend Liam Neeson, really, and I sounded like a fellow. (Laughter). It was really bad.
So I was so mortified when Tina, at the end of the play, invited the real women to come up on stage and I found myself standing next to the great Inez McCormack. (Applause.) And I felt slight next to her, because I’m an actress and she is the real deal. She has put her life on the line. Six of those seven women were with us in the theater that night. The seventh, Mukhtaran Bibi, couldn’t come because she couldn’t get out of Pakistan. You probably remember who she is. She’s the young woman who went to court because she was gang-raped by men in her village as punishment for a perceived slight to their honor by her little brother. All but one of the 14 men accused were acquitted, but Mukhtaran won the small settlement. She won $8,200, which she then used to start schools in her village. More money poured in from international donations when the men were set free. And as a result of her trial, the then president of Pakistan, General Musharraf, went on TV and said, “If you want to be a millionaire, just get yourself raped.”
But that night in the theater two years ago, the other six brave women came up on the stage. Anabella De Leon of Guatemala pointed to Hillary Clinton, who was sitting right in the front row, and said, “I met her and my life changed.” And all weekend long, women from all over the world said the same thing:
“I’m alive because she came to my village, put her arm around me, and had a photograph taken together.”
“I’m alive because she went on our local TV and talked about my work, and now they’re afraid to kill me.”
“I’m alive because she came to my country and she talked to our leaders, because I heard her speak, because I read about her.”
I’m here today because of that, because of those stories.
I didn’t know about this. I never knew any of it. And I think everybody should know. This hidden history Hillary has, the story of her parallel agenda, the shadow diplomacy unheralded, uncelebrated – careful, constant work on behalf of women and girls that she has always conducted alongside everything else a First Lady, a Senator, and now Secretary of State is obliged to do.
And it deserves to be amplified. This willingness to take it, to lead a revolution – and revelation, beginning in Beijing in 1995, when she first raised her voice to say the words you’ve heard many times throughout this conference: “Women’s Rights Are Human Rights.”
When Hillary Clinton stood up in Beijing to speak that truth, her hosts were not the only ones who didn’t necessarily want to hear it. Some of her husband’s advisors also were nervous about the speech, fearful of upsetting relations with China. But she faced down the opposition at home and abroad, and her words continue to hearten women around the world and have reverberated down the decades.
…
She’s just been busy working, doing it, making those words “Women’s Rights are Human Rights” into something every leader in every country now knows is a linchpin of American policy. It’s just so much more than a rhetorical triumph. We’re talking about what happened in the real world, the institutional change that was a result of that stand she took.
…
Now we know that the higher the education and the involvement of women in a culture and economy, the more secure the nation. It’s a metric we use throughout our foreign policy, and in fact, it’s at the core of our development policy. It is a big, important shift in thinking.Horrifying practices like female genital cutting were not at the top of the agenda because they were part of the culture and we didn’t want to be accused of imposing our own cultural values.
But what Hillary Clinton has said over and over again is, “A crime is a crime, and criminal behavior cannot be tolerated.” Everywhere she goes, she meets with the head of state and she meets with the women leaders of grassroots organizations in each country. This goes automatically on her schedule. As you’ve seen, when she went to Burma – our first government trip there in 40 years. She met with its dictator and then she met with Aung San Suu Kyi, the woman he kept under detention for 15 years, the leader of Burma’s pro-democracy movement.
This isn’t just symbolism. It’s how you change the world. These are the words of Dr. Gao Yaojie of China: “I will never forget our first meeting. She said I reminded her of her mother. And she noticed my small bound feet. I didn’t need to explain too much, and she understood completely. I could tell how much she wanted to understand what I, an 80-something year old lady, went through in China – the Cultural Revolution, uncovering the largest tainted blood scandal in China, house arrest, forced family separation. I talked about it like nothing and I joked about it, but she understood me as a person, a mother, a doctor. She knew what I really went through.”
When Vera Stremkovskaya, a lawyer and human rights activist from Belarus met Hillary Clinton a few years ago, they took a photograph together. And she said to one of the Secretary’s colleagues, “I want that picture.” And the colleague said, “I will get you that picture as soon as possible.” And Stremkovskaya said, “I need that picture.” And the colleague said, “I promise you.” And Stremkovskaya said, “You don’t understand. That picture will be my bullet-proof vest.”
Never give up. Never, never, never, never, never give up. That is what Hillary Clinton embodies.
Now that tumblr’s warming to Clinton, I’ve been expecting this post to start making the rounds again.
This is really important. Clinton has many flaws, but ability to amplify the work of women around the world and quite literally save their lives just by being in a picture with them is 100% real.
hawtsee: Would you mind telling me what it is about HRC that you like so much. I like her and am delighted that she had the nom and I'm really really hoping she wins. But I'd just really like to hear your thoughts on her in more detail. If you don't mind.
HILLARY. GOD I LOVE HER SO THANK YOU FOR GIVING ME THE CHANCE TO TALK ABOUT HER.
I must confess that some of my love for Hillary Clinton is borne out of a feeling of protectiveness, because she gets so much shit for stuff that is either a) untrue or b) so blatantly rooted in misogyny it’s amazing people think it’s okay to say out loud.
But before I get into why I love her, I want to take a minute to address the common criticisms thrown her way.
2) She gave speeches at Goldman Sachs and therefore must be incredibly corrupt.
Except giving these sorts of speeches is very common amongst the political elite and the fact that she spoke to Goldman Sachs does not mean she’s somehow beholden to them any more than the fact that her speech the American Association of Travel Agents means she will ban price comparison websites for travel. She got paid– very well– because that is how you make money when you’ve reached her level of politics. You don’t have to like it, but it’s how things work right now. Acting like this is a unique flaw for Clinton is disingenuous at best.
3) There’s just something about her– she’s untrustworthy. She has to be hiding something.
This one is the most infuriating, because Hillary has been in the public eye on a national level since 1992. Republicans have spent thousands upon thousands of hours investigating her for various supposed wrong doings, and they have discovered…that her husband had an affair with an intern and she had a slightly-shady email account.
That’s it. Whitewater, Benghazi, all of it– it’s a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing. If she really was the criminal that the Republicans (and some Bernie Bros) imagine, she’s a goddamn supervillian because her life has been under a fucking microscope for a quarter of a century. The “Hillary is untrustworthy” narrative arose out of the GOP’s completely unhinged need to hate her for everything, so every time a liberal repeats that disproven canard remember that you just made Rush Limbaugh smile. (And if you do, I hope you can live with yourself).
In fact, Politifact rated her public statements as true, mostly true, or half true (she is a politician, after all) 72% of the time. For comparison, Barack Obama is at 75%, and tumblr’s darling Grandpa Bernie comes in at a whopping…72%. And her percentage of statements rated straight out true is 23%, while Bernie’s percentage of true statements stands at all of 13%.
That’s right, motherfuckers: she tells the straight out truth more often than Bernie, but yet people cling to this “she’s a liar” narrative because it gives them an excuse to dislike her.
And why do they dislike her? Well, consider the fact that her approval ratings go down whenever she runs for office, only to rise again once she has the job. Oddly enough, the American people like her when she is doing her job, only to turn on her rather violently when she dares to reveal even the tiniest sliver of ambition. Go ahead, look at that and tell me that this need to dislike her is not rooted in an ingrained bias against women with ambition. I dare you.
I don’t mean “tough” in the macho sense of the word. I mean she has been a walking target for the GOP for twenty five fucking years, and she hasn’t folded. Every single thing she wears, haircut she gets, and food she eats gets scrutinized and more often than not, mocked. I personally wilt under moderately-severe criticism and I am in awe of her ability to face down people who think she should be hung for treason with hardly a wince.
She’s a dedicated public servant who took a bruising primary loss in 2008 in stride and accepted a position in Obama’s cabinet, and her approval ratings as Secretary of State were almost unbelievably high. And here’s where my protectiveness of her comes in: Hillary has proven herself over and over again to be qualified, competent, and dedicated. People who have met her consistently describe her as a kind, thoughtful person, and as someone who has heard her speak in person I can say that she is an engaging, inspiring speaker. And yet people keep complaining that she’s boring, or awkward, or lacking an element of charisma that can’t be defined.
You know what I think? I think Hillary is the proverbial hall monitor running for student body president. She knows the principal and all the teachers, she knows exactly what policy changes are possible and how to go about getting them made. She’s done her homework, researched her positions, and diligently laid out her case for why she deserves the position.
And then the fun stoner from the art department walks up to the podium, announces that he will make the cafeteria serve pizza every day, and walks away to thunderous applause. Never mind the fact that lunch menus are dictated by federal policy and there is absolutely no way for one student to change that. Never mind the fact that it’s only one half thought out policy that won’t really, truly change the way the school is run. It sounds good, so people start looking for reasons to dislike her and justify why they won’t vote for her. They know she’d be great at the job, but…she wants it too much. And when the stoner is legitimately defeated, some of his worst supporters decide to vote for the racist jackass who punches kids with disabilities and drives a pick up truck with Confederate flags all over it instead (or write in something clever, like Seymour Buttz) because they really, truly can’t handle the fact that a woman might not just be qualified for a powerful position, but that she actually has the audacity to want it.
Did that last paragraph sound a little personal to you? Good. It should. I was that hall monitor (and eventually student body president, although there was no stoner opponent and while my high school had it’s fair share of racist jackasses, none of them bothered with student government). I know, on a very tiny scale, the garbage truck of crap that comes with being a woman who takes a leadership role. Navigating that is difficult, but Hillary has been doing it for decades without breaking a sweat.
I am also a woman who has agonized over every goddamn word in this response because I know that by being a woman with an opinion on the internet, I’m running the risk of getting an absolute avalanche of shit dumped on me. So I carefully chose every link to support my argument because if there’s even one tiny flaw in my logic, every single thing I said will be entirely discounted. Women don’t ever get to be good enough– we have to be perfect, or there’s no point in trying.
And there’s no doubt about it– Hillary is not a perfect candidate. She has positions I disagree with, but then again, so does Obama. There’s plenty of legitimate criticism out there, but so much of it is wrapped in this misogynistic bullshit that boils down to “she’s not behaving the way I want a woman to behave” that it’s nigh impossible to separate the two.
But honestly, if someone reading this still isn’t convinced:
You don’t have to like her, you just have to vote for her. Chances are, you’re never going to actually meet her, and if you do, it’ll be a handshake on a rope line and nothing else. She’s not your mom, your cranky aunt, or your mean fifth grade teacher. She’s not going to be your boss or your neighbor. She’s running for President of the fucking United States. And the alternative– and make no mistake, my friends, there’s only one alternative outcome here– is a misogynistic, racist windbag who brags about his desire to bar entry to this country based on ethnicity and religion. He openly idolizes brutal dictators and lashes out like a toddler up past his bedtime when he’s challenged even the slightest bit. He is an unhinged maniac who should not be in charge of running a gas station, much less the country, but those are your choices.
A competent, smart, thoughtful, dedicated public servant.
Trevor compares Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump’s accomplishments.
jifty: I want to be convinced, I really do, but I just see as much danger, long term, with voting for Hillary. If we give in to the guilt trips and fear-mongering, we are sending them the message that their tactics work. That they can abuse us and silence us and we'll still fall in line. That all they have to do is hold up a right-wing boogieman and we'll come to heel. If we vote for her without any real change in the way things are run, liberals will be no better off in 2020. Convince me, please.
If it was anyone other than Trump, I’d agree with you. Trump is that dangerous, and the movement he is leading is that destructive.
Someone who is a GOP writer, I forget who, said something like, “Hillary is wrong about everything, but she’s wrong within acceptable parameters. Trump is wrong about everything and truly dangerous.”
Now, I don’t agree that she’s wrong about everything, but she’s wrong about some things that are important, like Iraq and her embrace of neoconservative foreign policy.
But Trump is a clear and real threat to America and the world in a way we haven’t seen in almost 100 years.
This isn’t about tactics and rewarding a system that is gross and really needs to be changed. This is about stopping not just Donald Trump, but all the white supremacists and radical right wing nationalists he’s leading.
And remember that we can still exert influence in Congress, and at the state and local level.
And and AND remember that Reagan inflicted Scalia on us for OVER THIRTY YEARS. Who the hell knows what kind of whackjob Tump and Pence would nominate to SCOTUS? I doubt Clinton will nominate someone who is liberal enough for me, but I know with absolute certainty that she will nominate justices who won’t be a catastrophic nightmare.
This election is about so much more than Clinton vs. Trump. This is about what we want America to be, and who we want to lead it. We don’t have the luxury of waxing philosophical about tactics and sending messages. We must defeat and destroy Donald Trump and the movement he leads.
Everybody knows Hillary’s a liar. Everybody knows Hillary’s corrupt. Everybody knows Hillary’s a criminal. Everybody hates Hillary, and no one enthusiastically supports her; her voters are just afraid of Trump.
I’ve heard these things stated over and over throughout the primaries, without any sources to back them up. Who needs sources? We all know Hillary Clinton’s the worst, don’t we? She wouldn’t have decades of scandals and all these hearings and investigations if she weren’t. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.
There’s always Benghazi, though. Sure, the eighth investigation ended the way the first seven did, with no evidence of wrongdoing, but maybe another investigation will find the truth!
Still, she won’t release the transcripts of those speeches she was paid for! How dare she not give up her intellectual property created while she was a private citizen, never mind that one of the speeches is already freely available for viewing online. Why can’t she be like Trump and Sanders and just refuse to release her tax returns instead?
All right, so she’s never been convicted of any crime, and all the investigations into her alleged scandals keep coming up with nothing, and she won the Democratic primaries after consistently polling ahead of Sanders, but that’s only proof of her corruption. She’s rigged the system so that she can get away with anything! She just somehow hasn’t rigged it well enough to keep all this stuff out of the press.
Because that’s definitely more rational than concluding that, just maybe, she’s an imperfect but well-qualified candidate with a bad reputation formed by decades of smears and conspiracy theories.
