Clinton Evokes The Dark Side
To say that the 2008 Democratic Presidential nominating process has divided the party is an understatement. It’s created a chasm – along racial, religious, social, and economic lines. The people who support Hillary Clinton do so with zeal and with a contempt for Barack Obama’s campaign. The reverse is true for people who support Barack Obama, except there seems to be the added dimension of how those supporters feel about Hillary Clinton as a person. Using myself as an example, this campaign has made me not only condemn Clinton’s candidacy, but has led me to expressing something verging on hatred for the woman herself.
I have used all sorts of euphemisms to describe her, regrettably ones that highlight that she is a woman, even though her gender has absolutely nothing to do with my disdain. It just so happens that our language has assigned feminine-associated words with negative attributions, words like “cunt” or “douche”. However, were Hillary Clinton a man, I can project with almost certainty that I would be calling “him” a “faggot”, even if he weren’t homosexual, and even if he were that wouldn’t have anything to do with my contempt. Words like “cunt” and “faggot” – both phonetically and socially – carry such power that there are virtually no substitutes in our language that can express such powerful disgust. The one exception of course, is “nigger”, but for obvious reasons I would not be likely to use that against Hillary Clinton if she happened to be African-American. This demonstrates a sort of lopsided disregard on my part for the prejudices towards aggrieved groups of people. That is no small thing, and while I could argue for why one form of prejudice has been more devastating than another, or why the three terms aren’t equal, I won’t.
Simply put, I am wrong in associating my distaste for Hillary Clinton with her gender, just as I’d be wrong with associating my disdain for a male Hillary with his sexuality – his actual orientation notwithstanding. However, this demonstrates something important with respect to the divide between Clinton supporters and Obama supporters. As I mentioned earlier, people who do not support Clinton – whether they support Obama or not – seem to have an intense dislike for Clinton herself, rather than just her campaign. On the other side, with the exception of people that would hate him whether or not he was running for President or not, people who don’t support Obama, or even who reject his candidacy, don’t feel – or at least don’t express – any hatred or disdain for the man himself.
There is a reason why Rush Limbaugh attempted his “Operation Chaos”, nevermind that he overestimates his influence. He pushed for Republicans to support Hillary Clinton in part because he wants the divide between Democrats to sustain itself. But Limbaugh and other conservatives have voiced that they favor Clinton over Obama for months before Operation Chaos. This is because she – regardless of what polls show – has less of a chance of defeating John McCain. This brings us back to my first point. The reason she has less of a chance is because she inspires such hatred and disdain. It is because of people’s intense disliking of Hillary Clinton as a person that they are blinded to whether or not the policies and positions she represents will benefit them. And this is her history, not something that has just begun in this election season. Obama inspires celebrity-style fanboy enthusiasm, and while much of it shallow and ignorant, that’s better than inspiring hatred.
That all said, in spite of the fact that I’ve made it glaringly obvious in my posts here, I’ve written a little essay on why I support Barack Obama for President, and to officially endorse his candidacy.