*Libya.
{A} lot of people of both sexes really don’t believe the country will elect any woman president.
How you look at this depends a lot on why you think Hillary Clinton lost. Yes, she did get 2.8 million more votes than Donald Trump. But we can’t spend the day bewailing the existence of the Electoral College.
Back to the question. Why do you think she lost?
“Sexism.”
That deplorable comment of hers?“Failure to campaign in Wisconsin...” *
Which Elizabeth Warren sadly repeated, revealing her inner self to some?
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Here's more of where Collins went with that:
This is good stuff. Funny.“She won! She won! She won! She ——”Sorry about that sharp elbow, but I told you we weren’t going there. Next you’re going to be moaning about Al Gore.“Al Gore won!”That’s it. Unless you have a special interest in the election of Benjamin Harrison.“Grover Cleveland was robbed!”You understand we need to move on here, right? Personally, I’ve always suspected that Clinton lost — to the degree that she lost — not so much because of her gender as because people just wanted a change. She’d been a starring player in two eight-year administrations. It was pretty clear what we were going to get in another Clinton presidency, and it wasn’t going to be anything dramatically new.(This is what happens when you get a little bit bored with life and decide you want to juice things up. You spend $50,000 on a new sports car and then drive it into a restaurant takeout window. Or far worse, you elect Donald Trump.)
But I wish it had been written, say, three to six months after the Nov. 2016 election. After the Women's March at inauguration time, this just went on and on and on, and it's a bit late to finally call women on their pre-conceived notions -- that are often just plain wrong -- that sexism caused HRC to lose the election, while still "winning" under the popular vote rubrics...
(Aside -- this is where pre-Title IX women show they have not been in the game very long: for all her alleged leadership, Nancy Pelosi is voluntarily playing a losing game, knows the final score almost to the number I suspect, and is making but a symbolic show -- much like HRC's "popular" vote -- on her way to losing the impeachment, big time. You have to be able to think like that in competition, because the world does not award any points for moral victories other than that which strengthens and sustains the fighters themselves. Who probably just hope you have a better overall game plan the next time you send them into a losing fight...)
In short, I wish people had read this Gail Collins column back in Feb. 2017, so the Democratic voters might have adjusted the game plan -- not re-run the same plays -- and realized how much their complaints about the longstanding Constitutional Electoral College results came across as whiny losers. (Dude, do you even understand how HARD it is to CHANGE the U.S. Constitution? All those alleged scholar pundits who acted as though they had such a novel idea... that coastal states of high-populace should be "fairly" granted dominance in the Senate, as well as the House, do not understand what actual work it would have taken to implement their ideas, easily stroked onto paper but making them no more reality without the actual workers to get the job done...
Sadly, the Democratic Party is still being encouraged to play identity politics. So they do.
**
The First Woman President of the United States will not be elected based on fairness, because it is time to shatter a ceiling, or because she overcame more hurdles than her male counterparts. She will be elected because people want her -- the person -- to be their president.
Period.
Only when you can look past gender/sexuality/race/ethnicity/religion/etc. etc. etc. and see the INDIVIDUAL within can you really evaluate a person for their plans, how their proposed policies might -- or might not -- play out in person.
That's what we should be looking for in a president, and what we do, and will continue to do. Sometimes, you gamble and you lose. Thinking an individual is bigger than their identity label, but you have to be honest when they consistently -- over an 8-year period -- prove you wrong.
Until the Democrats admit that, well they might get another identity-politics candidate elected in a divided nation, but I don't foresee unity and an end to national division. Much the opposite actually: more splintering...
The best thing you can do for "minority" and numerically underrepresented candidates is to be critical and honest in your evaluation of the individual. No less.
(= "Libya".)
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Charles Blow in the NYT argues the opposite strategy, spinning the importance of a character groupthink over an individual's ideas:
Democrats face a real dilemma: The current crop of their party’s presidential candidates are awash in plans and proposals, which in theory is a good thing, but this election will not be decided on that basis.
Donald Trump has transformed the electorate into two camps, sycophants and dissidents, both passionate, both aimed like missiles at November, both with an intent desire to destroy the competition.
This election won’t turn on the definition of “Medicare for all” or its funding mechanisms. It won’t turn on who offers free college and to whom. This election will turn on whether an individual voter sees Trump as a heroic savior or a destructive agent.This election is about fundamental questions of American ideals: Should foreign countries be invited or welcomed to meddle in our elections? Should a president be allowed to openly obstruct justice without consequence? Should we separate immigrant children from their parents and lock them in cages? Should we have a president who has bragged about assaulting women, paid off women who claim to have been sexually involved with him and been accused by multiple women of being sexually inappropriate with them? Should America have a racist in the White House?
It is issues like these, I believe, that will most animate voters in the election.
No thanks.
I decline to think in those facile terms.
Like this column, "It Gets Worse"...
Trump has laid out his vision for America: It is the racial Hunger Games. It is a dystopian future in which maximum pressure is applied to minority immigrants and trading partners, all to insulate the white working class. Trump is the white nationalist candidate selling the racial romance of reverting America to a time when white workers were virtually guaranteed success and prosperity, often at the expense and exclusion of others.Blow would have made a good lawyer caricature, shifting the issues to the strawmen he is best prepared to fight, based on his own individual background, which he has generously shared with readers, to learn from, one supposes (or to make a good living, one understands.). Doesn't make him a wise, or realistic, political strategist though. He writes ugly too.
Americans in the 21st century need to be voting on merit, not emotions. And evaluating individuals for their own worth, not bypassing some of our best to atone for the nation's past sins and omissions...
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I'm just glad Charles is not in charge! (... of our days and our lives... of our wrongs and our rights...)
He's not even a Preacher's Kid! (PK).
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