So Where Is This Gender Bias You Speak Of?

-by j. darcy

The primary reason propaganda works so effectively is that the practitioners understand their target audience will accept it on faith. This is what they count on, in fact-- that the audience is just low-info enough not to recognize that they've even been propagandized in the first place. It's a deeply cynical and unprincipled exercise which, for obvious reasons, is never intended to make anybody smarter.

In our current political landscape, it's fair to say that the easiest people on whom to work this scam are right-wingers-- they tend to be very low-info anyway, such as the folks who get all their information from an outfit like FOX "News." People like that are arguably better off watching no news, or so we've been told. However, people who identify as liberals and vote Democrat are a tougher nut to crack because they tend to be better informed. You can't throw just anything at such people and expect them to accept it on faith-- "Obama's a Muslim!," for example, or something equally idiotic. Consequently, in order to sell a bogus narrative to that audience, one must be considerably more subtle but no less deceptive.

Which brings us to the following piece of frothing-at-the-mouth hyperbole straightforwardly entitled An All Caps Explosion of Feelings Regarding the Liberal Backlash Against Hillary Clinton. It's by a writer I'm unfamiliar with, a Courtney Enlow, on a blog I've never seen called PAJIBA, so I can't really swear to what the politics are here, but there's no question as to the intended audience. I was intrigued (and irritated) enough by this article to try to make sense of it paragraph-by-paragraph in order to determine, as this writer implies from the beginning, whether Hillary Clinton-- yes, that Hillary Clinton-- has indeed been the victim of some form of gender bias at the hands of the left-leaning segment of the elctorate and the progressive bloggers, male and female, who pull their collective hair out at the roots in the thankless effort to inform the public.

The opening lines of the piece don't say much worth responding to, so we'll jump directly to the rant itself, which, as advertised, is presented in ALL CAPS.

FIRST AND FUCKING FOREMOST, COOL, YOU LIKE BERNIE'S WISHES AND DREAMS APPROACH TO POLITICS. "FREE COLLEGE FOR EVERYONE AND A GODDAMN PONY." YES, THAT SOUNDS FUCKING WONDERFUL BUT DO YOU THINK HILLARY COULD EVEN SAY THOSE WORDS WITHOUT FOX NEWS LITERALLY BURYING HER ALIVE IN TAMPONS AND CRUCIFIXES? The very first thing this writer does is lob a ham-handed smear at Bernie Sanders by reinforcing the meme that Bernie is a pie-in-the-sky idealist who has no clue how politics works in the real world. Odd, since the man's held elective office for more than 30 years and counting. She also includes a back-handed swipe at Bernie's supporters, suggesting they're too stupid to see how stupid her smear of them is. Further, it's not a question whether Hillary "could" make Bernie's promises-- the point is, she hasn't and, most likely, won't, ever, regardless of what FOX "News" would bother to say about it. (Do reasonable people even give a damn what FOX "News" says about anything, anyway?) Besides, to every other centrist word out of Obama's mouth FOX responds by "burying him alive in tampons and crucifixes" or some such, and Obama's a man. Ailes tends to do that to everybody with a "D" next to their name, male or female.

YOU DON'T LIKE THAT SHE HAD CERTAIN NOW-UNACCEPTABLE POLICIES BACK IN THE '90S? HEY, I GET THAT THAT SHIT SEEMS LIKE LAST WEEK, BUT IT WAS ANOTHER GODDAMN WORLD ENTIRELY. I GET THAT WE ALL THINK WE'RE THE UNIVERSE'S BESTEST HUMANS BUT MOST OF THIS COUNTRY JUST LEARNED TRANS PEOPLE EXIST, LIKE, YESTERDAY. LET'S NOT PRETEND WE'VE ALL BEEN THE MOST INCLUSIVE PROGRESSIVE SUPER-COOL PEEPS FOR LIKE A THOUSAND YEARS NOW. PROGRESSIVE MEANS JUST THAT-- PROGRESS. SHIT THAT WAS A BIG GODDAMN DEAL AT THE TIME IS NOT COOL NOW. PROGRESS. IT'S FUCKING SWELL.

It sure as hell is. It was actually President Clinton, with or without Hillary's input, who in the 1990s signed off on many policies that today's progressive critics consider mostly wrongheaded. We continue to live with the negative consequences of those things today. And as Bill Clinton at the time famously quipped, he and his wife were a package deal. She has seldom, if ever, distanced herself from her husband or his policies, so it's not unreasonable to equate the two and to criticize her on that basis. And since the writer throws in transgenders (for whatever reason), we should also point out that it was President Clinton who signed the hideous DOMA and DADT bills which certainly didn't do the LGBT community any favors. I don't recall ever hearing Hillary repudiate either of those bills.

YOU DON'T LIKE THAT SHE PLAYS THE GAME? THAT SHE HAS TIES TO THE ESTABLISHMENT? FOR ONE THING, THAT'S HOW SHIT FUCKING GETS DONE. FOR THE OTHER THING, THE BIGGEST THING, A WOMAN DOESN'T GET THE FUCKING OPTION *NOT* TO PLAY THE GAME. NOT NOW. NOT YET. WE ALL WISH THINGS WERE DIFFERENT BUT THEY DON'T BECOME DIFFERENT WHILE WE'RE ATTACKING THE FUCKING PERSON WHO CAN MAKE THAT POSSIBLE.

This one is interesting. If Hillary plays any "game," that game is one that she and her husband, and a host of like-minded others in the Democratic party establishment largely invented and essentially perfected. That might indeed be how certain "fucking shit gets done" in the Beltway-- but exactly what shit and to whose benefit? In the '90s the "new" breed of Dems-- of whom Bill and Hillary were (ahem) THE FUCKING VANGUARD-- made a calculated choice tantamount to a deal with the devil. Stay to the left on (some) social issues, but go Republican-lite on others, while outright Republican on matters of concern to big business and Wall Street interests. The underlying point of this strategy is money-- specifically, campaign money-- boatloads and boatloads of it. Before this present campaign is over, Hillary Rodham Clinton may very well end up with upwards of a billion dollars in her campaign war chest, if she's not there already. As far as I'm aware, nobody put a gun to her head and demanded she take that money; she offered herself up for it and willingly accepted it. This becomes a problem when your policies (how's this for pie-in-the-sky?) magically tend to benefit your biggest campaign donors! I admire this writer's optimism that a Hillary presidency will miraculously change the very corrupt system of (to cop a phrase) "legalistic bribery" that Hillary herself has helped to create and perpetuate (on the Democratic side), but I am skeptical. I also wonder what game this writer thinks Elizabeth Warren, clearly a woman, is playing?

As for the next section-- a couple of idiot meme posters with inane pop culture references-- I agree wholeheartedly with the author that these are stupid, so a point in her favor.

SERIOUSLY? THAT'S YOUR LINE? SHE'S NOT COOL ENOUGH? WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU PEOPLE EVEN WANT FROM HER? WOMEN HAVE TRIED FOR YEARS TO "HAVE IT ALL" AND THEN WE GET YELLED AT FOR TRYING TO HAVE THE IMPOSSIBLE "ALL" BUT THEN IT'S NOT GOOD ENOUGH WHEN WE DON'T HAVE THE "ALL." IT'S FUCKING BULLSHIT. Unfortunately, the author fails to let it go at that. Since reasonable people would agree these particular meme posters are quite stupid, not to mention irrelevant, I don't understand why the author continues yelling. And I fail to see her point here, as the rant is mostly gibberish. THE DAY MY HUSBAND TOLD ME HE LIKED BERNIE, HE SAID, "I mean, how great is it to have a president who just doesn't even care how his hair looks" AND I EXPLODED "DO YOU THINK THERE EXISTS A WORLD WHERE A WOMAN COULD EVEN CONSIDER THAT?"

Whoa, don't blow up, Mama! I have yet to witness any presidential candidate, male or female, lounge around in dungarees with a toothpick hanging from his or her mouth. They are all, by and large, impeccably well-dressed and immaculately groomed, like, always. Furthermore, this is a free country and Hillary is free to walk around looking however she damn well pleases. Nobody is preventing her from walking around with screwed-up hair; that said, WHY IN THE HELL WOULD SHE WANT TO?! AND THE MOST MINDBLOWING PART? THIS ISN'T EVEN COMING FROM THE GOP! BECAUSE WHAT I AM SEEING IS THE SAME THING WE SEE WITH OBAMA ONLY ON THE MORE LIBERAL END OF THE SPECTRUM-- PEOPLE WHO WOULD NEVER CONSIDER THEMSELVES BIGOTS IN ANY WAY BUT JUST KNOW THERE IS *SOMETHING* THEY DON'T CARE FOR ABOUT THIS PERSON. THEY REFUSE TO BELIEVE THAT SOMETHING COULD BE SKIN COLOR OR GENDER BUT FOR VERY MANY OF THEM IT ABSOLUTELY FUCKING IS.

In other words, otherwise thoughtful and well-meaning liberals don't even realize they are engaging in a form of gender bias regarding Hillary and her personal appearance...Huh? Didn't I just say that Hillary's appearance is Hillary's business? Personally, I couldn't care less how Hillary presents herself; my only interest is her (mostly sorry) policies, which have nothing to do with her appearance. Furthermore, I have yet to hear any responsible progressive writer comment on this in any way. And if this writer is trying to argue men in public life don't get judged by their appearance-- didn't Nixon lose the first (and hence, the only one people remember) televised debate with JFK because Nixon looked so uncomfortable (not to mention shady) on the boob tube with his five o'clock shadow beard growth?

I'M NOT SAYING THERE AREN'T REASONS SOMEONE SHOULD DISLIKE HILLARY OR PREFER BERNIE. THAT IS FINE. THAT IS YOUR JOURNEY. BUT LET'S NOT PRETEND FOR A SECOND THAT THERE WOULD BE *THIS MANY* ISSUES WITH HILLARY IF SHE WAS A GODDAMN MAN.

Uh, but you just did. Recall that she implied in the first paragraph of the rant that neither Bernie nor his supporters need be taken seriously on the grounds that they're all naive idealists. (We'll be hearing that one for the foreseeable future, so I've resigned myself to it already.) In addition, she hasn't presented any bona fide "issues", only her own perceptions about some vague personal assumptions...of her own.

AND IF YOU COME AT ME FOR EVEN ONE GODDAMN SECOND WITH A "YOU JUST LIKE HER BECAUSE SHE'S A WOMAN" I WILL DESTROY YOU WHERE YOU STAND. I LIKE HER! I LIKE HER POLICIES, I LIKE HER PLANS, I LIKE WHAT SHE STANDS FOR, I LIKE THAT SHE'S GROWN AND EVOLVED AS A HUMAN AND POLITICIAN! I LIKE THAT SHE WAS FOR MANY OF US MY AGE ONE OF OUR FIRST ROLE MODELS OF A SMART, PROFESSIONAL, KICKASS WOMAN AND THAT SHE ISN'T AFRAID OF THE WORD "FEMINIST" AND I'M SICK OF HAVING TO APOLOGIZE FOR LIKING HER, FOR HAVING TO QUALIFY AND SEE YOUR SIDE AND RESPECT YOUR OPINION WHEN I FUCKING DON'T AND YOU FUCKING DON'T RIGHT BACK. I LIKE HER!

Lady, you said a mouthful! I don't pretend to be psychic, but it's obvious you do like her because she's a woman-- and not just any woman, but this most specific woman, Hillary Rodham Clinton; otherwise why would you have bothered writing this? And you know what? GOOD. FOR. YOU!!! YOU SHOULD LIKE HER BECAUSE SHE'S A WOMAN. YOU HAVE EVERY RIGHT TO LIKE HER BECAUSE SHE'S A WOMAN OR ANY OTHER REASON FOR THAT MATTER. THE FIRST WOMAN PRESIDENT WOULD BE AN AMAZING THING TO WITNESS IN MY LIFETIME, AND I WOULD LOVE TO NO END TO WITNESS IT. BUT DON'T ACCUSE ME OF SEXISM IF I ASSERT THAT I DON'T WANT IT TO BE THIS WOMAN. Good grief, this all caps thing grows on you... Anyway, to this point, the author has not cited a single example of HRC's policies or plans that she's been screaming about. I, on the other hand, can sum it up in two words-- status quo. I will lay odds as I write this that all the stuff we (especially progressives) can't stand about D.C. politics will pretty much continue unabated. I can think of one especially heinous item Hillary is almost certain to support as president, the disastrous Trans Pacific Partnership moneygrab, something like the NAFTA bill President Clinton signed, but on steroids. Screaming hyperbole aside, let's let that sink in...TPP. Will it help a lot of people or, to channel Al Pacino from Glengarry Glen Ross-- FUCK-THEM-UP? Does it do women any favors? Minorities? Working-class types? Disenfranchised people of any kind? You tell me. And if Hillary was your role model as an accomplished professional woman, GREAT! I applaud her for that, and you should, too. Everybody should. Like her all you want, nobody is stopping you. There should be many more such women running for president-- there's a certain Senator from Massachussetts I can think of who would fit the bill nicely-- but personally, I need my president to represent more than just the top 1%. If that's a problem, sorry.

AND MOST OF YOU LIKE HER POLICIES AND PLANS TOO BECAUSE A) THEY'RE BASICALLY FUCKING OBAMA AND B) THEY'RE NOT THAT FUCKING DIFFERENT THAN FUCKING BERNIE.

And here is where she fucking loses it. I can state here and now and unambiguously so, that I do NOT care for HRC's policies (such as they are), never have and never will. I am a died-in-the-wool Franklin Delano Roosevelt New Deal Progressive Liberal Democrat. That's it. Period. That is where I draw the line on this. I'm not interested in "incremental" anything, or phony "pragmatist" centrism, which describes to a "T" Hillary Clinton's political career in its entirety. If real progressive change is too hard, here's a newsflash-- TRY HARDER! Not taking the money would be an excellent start. And if you don't want to listen to any facts regarding who Hillary really is as a politician, then please don't dismiss me as an idiotic dreamer because I happen to want to bring back the New Deal, Part Two. My only interest is what makes for good public policy. If the roles were reversed and Bernie's platform was Hillary's platform, and it was legit, I would be screaming at the top of my lungs for a Hillary presidency right with you. But alas, reality sets in. My misgivings with her have nothing whatsoever to do with her sex-- my problem is that Hillary's like the ANTI-Bernie, the ANTI-FDR, the ANTI-New Deal. That's who she is. Just quit screaming and accept it. And you're absolutely correct-- her positions are similar to Obama's, if not slightly worse. I don't know about you-- and I certainly don't want to trash Obama; he's a decent man and I want so desperately to like him more-- but eight years of a centrist Democratic administration is quite enough, thank you. And if you can't tell the difference between Bernie's platform and Hillary's, I respectfully submit you need to educate yourself. But wait-- didn't you already marginalize Bernie as a naive dreamer? Didn't you begin this thing by pointing out how they're not the same?

THIS IS BASICALLY TWITTER RIGHT NOW:

Hillary: College should be affordable.

Twitter: Establishment puppet, no better than GOP.

Bernie: College should be affordable.

Twitter: DAD

Who gives a shit about Twitter?

AND THE THING IS-- I LIKE BERNIE! EVERYONE LIKES BERNIE! BECAUSE CRAZY GRANDPA IS TOTALLY ELECTABLE BUT CRAZY GRANDMA NEVER COULD BE. BUT WHY DO WE HAVE TO HATE HER TO SHOW HOW MUCH WE LOVE HIM? SOCIALIST JESUS TAKE THE FUCKING WHEEL.

Not exactly sure where she's going with this one. Hillary has to be a conservative fake Democrat hack because nobody would accept her as Mrs. FDR? She sort of implied that earlier, and it's just as out of left field now as it was then. I guess this writer never heard of Eleanor Roosevelt-- arguably the most highly respected First Lady in American history who, like Hillary, was seen as an extention (if not an ambassador) of many of her husband's programs... but right there, the comparsion ends, and it ends HARD. The best of FDR's social policies continue to this day, while Bill Clinton sheepishly apologizes for many of his not-so-great ones. Again, my issues with Hillary have nothing to do with her looks or her gender or her temperament or her hair, but her...all together now...POLICIES. And the exact same thing goes for Bernie. If Bernie were some corrupt conservaDem like a Debbie Wasserman Schultz or a Steve Israel (don't even get me started on Rahm or I'll start screaming), I would not hesitate to crucify him (figuratively speaking, of course!). But anyway, why would you want some crazy person in the White House?

IT IS ABSOLUTELY GUT WRENCHING THAT THIS BADASS, IMPORTANT WOMAN HAS BEEN DIMINSHED AND WRITTEN OFF AND HATED HER WHOLE CAREER, HER WHOLE EXISTENCE AS A PUBLIC FIGURE. YOU LIKE BERNIE BECAUSE HE DOESN'T PLAY THE GAME, BUT FOR HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, FOR A WOMAN, SHE HAS HAD NO OTHER CHOICE.

Is Hillary Clinton an important public figure?-- absolutely. You'll get no argument from me on that point. Has she been the victim of a lot of bullshit right-wing vitriol and fake scandals by right-wing political hacks over the years?-- absolutely. The Clintons had (and presumably still have) plenty of venal right-wing whack job enemies who hate their guts and will stop at nothing to destroy them. But to lump the right-wing noise machine and general insanity together with perfectly valid criticism from the progressive left and say "they're all out to get her" is not only false, it's outright absurd. Pretty much all the bullshit the right-wing throws at her should be ignored as well as condemned in that it contains no facts. Never has. If you can't tell the difference between the two, then we have no basis on which to meaningfully communicate. And to reiterate what I said up top, nobody to my knowledge ever forced HRC to be who she is; she simply is who she is. She never needed to make a choice to play any game-- assuming the game to be corrupt politics-- because the lady helped invent the damn game. Weren't these the guys who brought you Rahm and Rubin and Larry Summers? Bernie's the one who had to decide whether or not to play the damn game and, to his credit, he chose not! That's the only choice a political figure really has, to decide who they are and what they represent. Hillary has certainly done that, and it is what it is.

SO, YES, I'M EMOTIONAL AND I'M YELLING. BECAUSE THIS IS FUCKING EMOTIONAL FOR ME. I WANT A FEMALE PRESIDENT AND I WANT PRESIDENT HILLARY CLINTON. I WANT BOTH OF THESE THINGS BUT MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE I WANT WOMEN TO HAVE AN EQUAL FUCKING FAIR SHAKE. I'M SICK OF THIS STUPID BULLSHIT DISGUISED AS POLITICS, MASQUERADING AS POLITICAL OPINION.

I can see you're emotional, as can anybody else with functional retinas. Calm down. We get it. But consider this: Hillary Rodham Clinton is about as thick-skinned and as cynical and as hard-nosed as any political figure in recent memory. She also controls a war chest that (thanks, Citizens United!) contains God knows how many millions upon millions that will get a lot bigger as time passes, is supremely well-connected in the United States and throughout the world, and may well be the master of pay-to-play beltway insider politics. I don't know Secretary Clinton personally, but I would not be the least bit surprised to discover her perfectly capable of screaming at people if she were pissed off enough, and (despite your repeated assertions to the contrary) not giving a fuck what we think about it. There's the rub-- you see her as helpless to the indignity of some (as far as you've shown) imagined unfair treatment; I see her for the powerful political operative she is. That you presume she would need you to scream on her behalf says more about you than it does about her. As for me, we've stated that a female president would be a once-in-a-lifetime event, but wanting a better candidate than Hillary for that job does not make me a sexist. And as a non-sexist, I, like you, also think women are entitled to a "fair shake" in the world that many still fall short of. But unlike many women in this fucked-up world, Hillary Rodham Clinton has the power to write her own ticket in this world any way she pleases, and that is simply the reality. To go from idiot anonymous Twitter trolls spouting (admittedly) insulting crap about her to "liberals don't want her to be president because she's a woman" is a load of crap, lady. At the very least, that proposal is something of a stretch. And to paraphrase your last line in all caps, I, too, am sick of fact-free bullshit rants that I'm expected to accept as legitimate political discourse lest I be branded sexist.

So what does it all mean? We could argue that this writer was simply making an over-the-top (albeit clumsy) attempt at political satire. The whole thing may amount to little more than a playful wink and nod and nudge to an audience that the writer understood to be in on the joke. I might buy that. But good satire needs to contain at least some grain of insight, and this piece contains none. In addition, it's easy for less critical readers to hold this up as something to be taken seriously, which it most certainly isn't, regardless of intent, satirical or otherwise. Does gender bias exist in this world? Obviously. That was never in question, so what is this writer screaming about? Are there some idiots out there who hate Hillary because she's a woman? Probably. But does that make liberal voters who dislike her sexist? I'm told many feminists support Hillary, and God bless them all. If Hillary is your candidate, then for heaven's sake, vote for her already-- nobody anywhere is preventing that from happening. It wasn't all that long ago, relatively speaking, that women in the United States were told with a straight face that they were not allowed to cast ballots. This is the working definition of gender bias-- You-Cannot-Do-This-Because-You-Are-A-Woman. Nobody of consequence anywhere, to my knowledge, has said that about Secretary Clinton or her bid for the presidency, and anybody that has or does?-- FUCK 'EM. Talk is still cheap, last time I checked. But let's not forget that before the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified on August 18, 1920, Hillary Clinton would not have been allowed by law to vote for herself! Wrap your brain around that. Do you really think that a couple of anonymous Twitter trolls (with not one iota of real power to speak of) who toss out some stupid brickbats at her are on equal footing as writing laws that explicity state what a woman can or cannot do?! ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME, INDEED! And what about the millions of women who happen to not support her? What do you do about them? Are Susan Sarandon and Sarah Silverman anti-woman(?!) because they support Bernie Sanders? Is this the lunacy that this divisive campaign has degenerated to already, that we're even having this discussion?

Maybe there's another possibility.

Unlike satire, whose function by definition is to use humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose society's ills or to criticize people's personal foibles, the purpose of political propaganda is to employ those same devices to flummox, not enlighten, the public. And the more I think about this piece, the more I think we're being hoodwinked.

It should be clear right now to anyone with a brain (and no, I am not specifically addressing women) that Hillary Rodham Clinton, powerful and intelligent and successful she may be, role model to millions of girls everywhere and the most viable female presidential candidate that most people can remember, rightly or wrongly-- this lady has a history that shows she will stop at nothing to win. In her way, she is about as ruthless a political creature as there is, and I say that respectfully. As this campaign grows more tempestuous and divided, I find it mystifying that liberals have somehow wound up in the absurd position of arguing over whether or not Mrs. Clinton has been the victim of gender bias. Personally, I don't know that to be true. While this article did nothing to sell me on that proposal, I will concede that it's an interesting question for a more serious writer than myself to examine.

But I must confess that the cynic in me suspects a script is being written. Inundated as we are with respected mainstream writers telling us Hillary is more electable because the American public will never, EVER elect some 70 year-old weirdo commie hippie [hyperbole mine], I'm seeing tactics utilized in the service of her campaign, the purpose of which I suspect is to undermine the Sanders campaign and its followers. According to this script, Hillary isn't floundering because Bernie is simply the better of the two candidates who has been working his seventy year-old tail off with the infectious enthusiasm of a college student; if she loses, maybe it's because she's a woman. Because people thought as a woman, she wasn't good enough. Because she was insulted by some idiot people on social media, because she wasn't taken seriously enough-- I myself have to laugh at that one; I'm quite certain anybody that owes her a favor takes this woman damned seriously, as do the beltway insider types that she owes favors to. None of this needs to be a fact, mind you-- planting the seed is all that's required to sell this script. But I also think there's a subplot at work-- laying the foundation to vilify Bernie, and by extension ALL progressive Democratic candidates, now and in the future, in the wary eyes of the left-leaning voting public, should Bernie make it to the general...only to wind up losing. The I-Told-You-So narrative for that scenario is already being laid out. We can't, nor would we ever, accuse Hillary herself of these tactics; there are plenty of people able and willing to carry out such dirty work for her—such is the reality of modern politics, perhaps. But with this high stakes game rigged so overwhelmingly against Sanders, it's ironic that we're being told here, and perhaps elsewhere, that the game is inherently rigged in his, not Hillary's, favor, on the basis of gender-- not just told to us, but screamed at us. And to disagree with that false premise, according to the script, makes you part of the very problem that may or may not exist in the first place! Beautiful.

As I recall in 2008, Hillary stubbornly refused to bow out gracefully long after it was clear that she was mathematically eliminated from contention.

Something tells me it's going to be a long, long summer.

You mean "allegations?"