What's the deal with people who hate Hillary?

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > What's the deal with people who hate Hillary?

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

Misogyny has to be part of the reason, as well as long-standing smear campaigns from republicans. But smear campaigns are politics as usual, and there are some particular characteristics of the Clintons in general, and Hillary in particular, that means that these smears have staying power:

Both Bill and Hillary are heavy third-way politicians, meaning they attempt to gain the center through triangulation. While electorally successful, there aren't exactly a lot of Clinton-partisans that could form the groundwork of a political movement, simply because it's boring.
Unlike Bill, Hillary just isn't a charismatic person. Obama oozed charisma and confidence, but Hillary cannot orate nearly as well as you'd expect a president to. There's nothing really wrong with the substance of what she says, and she's clearly a very clever person, she just too much of a, well, nerd.
She's very reserved and secretive, even when she has no reason to be. This means that people tend to assume the worst, without actually needing to. The latest 'leak' of one of her speeches is the best example of this. The content of her speech is pretty much exactly what she has said on the campaign trail, but without actually listening to it, people would assume it's damaging, simple because it was 'secret'.
She's the definition of an 'establishment politician', in a time and place where there is rock-bottom trust in establishment politics, for reasons that are beyond her control - by which I mean, it's mostly the fault of the republicans. Government shutdowns, redistricting, obstructionism, etc, all of that has had an effect in the public trust of political institutions, and no one has more experience than Hillary right now.

# ¿ Oct 3, 2016 08:27

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 07:45

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

meristem posted:

I'm looking forward to Queen of Katwe. (Some other sweet - and I do mean sweet, and heartwarming - movies are Bend It Like Beckham and English Vinglish. And I have no idea why all three are by Indian directors, I don't usually watch Bollywood.)

Anyhow, I think that others have it. Hillary sits at the intersection of being an ambitious woman, an introverted nerdy wonk, and a realistic optimist. And all three run counter to the optimistic extroverted male trope that's called 'charismatic', and upset the traditional order of things for a lot of people. Add her long history in politics, which means that she's made some mistakes, and the hatred against her has had the time to brew, and you have the irrational levels it has come to.

I can't agree that charisma = extroverted male optimist. I mean, extroverted, definitely, but not necessarily the other two. The other missing ingredient would just be public displays of confidence. I also don't agree that's she's an optimist.

I also have doubts about the film theory stuff, that's attributing too strong a cause on public entertainment. I mean, it's there, but it's not overwhelming, I'd spitball it at something like 10% of the cause. More relevant is the media portrayal of Hillary specifically, which is often as this kind of Political Crone.

# ¿ Oct 3, 2016 11:21

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

Honestly, the weird thing about this election is just how much Trump is the antithesis of Clinton. Whereas Clinton has been at the center of several negative campaigns, Trump has had an already existing popular image that would have been seen as, at worst, sleazy, but not really unpopular or hated. They're both figures of the 90s, and try in different ways to call back to that time, before the great recession. She's an insider, he's an outsider. Trump is a charismatic and confident person, but relies solely on those qualities because he's not actually very clever, She's the opposite, ahd to contantly fight against negative first impressions, either earned or imposed (if we're talking about her time in Arkansas). She's careful not to promise too much, and is a bit of a jaded cynic, Trump doesn't seem to care about promising the moon. She's very popular with minorities, he's very unpopular with minorities. Trump is used to being in control, in a position of dominance, and when he's not, when he can't just intimidate people into doing what he wants, he falls apart like a house of cards (see "you've been fighting ISIS your entire adult life"). Clinton's done that rodeo and has the free t-shirt.

And if I were to guess what happens after the election, it'll be this: Clinton will win, it'll essentially be a 3rd term of Obama. People will get over the negative press they have of her, but I don't think they'll ever like her. But Trump? Trump's going to be ruined by this election. His biggest asset was his name, which is why he rented it out to Hotels he didn't own. After this election, that name isn't going to be worth poo poo.

# ¿ Oct 3, 2016 13:12

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

boner confessor posted:

bernie sanders is also a racist. he is more racist than hillary clinton. pretty much anyone older than 30 is racist

You're a moron. 'Anyone older than 30', give me a break. Either you're buying into 'if you live in a racist society you are racist' claptrap (which, weirdly, is only ever used to rationalize facile & unjustifiable allegations of racism), in which case that includes everyone, or you're using the normal person definition of racism, in which case Sanders isn't racist either. You can't have it both ways.

# ¿ Oct 4, 2016 00:25

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

ltugo posted:

Speaking as a member of the intelligence community here:

There is huge resentment towards her kid-gloves treatment by the FBI regarding her mishandling of classified information. There are over a million people in this country with a security clearance, and the vast majority of them would have had their clearance revoked or brought up on serious charges had they done what Hillary and her staff did with their work email. Nobody likes seeing evidence of a double-standard.

I can see that. But you just know that, if it had been the Republican candidate caught out, it still wouldn't have made any headway, so I think that's more a case of Elites Gonna Elite. Not that that wouldn't justify resentment, but the issue itself would be larger than her. I mean even during the government shutdown, it's not as if the politicians weren't getting paid, even if the civil servants got shafted.

rum sodomy Rainbow Dash posted:

I guess the question is why Clinton is being taken to task on her crap more than other candidates have been? All the poo poo she did was under Obama's watch, but by and large he still had favorable (if markedly less enthused) feelings from the left in 2012. It's not like this Clinton is the first democratic candidate to have done questionable poo poo. And no, I'm not implying misogyny. Is this just the far-left in the US reaching its limit or is charisma just that much of a factor in how politician are perceived?

There's a lot more populist anger now than in 2012, jobs still haven't come back, and Obama's 2008 campaign was of a completely different character to Clinton's. He's more charismatic, but more important than simply listing a set of bullet point issues, which no one has the loving time to talk about, he related those issues to an aspirational message about the journey of America, or whatever.

A lot of people have this cynical take on on politics, that most people are dumb and don't care about the issues - that's not really true, even if you can get people to say they believe almost anything, if you carefully word the question. What attracts people isn't dry policy proposals of this or that %, even if such details are the meat of any policy. What gets people are involved are broader themes, a sense of belonging and of purpose. The goal of any political movement, if it should be successful, is to provide that purpose, meaning and belonging to people's lives, while also delivering positive, material change to people's lives, to reinforce all those other (just as important) qualities I listed.

Clinton tries to do that, but the only thing she's emphasized is that she'll be the first woman president, "I'm With Her". That's it. Obama didn't campaign on being the first black president, even if that was part of his appeal. What he campaigned on was "Hope and Change", that his presidency would not just be the first black presidency, but that him being the first black president would itself be a part of broad, positive shift in America as a whole. And it's basically for that reason, that he didn't really get much flak, even if overall, his presidency, while having a fair number of landmarks, represents a set of incremental improvements.

# ¿ Oct 4, 2016 15:42

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > What's the deal with people who hate Hillary?