It’s been perpetuated by a few factors. Chief among them is the right’s decades-long crusade against Hillary Clinton; they saw her coming from that far away. Remember in the ’90s, when then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s mother called her a bitch? For what? Seeking health insurance for all? Calling women’s rights human rights? Or just plain ol’ standing up for one’s beliefs while female?
The other major factor shoring up the myth that Clinton is just as bad as her opponent, Donald Trump, is that most media outlets have persisted in presenting a false equivalency between the two.
Trump’s proposals on everything from mass deportations to extreme rollbacks on environmental regulations are terrifying. His approach to international relations — and his sensitivity to criticism — make for an unstable climate for minorities, the military, journalists… and probably everyone.
These things are real and they’re scary.
Clinton’s proposals, meanwhile, offer a more stable future for students, teachers, struggling families and more. Her experience and willingness to listen and observe (which we have seen up close and in person) equip her with an encyclopedic knowledge of everything from small business to health care to international affairs.
She’s not perfect. She is hawkish, as her vote in favor of the 2003 invasion of Iraq when she was a U.S. Senator demonstrates. She’s corporate. She was late on marriage equality. Call us cynics, but we see these as calculations on her part. If she wins Nov. 8, she gets to where she’s always wanted to be. Not that she wouldn’t still need to be calculating to win a second term. But in that first term, she would finally get to at least sort of be herself, to act on those core principles that compelled her to enter public service long before many of us were born.
It says a lot that most of the negative coverage of Clinton — the most condemnatory, hate-filled stuff — tends to come from the most egregious purveyors of clickbait in the darkest and most paranoid depths of the internet. Both the far right and the far left are guilty of spreading misinformation. The “mainstream media” is not “favoring” her because of some vast conspiracy. They are adhering to professional standards, including a refusal to cover hearsay from known conspiracy theorists.
Her opponent, meanwhile, has time and again demonstrated jaw-dropping misunderstanding of fundamental principles of so many precepts on which our country was founded. Chief among them is the criminal justice system. To the delight of his fans, he says he would jail Clinton for her alleged “crimes,” implying he has zero grasp of due process. Not to mention that she’s essentially been tried and determined to have done nothing illegal. (And nothing that has come out about the Wiener-mails in the last few days does anything to change that fact — because, really, nothing has come out, despite the crowing of Trump supporters.)
Certainly a lot of our readers want to cast their votes for a third-party or write-in candidate, in particular Dr. Jill Stein. We unapologetically call that a vanity vote (see: letter to a Jill Stein voter, p. 11) and say save it for a year when the house isn’t about to burn down. We know you’re disappointed about how the primary worked out. But pragmatism is a virtue. Save the idealism for the down-ballot candidates and causes that actually have more than a fraction of a percentage point of a shot.
Clinton is the most qualified presidential contender we have seen in decades, and her vision is one of opportunity and inclusion. And damn it, we like her.
CL recommends: HILLARY CLINTON & TIM KAINE
This article appears in Nov 3-10, 2016.