August 18, 2016

"So in other words, a Hillary Clinton presidency could set back the cause of feminism the same way that the Obama presidency set back the cause of racial harmony."

Wrote Chuck in the comments to the first post of the day, the one where I said: "And this is why we can't have good feminism."

I wouldn't say "the same way." I think that's unfair to Obama. What did Obama ever do that set back the cause of racial harmony? Maybe you'll come up with some ideas, but they aren't going to be anything like what Hillary Clinton has done to feminism by siding with her husband and defending him all these years.

The similarity is only that some idealistic, optimistic, and naive people put too much meaning into the symbolism of electing a particular type of person President.

The symbolism leverages radicals who want much more and inspires the original idealists to transform their disappointed dreams into new aspirations toward the good. That happened with Obama and I think it will happen with Hillary. And I think those who have loved Obama and still ache for the beautiful world he inspired may find succor in exaggerating the disappointment in The First Woman President so that it dwarfs the disappointment in The First Black President.

72 comments:

Curious George said...

"I wouldn't say "the same way." I think that's unfair to Obama. What did Obama ever do that set back the cause of racial harmony? Maybe you'll come up with some ideas, but they aren't going to be anything like what Hillary Clinton has done to feminism by siding with her husband and defending him all these years."

He didn't say "IN the same way". He spoke of the results being the same, not the actions that created them.

David said...

Sexists will react to the first woman President the way racists did to the first black President (not well), with similar consequences.

Fernandinande said...

What did Obama ever do that set back the cause of racial harmony?

"The police acted stupidly" when a "black" prof freaked out and started screaming over nothing.

"If I Had A Son, He Would Look Like Trayvon" when someone defended themselves against a black assailant.

For a start.

Original Mike said...

"Maybe you'll come up with some ideas, but they aren't going to be anything like what Hillary Clinton has done to feminism by siding with her husband and defending him all these years."

I don't know. Feminism still seems to be tooling along just fine while race relations have turned downright poisonous.

Mike Sylwester said...

What did Obama ever do that set back the cause of racial harmony?

On many occasions when a Black gets killed by a White, the Obama Administration reflexively sends a Justice Department investigative team to the town to try to indict the White on federal charges.

Usually it turns out that the Black was attacking the White, who then reacted out of self-defense.

So then the Obama Administration gathers anecdotal evidence to prove that the town's entire police force is racist and so must submit to federal control.

As part of the deal, the police force essentially must promise not to issue traffic tickets to the town's Blacks.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

What did Obama ever do that set back the cause of racial harmony?

Saying police acted stupidly regarding Henry Louis Gates arrest
Saying if he had a son he would look like Trayvon

for starters

Laslo Spatula said...

Voting for Hillary will bring a white man back into the Presidency.

That white man is Kaine.

Because there is no way Hillary is going to live another four years in her health.

You see what I did there.


I am Laslo.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

Fernandinande beat me to it, but I really did come up with those on my own

buwaya said...

Feminism is merely a cultural marker for a certain clique.
Or rather it is an article of faith for one ideological side, that belongs to the power elite.
There will be a revolution against it, bound up as it is with all the other things in the suite of beliefs and interests on that side. There is no way to extract it from, say, the devotion to a toxic bureaucracy. They go together.

rhhardin said...

There was a good feminism - Emma Goldman. If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

David said...

Sexists will react to the first woman President the way racists did to the first black President (not well), with similar consequences.

So you're saying that sexist women will treat all justified, principled criticism of Hillary as if it was the result of sexist men, the same way that racist blacks treated all justified, principled criticism of Obama as if it was the result of racist whites?

Yeah, you are probably right.

buwaya said...

Laslo is right. It is not important at all that Kaine is elected vs Clinton. Its the same group that will govern.

exhelodrvr1 said...

Actually seems quite similar.

Reflexively blaming the victim, and then ignoring evidence that points toward the favored parties being at fault.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Ferguson was a turning point. Obama, Holder and the liar pro-DNC press all lined up and stood shoulder to should behind the "hands up don't shoot" lie.

Only one person claimed "hands up don't shoot" occurred, and he was the guy who robbed the convenience store with Michael Brown. All the other witnesses - many of whom were black, said it never happened. Rachel Maddow interviewed the convenience store robber accomplice over and over ignoring all other witnesses.

The big lie spread like wildfire, and Obama did nothing to stop it.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Sadly, some women who know in their hearts Hillary is a liar, will still vote for her.

I won't. I would never, under any circumstance, vote for Hillary Clinton.

Unknown said...

The first female POTUS may not mean much to you as the first half-Black POTUS because it is Hilary but it will mean a lot to millions of young women who will be empowered to reach for the stars. If Clinton wins in November, she will join the other female heads of state of major western democracies:

May in the UK
Merkel in Germany

Pretty remarkable whichever way you look at it.

rhhardin said...

Here's a woman president, no coattails:

Catharine Drew Gilpin Faust (born September 18, 1947) is an American historian, college administrator and the President of Harvard University. Faust is the first woman to serve as Harvard's president and the university's 28th president overall.

How's that working out?

Unknown said...

We have a choice in this election. Hilary Clinton is not only the best candidate on the ballot (except maybe for William Weld (who is a VP candidate), she also offers the best chance to defeat the worst and most loathsome choice, Mr. Trump.

buwaya said...

April,
It was organized that way. This was a plan waiting to go the moment there was an opportunity. The media coverage, the spin, the players in the "protests" were coordinated.
None of this, other than the original incident, just happened.
And the incident was really a common occurence, they just needed to wait a little while for a convenient case.

Henry said...

Hillary will do for feminism what Richard Nixon did for Quakers.

Mike Sylwester said...

Sexists will react to the first woman President the way racists did to the first black President (not well), with similar consequences.

Scientific Progressives believe fervently that any criticism of Barack Obama and of his politics is racist.

They will believe likewise that any criticism of Hillary Clinton and of her politics is sexist.

That's how Scientific Progressives discuss politics.

buwaya said...

Maggie Thatcher.
But TPTB hate her. And of course so do all the feminists and the "young women".

rhhardin said...

There's the stronger sexist and the weaker sexist.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Bill and Hillary are both loathsome creatures. They rape and lie and cheat and steal... and they get away with it.

rhhardin said...

Corresponding to sexists there are genderists, and then we get grammarists.

rhhardin said...

Then there's the sexist rainbow, starting with cis-sexists and trans-sexists.

Ann Althouse said...

"He didn't say "IN the same way". He spoke of the results being the same, not the actions that created them."

It depends on what the meaning of the word "in" is.

bagoh20 said...

"What did Obama ever do that set back the cause of racial harmony? Maybe you'll come up with some ideas, but they aren't going to be anything like what Hillary Clinton has done to feminism by siding with her husband and defending him all these years."

It is a different thing in that he jumped to side with Blacks without or even in contradiction to the evidence, thus making Black lies matter. He chose sides based entirely on race and he did it intrusively in local issues where he didn't have to. I don't know why he did that other than liberal reflex, but it's clear why Hillary did it, preservation of power. Maybe that was Obama's motivation as well. Defend your power base.

rhhardin said...

Maybe you only need three genders, if genders are like colors, in the gender rainbow.

M F and N would be a nice start.

You can get any orientation with combinations.

I propose it as a simplification in modern politics.

rhhardin said...

Power splits into auctoritas, imperium, officium and testiculus.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

If I'm not mistaken, and I usually am, Pennsylvania just got its first elected, envaginated Attorney General.

But that's all pretty much in the rearview mirror by now.

Perhaps not the first Attorney General undone by the irresistible urge to gossip about her personal enemies.

rhhardin said...

To the racist goes the swift.

Mike Sylwester said...

What did Obama ever do that set back the cause of racial harmony?

If any school district disciplines Black students more than White students, then the Obama Administration threatens to cut off all federal aid to the school district.

Obama uses "disparate impact" to overturn practically any laws and regulations that he and other Blacks do not like.

Schools must not discipline students according to their misbehavior.

Towns must not issue traffic tickets according to the violations.

States must not require any voters to show photographic identification.

And so on and so forth.


Chuck said...

LOL. If I had been better at sarcasm, I would have written about "finding succor... in the aching for the beautiful world that Barack was imagineering for all of us."

Just don't fuck around with IRS when it comes to tax-exempt status for your conservative activist group.

Andy said...

Speaking as someone who prefers us word Sex to Gender the thing I expect to like most about the 2nd Clinton era is all the 'sexual healing'.

H/T Marvin Gay and Glenn Reynolds

Pookie Number 2 said...

The damage Obama caused to African Americans was very real, but was unintentional. He's horrifically ignorant of economics and to arrogant to consider the factors missed in his unthinking acceptance of leftist claptrap.

Hillary intentionally caused damage to women threatening her access to wealth and power.

Fabi said...

Where's the "Real Republican" tag? I'm kidding, Chuck (the commenter) -- just jealous.

Wilbur said...

"Sexists will react to the first woman President the way racists did to the first black President (not well), with similar consequences."

I admire your remarkable powers of discernment; It's not everyone who can examine the minds, consciences and souls of complete strangers and determine their racist or sexist motives.

Unless of course you mean that anyone critical of the policies or acts of Obama or Clinton must, per se, be racist or sexist. But that would be so overbroad and ignorant you couldn't possibly mean that, could you?

Roughcoat said...

"Succor"? C'mon.

Harold Boxty said...

Don't forget his DOJ dismissed the voter intimidation case against the New Black Panthers.

Roughcoat said...

And I think those who have loved Obama and still ache for the beautiful world he inspired. . . ."

C'mon.

William said...

I think Hillary will take a far more nuanced and balanced approach to the rape issue than many militant feminists. She will invite Nate Parker to the White House for a screening of his fillm and use the occasion to speak out forcefully against white frat boys whose sentencings for rape convictions are too lenient.

MAJMike said...

Being LibCong means never having to say you're sorry.

Michael said...

May and Merkel are hardly the first. Golda Meier, Indira Gandhi, Margaret Thatcher (above all). Arguably the greatest monarchs of Britain, Russia, and Austria were women. I don't really see Hillary in that company, but maybe that's progress.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Ann Althouse said...What did Obama ever do that set back the cause of racial harmony?

How many times has his good buddy Al Sharpton visited the White House, again?

Pookie Number 2 said...

Sexists will react to the first woman President the way racists did to the first black President (not well), with similar consequences.

...And the way our Anti-Semitic President reacted to the only Jewish head of state out there.

Boy, this is fun!

Rocketeer said...

And I think those who have loved Obama and still ache for the beautiful world he inspired. . . ."

There's a succor born every minute

MikeR said...

https://judithcurry.com/2016/08/17/the-democrats-foolish-war-on-climate/
Basically I agree with the article: Presumably the Democrats don't mean it, but someone should ask Clinton if she agrees with the implications. No refrigerators for the duration?

mtrobertslaw said...

If, hook or by crook, Hillary should manage to get elected, her legacy will be that no other woman will be elected to the presidency for the next 150 years.

Pro-Hillary feminists should think about this and reconsider.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Ann Althouse said... Maybe you'll come up with some ideas, but they aren't going to be anything like what Hillary Clinton has done to feminism by siding with her husband and defending him all these years.

Let's be fair to Hillary, now, Professor: she did what she did for herself (and, of course, for her husband). The harm to feminism comes from other feminists and Leftists, both prominent and common, who ALLOWED the Clintons to act the way they did and make the arguments they made (anti-feminist) and still considered them feminists in good standing. Clinton looked out for Clinton; the damage to feminism was done by feminists who let them get away with it and cheered them on!

That's what the Wonkette article you discussed earlier today shows, right?
Shouldn't we say that feminists themselves damaged feminism by putting the political fortunes/political power of the Clintons ahead of (what should have been) feminist principles? Assuming, of course, that "feminist principles" actually exist apart from simple special interest/group power seeking.

Bad Lieutenant said...

Let's be fair to Hillary, now

Fine, she can have a blindfold, AND a cigarette.

Now is good...

Fernandinande said...

Ignorance is Bliss said...
Fernandinande beat me to it, but I really did come up with those on my own


I thought I changed "for starters" to "to start with" because "starters" looked funny, but now I see that it was because I subconsciously sensed some "action at a distance" as well as two minutes worth of space-time warp. I blame Bush.

Bill Peschel said...

Didn't Holder and the Justice Department help finance some of the groups in Ferguson as part of their "community outreach"? I'm surprised they didn't pass out brown shirts to the members.

Bad Lieutenant said...

I blame Bush.


...Hey, maybe that's why the run on pubic hair?!?

(If ironrailsironweights were here he would say Goddammit.)

Paul Snively said...

It would be difficult to name an event in my lifetime that set race relations back as much as the Obama administration has.

It would be difficult to name an event or movement in my lifetime that has set gender relations back as much as third-wave feminism has.

DarktheKnight said...

Althouse, how naive can you be? Well, since you voted for Obama, we know you can be extremely naive.

Obama has added to racial rifts in the US. From his stupid comments on the Gates story to calling Trayvon Martin his imaginary son, Obama has been the seagull flying in and crapping on everything and making things worse.

And we hear nothing from him when his imaginary sons are burning Milwaukee.

All this set against President Food Stamp putting millions more Americans (including many black Americans on food stamps). From household income to unemployment, Obama has been terrible for blacks.

Mike Sylwester said...

What did Obama ever do that set back the cause of racial harmony?

If the Obama Administration thinks that your town has too few Blacks, then your town will be compelled to settle more of them there. The coercive mechanism is HUD's Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing regulation.

Any town receiving HUD funding must conduct a detailed analysis of its housing occupancy by race and then must identify factors (such as zoning laws, public-housing admissions criteria, and “lack of regional collaboration”) that account for insufficient Black numbers. Localities must also list “community assets” (such as quality schools, transportation hubs, parks, and jobs) and explain any disparities in access to such assets by race. Localities must then develop a plan to remedy these "imbalances", subject to approval by HUD.

Mike Sylwester said...

What did Obama ever do that set back the cause of racial harmony?

Although the Obama Administration often threatens to cut off federal funding for any hesitancy to comply with Obama's current hobby-horses -- too much school discipline of Black students, wrong rules about school bathrooms, etc. -- entire cities are allowed to flout our federal government's immigration laws.

Obama never has even mentioned the possibility of withholding even one penny of federal funding from any "sanctuary city". Obama seems to be happy that sanctuary cities are developing as an important vector for flooding the entire country with illegal immigrants (i.e. future Democratic voters) from Third-World countries.

tim in vermont said...

she also offers the best chance to defeat the worst and most loathsome choice

"Loathsome" is one of those words that doesn't really stand on it's own, "Loathsome o people who are better than you lot" I guess is how you would fill that sentence out. I find Hillary to be a loathsome, corrupt, lying, war-mongering termagant. By far the most loathsome of the choices here. Just because that loathsome shrew has sent out her flying monkeys to try and paint Trump as even more loathsome than she doesn't make it true.

tim in vermont said...

What did Obama ever do that set back the cause of racial harmony?

Well we can see it is at an all time high now, right? So Obama should get the credit, no?

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

Had Obama been a competent president he would have furthered the cause of racial harmony merely by the example of his competence. Since he's a laughable clown, no respect attaches to his race.

I realize that's an unfair standard, probably racist in itself, but that's reality. It's hard to be a trailblazer. It's harder when you're stupid.

I Callahan said...

Sexists will react to the first woman President the way racists did to the first black President (not well), with similar consequences.

In other words, not at all, and the perpetually aggrieved who drummed it up where it didn't exist?

Brando said...

Obama could have done more to discredit and disempower the hucksters like Al Sharpton and his next-generation minions who have decided that race is paramount to all things, including economic circumstances, which must really rankle impoverished whites who are being told how privileged they are because of their race. Being the first black president would have given him credibility to speak up against the racialists. Also, as he had previously made remarks critical about racial preferences (noting how silly it would be for his own daughters to benefit from racial quotas considering their advantages) he could have stuck his neck out for affirmative action reform (replacing it with a class-based system).

Instead, he's stuck with the party line.

I wouldn't put him in the same category as Hillary though. She is a walking argument against modern feminism.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

I would say Obama set the bar high with his "no more black America and white America...only America" speech at the 2004 DNC. And selling himself as a "healer" (Time mag) and "truth teller" (Michelle's famous "for the first time" speech). So I don't need to provide examples (and I started writing without looking at any other comments) because Obama himself set himself up as the one guy who could bridge the racial divide, born of two races, lived with white and black folk alike.

He set the expectation in 2008, just like Hillary did with her feminist stance upon her national intro in 1992. They both fell short. In fact they both harmed the cause they ostensibly stood for.

Again, without peeking I can be sure that several of Obama's overtly damaging actions have made it into this thread already. If not, I can whip up a list for you. Now maybe it won't meet the threshold you established for harm to feminism, but I think he's done tremendous damage to black-white relations. Remember his grandma was "a typical white person" to him. What does that even mean? Can you imagine Trump or any Bush saying of someone that they are "a typical black person"?

Hell no!

Unknown said...

Won't set back feminism. The imperative of female supremacy will never die. It WILL degrade the relations between the sexes. Jill Filipovic of the NYT wrote an article the other day that says to divorce your husband if he is willing to vote for Trump.

That's what we're in for. Men being excised from the family, from society, for wrongthink.

FullMoon said...

Ya know, Obama is a smart guy, probably smarter than me. But, what I have seen from the get-go is that having missed out on the experience of being raise as a poor black boy/man he puts extra effort into empathizing and identifying with their experiences. He wants to be as tough as the gangster rappers, without ever having even been in a playground fist fight etc.

Trayvon could never have been Obama's son, because Obama's son would have grown up in upper class neighborhoods, not down in the projects.

I have known several white single moms with half black kids. When kids became teens, they became anti white. Maybe simply because many teens need to be pissed off at someone or something. Maybe because they need to feel more accepted by black peers.

Obama is the stereotype Oreo and works hard to dispel that.

jg said...

Obama's consistent, clumsy thumb-on-the-scale on the side of anti-police black-grievance riots and highway-blockings have damaged innocent blacks and nonblacks (property and person) alike. He should apologize for that (which is hardly the defining influence of his presidency, but it was still wrong).

Unlike harmonious race relations, which are extremely important, no one really cares about feminism per se. It's just a thing liberals and women use to get ahead and to feel a little bit of righteous social ultra-violence. To the extent that we have families and children, half of the people we care about are female, so it's really something that interests me only in a take-the-rough-edges off way. If something has social currency but is harming people, I want to point out the harm. Lots of harm in feminism as it exists today.

I do agree that Hillary is bad for women much more than Obama was bad for blacks.

SukieTawdry said...

...ache for the beautiful world he inspired...

What beautiful world was that, Ann? Obama's ideas for the fundamental transformation of America were old-hat, mundane and largely unsuccessful. His ideas for transforming the world order were delusional. His commitment to racial healing and harmony was belied by his 20 year intimate association with an anti-white, anti-Semitic reverend preaching an anti-white, anti-semitic theology. The only thing Obama inspired in me was a sense of dread.

Obama jumped the shark on the whole racial harmony thing the day he said the police acted stupidly.

SukieTawdry said...

Unknown:

The first female POTUS may not mean much to you as the first half-Black POTUS because it is Hilary but it will mean a lot to millions of young women who will be empowered to reach for the stars.

What claptrap. Young women don't need Hillary Clinton, of all people, to "empower" them. What is this liberal obsession with empowerment, as meaningless (except in the legal sense) a word as ever there was.

There is nothing remarkable about a female head of state. May and Merkel, by the way, are not their respective nation's head of state. They are the heads of government. The monarch is head of state in Great Britain and the Chancellor is head of state in Germany.

Roughcoat said...

Just fyi,

Chandrika Kumaratunga, a woman, served as the fifth President of Sri Lanka, from 1994 to 2005.

Her mother, Sirimavo Bandaranaike, also a woman, served three terms as Ceylon/Sri Lanka's prime minister, 1960–65, 1970–77 and 1994–2000. She was the world's first female prime minister.

JaimeRoberto said...

"What did Obama ever do that set back the cause of racial harmony?" One thing he didn't do to advance the cause was to restrain his political allies who think that every criticism of him is motivated by racism. He could have made a simple statement like "We live in a democracy, and in a democracy people have competing viewpoints. My political opponents criticized me and will continue to do so. That's what happens in a democracy. Just because they criticize me doesn't mean they are motivated by racism." To my knowledge he has never said anything like this and instead let his allies call his opponents racists.

tim in vermont said...

You have to hand it to Bill and Hillary. Using the "battered wife defense" against a charge of rape. She admitted that her husband had hit her, so it must have been him who bloodied her lip, because there is no way old Bill would do that! Doesn't fit his M.O.!

So the Clintons have advanced women's rights in that way! By successfully using the "battered wife" defense!