Preface
I’m going to start this diary with something I wrote in June of last year after staunchly opposing Hillary Clinton and finish with my thoughts today. The 08 diary isn’t very good at all, but it says some important things about my mindset back then.
I apologize in advance for my lousy writing in 2008. Hell I apologize in advance for the meandering soul-spilling now in 2016. This isn’t about making a particular argument; this is about my journey and my hopes. Thanks for bearing with me.
2008
Alright.... I'm Ready
Hillary Clinton should be VP. That's not an easy conclusion for me to come to. I spent a long time believing she was untrustworthy and fake, and while I realize that most of the evidence to that effect was circumstantial, the sheer volume of evidence had me convinced. Of course, I was a low information voter. I based my opinion of Hillary on a fairly narrow range of a datapoints. Ironically, I think Barack Obama, by sparking a genuine interest in politics and a deep-seated desire to truly understand the events of the day, is the reason I gave Hillary Rodham Clinton a second look. I'm twenty four; to me, the Clinton years don't represent prosperity (though to be fair, there was much good, and certainly far more than under either Bush). To me, the Clinton years represented scandal, Monica not even chief among them. When I listen to Bill Clinton, when I see him dodge and lie and dissemble, when I see his failure to rally behind the remaining candidate who best represents what he and his wife have fought for, it makes me feel as though his ideals are not ideals at all, but simply vehicles for his pursuit of influence and historical importance. Now I'm the first to admit that this narrative may well have been planted in my mind by the viciously partisan right, but now that its there, I can't help but run Bill's actions through the checker, and too often he comes up short. As progressive as I try to be, I've committed one of the cardinal sexist sins; I've viewed Hillary as an extension of her powerful husband. I might try to excuse myself for this, citing her claimed involvement in the various aspects of Bill's administration and her inclusion of her time as First Lady in her 30 years of experience claim, but this would be disingenuous. I viewed her this way long before she made these claims, and I need to own that. The name 'Hillary Clinton' made me groan because of the "Clinton"; my view changed when I got to know the "Hillary".
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2016
After a lifetime raised conservative, I joined the Democratic party to oppose Hillary Clinton in 2008. I’m not proud of that reason. But my exposure to both Obama and Clinton in the course of my tactical opposition to her changed me. I’m a staunch liberal now and an active one (to my parents eternal heartbreak), and I’m wholeheartedly behind Hillary this time. I dream about getting the chance to tell her this and apologize for last time because I was so desperately unfair to her.
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I don’t regret supporting Obama, but I do regret why and how I went about it. They say there’s no one more passionate than the convert, but let me tell you the passion of the penitent is pretty damned close. I look at myself back then and see clearly now why I drew the conclusions I did, why I assumed the explanations I did, why I actually mistrusted her and not just how I justified it, and I’m ashamed. It broke my heart to realize how affected I was by sexism despite a deep conviction in the worth and equality of women. It still breaks my heart to remember. I believed having my heart in the right place was enough, but defining morality by what's in your heart is useless if what’s in your brain points your good-intention-paved road in the wrong direction. It is so easy from a position of privilege to drift without even realizing it.
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People with pure intentions try to pray the gay away from their kids. People with pure intentions try to Make America Great Again. I was raised to recoil at powerful women, and I did. And I had lots of reasons. And my reasons were not the reason. And I wasn’t actively lying to myself; I was genuinely blind. To this day I don’t understand what happened to me, what made for my particular road to Damascus transformation. I spend a lot of time wondering. I’m scared of the next epiphany and how 40-year-old me will feel about the mistakes I make today.
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For me, now, supporting her is personal. I believe in her, but I’m also atoning for how I treated her almost a decade ago. I’m all in. I’m with her. I don’t know how to do it, and god knows I fall short and lose my temper, but I want to create an environment where today's Hillary haters can change the way I did. I wish I understood my own transition better so I could build the right arguments for them. I don’t and I can’t, but I take at least a little comfort amidst all the rancor that somewhere in the 500 shares of some CT bullshit diary, there’s a 24 year old kid, like I was, who will watch the convention, hear the concession speech, hear the speech from the nominee, watch them on stage together, and have his heart grow three sizes that day.
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Conclusion
I have gotten very angry at some of the Hillary haters and I have not been kind or charitable or even reasonable in all cases. I indulged in some of that anger tonight, actually. I am sorry. Whether or not you experience anything like what I have, whether or not you even suffer from the same deficiencies I did, you are a person with flaws to overcome and goodness to share. You’ll grow, and I’ll grow, and with luck in a decade we’ll both be better than we are today. Maybe we’ll find something we left unpublished. Maybe it will remind us to show eachother some grace.
Peace.