Ugh.
Honestly, I never thought I'd have to write this diary, but since two highly-recommended diaries of late opined on this, I really have to write a rebuttal.
I'm in my mid-forties and I have been a registered Democrat for 28 years. I am a registered Democrat now, even though I recently moved from the swing state of Colorado to the Republican stronghold of Wisconsin. It bums me right the fuck out, but whatever.
I would rather chew off my own two hands than vote for Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2016, and (if Bernie Sanders is not the Democratic nominee) I plan to either write in his name or leave the POTUS box blank. I haven't yet decided, but I've got a year and a half to figure it out.
I will, however, vote down-ticket for the Democrats I believe in and support, in either Colorado or Wisconsin. I'm not sure where I'll be living in November 2016, but my money is on Colorado. (Long story.)
I have a very long history of how I feel about Hillary Clinton, so feel free to follow me over the orange squiggle to learn about it.
I have been an overt feminist since I can remember. Even though most of my childhood friends didn't follow suit, I desperately wanted them to and talked to them about the Women's Liberation Movement as much as I could, even though they would occasionally tell me to shut the fuck up.
No one really cared back then, in the mid-80s, see.
I was a rather strange northern Wisconsin girl, and I would stand up for my female friends whenever the opportunity presented itself, even though this favor was often not returned. Eventually, I felt like a pariah and I left the state, with little fanfare. I was glad to leave, honestly.
About 20 years ago, I made Colorado my home and I truly found out who I was there. I love everything about Colorado, simply because it is almost the antithesis of Wisconsin: weird is good, normal is bad. I had my daughter, Little Shiz, there 15 years ago. My family, my heart, and my soul still reside in my adopted home state.
My biological family resides in Wisconsin, however, and my father needs physical help presently, which is why I'm here right now. We all do what we have to do to help our families of origin. Although clouds here are darker and much more omnipresent, I am glad for all the time I get to spend currently with my sister and my two adorable nephews.
It was 1992 when I first heard about Hillary Rodham Clinton and, oh my, how much I loved her! She said this, and I thought she was all that and a bag 'o chips!
OH!!!!! YES YES YES YES YES!!!!! This was MY woman, and MY mentor, and MY advocate!
So I followed her journey. I followed her and followed her and followed her. I was a little weirded about after she stayed with her husband following the Monica Lewinsky scandal, but whatever. Who really knows what goes on in a marriage, right?
I gave her the benefit of the doubt.
But then she started campaigning for the senate seat in New York, and I was perplexed by that. Uh ... why wouldn't she campaign for an open senate seat in Arkansas?! HRC isn't from New York, after all, so why would she even do that?
And then Hillary Clinton became a senator from the great state of New York, which still struck me as strange, but what struck me as even stranger were her votes when she was a member of the United States Senate. HRC was a definite advocate for women and children, sure, but her votes regarding war and Homeland Security, frankly, sucked balls.
Who is this woman? Who is this woman, that I used to consider my mentor?!
I didn't know. I didn't know anymore, and I thought that HRC sold herself out to the Powers That Be in order to become Senator Clinton.
That fucking infuriated me.
So when I see a diary by kos himself, saying:
Meanwhile, it is difficult for him (Bernie Sanders) to make inroads among women who are understandably excited about finally getting a woman president.
... and then I see a diary
a few days later, stating:
If Secretary Clinton is elected president of the United States, it would show for once and for all that women are equal in qualifications and gravitas. I could tell my six-year-old granddaughter, “See? You too can grow up to be president.”
My response is this: I do not want Sarah Palin or Carly Fiorina or Michele Bachmann or Ann Coulter to be elected into the office of President of the United States. I am not so blind as you make me out to be; I will not vote for a woman POTUS just because
she happens to be a woman.
Women are not monolith, and neither are minority voters.
Hillary Rodham Clinton is a Third Way advocate. She is a triangulator. She is a neoliberal. I do not want any of those people running the American government anymore; they have ruined the US standing in the world, and they have made it monumentally more difficult to survive day-to-day.
None of these things (either alone or taken together) will make me vote for her in the Democratic primary, or the 2016 general election.
None. Not because she's a woman, and not for any other reason.