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Today’s Hillary News & Views is all about nasty women and their Shade Queen.
Curve reports:
In the third and final presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, there were many singular moments. Trump, who launched his campaign for president by calling all Mexicans rapists and murderers, at the debate called them "bad hombres," in a stunningly blatant racial slur that is equivalent, as one Latina journalist at ABC said, to calling black men "boys." It spawned a #BadHombres hashtag just as at the VP debate, Gov. Mike Pence spawned #ThatMexicanThing.
Trump also called Clinton "such a nasty woman" during an exchange about taxes. Several hashtags erupted out of that comment as women all over Twitter declared themselves #NastyWomen and #NastyWomenUnitedForClinton.
Every American president has been male. There is no precedent for what a powerful woman looks like in American politics. The same pundits so appalled by Trump not playing by the rules established centuries ago by white men are the same pundits who have held Clinton to a different, higher, harder standard. Many of these pundits say Clinton would be flailing against a "real" candidate–forgetting that those "real" GOP candidates couldn’t beat Trump and she’s the only one in America who has taken him on and beaten him every time.
Trump is furious he’s been bested by a woman. But so, it seems, are many of the pundit class. Her strongest supporters are people of color–led by President and Mrs. Obama who have been her staunchest, most vocal allies and supporters.
Why is this Clinton’s base? Because people of color (and women and LGBT) have been de-legitimized throughout American history by the same lies Trump promotes against Clinton. We know as we watch the spoiled, whining, bratty entitlement of Trump, that the system has indeed been rigged for generations–against us, not for us. Clinton has made herself our champion and Trump thinks he can call her a cheater and it will be enough.
USA Today reports:
In what may be the fastest case of reappropriation in this election cycle, women have already taken back one of the insults Republican nominee Donald Trump lobbed at Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton during Wednesday night's debate.
"Such a nasty woman," Trump interjected as Clinton answered a question about funding Social Security.
Twitter erupted with ladies proudly claiming the mantel, tee-shirts were promptly designed, someone snagged the domain name done.com, which now redirects to a Hillary Clinton donations page and clothing retailer Nasty Gal got in on the fun, changing the name to Nasty Woman for the day.
Arwa Mahdawi writes for The Guardian:
Little girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice but sometimes they grow up and life corrupts them. They metamorphosize from being sweet little girls into Nasty Women.
While Clinton may be the chief Nasty Woman of the United States, we’ve all been there at some point. There are few women out there who haven’t been informed at some point by a man they are, in fact, a Nasty Woman.
Nasty Women speak up too much. They’re too ambitious. Too aggressive. They’re not team players. Let’s be honest, they’re real bitches. They may get to the top, they may climb that greasy ladder, but at what cost? Nobody likes them. They probably never have sex. Their children probably hate them. They probably have no idea how to bake. They’re Nasty Women.
It’s easy to become a Nasty Woman. It can happen in an instant. You can go to bed a perfectly nice person and wake up a Nasty Woman. But this doesn’t have to happen to you. You can remain a Nice Girl if you just try hard enough.
Nice Girls let men do the talking. They let men compliment them in whatever language that man might choose. They go to bed with a guy after a certain number of dates have elapsed and they have proved that they are a Nice Girl. They then marry that man. They stand by their man. Nice Girls do not complain. Nice Girls know their place. Nice Girls raise nice children. And Nice Girls definitely do not run for president.
LA Times reports:
Her warm body language of the first debate, celebrated by pundits and voters alike, had tightened into a strained grin. In the second debate, she kept her careful poise, but took an opportunity to nail Trump in a way she’d previously avoided, saying he was simply seeking to divert attention from “the way [your campaign is] exploding and the way Republicans are leaving you.”
In this third round, you could finally see the full scale of how over it Clinton was; not just with Trump’s cruel, scarcity-based vision of America, but with having to debate the furious idiot for a combined time of over four hours, and to studiously engage as if it weren’t beneath her.
And so, finally, voters got the Shade Queen that America deserves. Somehow, subtly and yet repeatedly, Clinton released her staid political professional veneer.
When Clinton spoke about the sexual assault allegations against Trump, she said: “Donald thinks belittling women makes him bigger. He goes after their dignity, their self-worth, and I don't think there is a woman anywhere that doesn't know what that feels like.”
In the first debate, Clinton proved she could be as gentle a woman as the country’s men wanted; in the second debate, she’d proved she could be as measured a leader as the country’s people needed; and in the third, she proved she could be as authentically annoyed as she deserved.
In three acts, Clinton demonstrated the unlearning process that guides many American women’s experiences: performing for men, leading for others, living true-to-self.
We’ve never witnessed such a compressed, gendered metamorphosis in American political life. For many women, Clinton’s movement toward her own power is a historical moment. We’ll remember where we were when fire took our shape.
Vox reports:
Two things have been true throughout the debates. One is that Trump has been, at every turn, underprepared, undisciplined, and operating completely without a strategy. In one of the third debate’s most unintentionally revealing moments, Trump said, "I sat in my apartment today ... watching ad after false ad, all paid for by your friends on Wall Street," an inadvertent admission that he was inhaling cable news when he should have been prepping for the debate.
But the other reality is that Clinton has been, at every turn, prepared, disciplined, and coldly strategic. She triggered Trump’s epic meltdown purposely, and kept Trump off balance over multiple weeks that probably represented his last chance to turn the election around. She was ready for every question, prepared for every attack, and managed to goad Trump into making mistakes that became the main story the day after every single debate.
It’s not at all fair for Clinton to be labeled a bitch, a nasty woman, or any other derogatory gendered term just for doing her job. But it’s also somewhat heartening to see her supporters lean into those insults and turn them into an empowering feminist rallying cry.
Media outlets are exploring the radical idea that maybe Clinton and her campaign know what they're doing.
Vox reports:
The third and final presidential debate has ended, and it can now be said: Hillary Clinton crushed Donald Trump in the most effective series of debate performances in modern political history.
Trump’s meltdown wasn’t an accident. The Clinton campaign coolly analyzed his weaknesses and then sprung trap after trap to take advantage of them.
Clinton’s successful execution of this strategy has been, fittingly, the product of traits that she’s often criticized for: her caution, her overpreparation, her blandness. And her particular ability to goad Trump and blunt the effectiveness of his political style has been inextricable from her gender. The result has been a political achievement of awesome dimensions, but one that Clinton gets scarce credit for because it looks like something Trump is doing, rather than something she is doing — which is, of course, the point.
Two things have been true throughout the debates. One is that Trump has been, at every turn, underprepared, undisciplined, and operating completely without a strategy. In one of the third debate’s most unintentionally revealing moments, Trump said, "I sat in my apartment today ... watching ad after false ad, all paid for by your friends on Wall Street," an inadvertent admission that he was inhaling cable news when he should have been prepping for the debate.
But the other reality is that Clinton has been, at every turn, prepared, disciplined, and coldly strategic. She triggered Trump’s epic meltdown purposely, and kept Trump off balance over multiple weeks that probably represented his last chance to turn the election around. She was ready for every question, prepared for every attack, and managed to goad Trump into making mistakes that became the main story the day after every single debate.
Washington Post reports:
Why has Ms. Clinton, the “establishment” alternative facing the voters, wound up in the lead at this late date? According to much conventional wisdom, she is the beneficiary of structural factors, such as voter demographics, and of good fortune — in the form of the Republican Party’s spectacularly irresponsible choice of an incompetent nominee. No doubt a different GOP candidate might have run a stronger general-election race than Mr. Trump; anyone with a modicum of civility and political talent could have.
Nevertheless, it is time to point out another reason Ms. Clinton is winning: She is earning it. She and her campaign have remained disciplined and even-keeled through tempests large and small — and through the tests of political communication and argument known as the presidential debates, both against Mr. Sanders and against Mr. Trump. It is not easy to stand on a stage for 90 minutes and parry words with an opponent, moderators and town-hall invitees; still less is it easy to do so while keeping one’s cool amid sleazy provocations and unpredictable insults from Mr. Trump. Through it all, Ms. Clinton has stayed focused on issues, laying out a program for the country that we don’t accept in every particular but that is well within the broad mainstream of plausible policy alternatives.
Perhaps most important, she has kept her rhetoric civil and inclusive, in the face of an opponent bent on trashing the norms of democratic discourse. This is no mere style point. It is in a way substantive too, because this election has taken on importance beyond the already-high stakes for national policy; it has turned into a trial of our democratic culture. Certainly, Ms. Clinton has found ways to needle her opponent. But by preparing for the debates, using them to advance rational arguments and refraining from responding in kind to Mr. Trump’s lowest blows, Ms. Clinton has exemplified what’s still good about that culture. In fact, you might say she has reminded people of what’s good about “establishment” politicians — about people who understand that it takes skill to survive and advance their causes in the public square, and who make it their business to polish those skills.
FiveThirtyEight reports:
Clinton wins by a clear margin, it will help to resolve a longstanding debate among political scientists and historians, since it will suggest that campaigns and candidates do matter and that elections aren’t always determined by economic conditions, which would predict a much closer outcome than the one we’re likely to see. Furthermore, Clinton’s win will have come by rather conventional means. Her big surges in the polls came following the conventions and the debates. She got the largest convention bounce of any candidate since at least 2000, and she won the debates by a clearer margin than any previous candidate in the six elections in which there were three debates that CNN polled.
There was nothing flashy about Clinton’s performance at either the convention or the debates. She was just prepared, steady and tactically smart — such as goading Trump into feuds with the family of Khizr Khan, or Alicia Machado. Trump might seem like an easy opponent to take down, and he certainly hasn’t helped himself. But as Trump himself would probably point out, 16 Republicans failed to do so. We won’t know for sure for another 19 days, but Clinton may have finished him off last night.
Huffington Post reports:
The high water mark of the movement to cut social insurance programs may have been the spring of 2013 when Obama included a cut to the Social Security cost-of-living adjustment in his budget. The idea was met with widespread liberal uproar and little interest from Republicans, leading the White House to shelve the provision the following year.
Meanwhile, progressive activists managed to shift the focus of the debate from Social Security’s solvency to its increasing importance in an era of diminishing retirement income. They pushed for Democrats to back expanding Social Security benefits, which Obama, Clinton and the vast majority of Democrats in Congress eventually did.
“I will not cut benefits,” Clinton said Wednesday night. “I want to enhance benefits for low-income workers and for women, who have been disadvantaged by the Social Security system.”
Christina Cauterucci writes for Slate:
Unlike Trump, Clinton has seen the brutality that comes along with hyper-restrictive abortion policies or coercive reproductive laws. “You should meet with the women I’ve met with; women I’ve known over the course of my life. … I’ve been to countries where governments either forced women to have abortions, like they used to do in China, or forced women to bear children like they used to do in Romania,” she said, audibly angry. “And I can tell you the government has no business in the decisions that women make with their families in accordance with their faith, with medical advice. And I will stand up for that right.”
Clinton has a way of making this issue sound as urgent and as real as it is for women who’ve had, considered, or been denied abortions. This isn’t a theoretical situation that concerns some unknowable group of people, some demographic entity. This is about women, about us. It’s one of the major differences between this presidential election cycle and every other one. When men discuss abortion among themselves, as they do in far too many policy discussions, it takes on a detached air of philosophical principles. When Clinton’s on the stage, it becomes about flesh and blood: women’s bodies and their most private, sacred rights to determine the courses of their own lives. Of all the reasons it benefits the nation to have more women in politics, this may be the biggest—the shift of women’s lives from the realm of hypotheses into the real world.
Frank Roosevelt writes for Time:
True leaders inspire their people to keep going and always do better. In describing my grandmother, Eleanor Roosevelt, Adlai Stevenson once said “she would rather light a candle than curse the darkness.” He was impressed with her constantly optimistic personality that would never allow her to sulk and simply wish things had been different. True leaders don’t have the luxury to merely “curse the darkness”; they need to actively make things better by finding ways to cut through it. That’s what Hillary has been doing her entire career. After special interests beat her in the fight for universal health care in the 1990s, she got right back up again and helped create the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which now provides health coverage to 8 million children. That’s the kind of leader we need today.
While a true leader lights the path for the rest of us in times of uncertainty, a coward stokes fear hoping it will convince people to do whatever he says. Regardless of the truth, Trump tries to convince Americans that rapists and murderers are flowing in from Mexico, and that crime has been going up for years. Not only that, he has put forward almost no serious policy proposals to tackle our country’s biggest problems. This reveals a fundamental lack of leadership: He’s not interested in coming up with solutions—he just likes blaming people for problems.
My grandfather guided our country through some of the most difficult periods in our history. Hillary Clinton embodies his spirit—that, together, we can meet all the challenges we face with confidence and fierce determination. In contrast, Donald Trump tries to use fear as a political weapon—pitting Americans against one another, supposedly to protect us from a scary future—in order to benefit only himself.
What FDR said in 1933 is still true today: The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. I’m proud to support Hillary Clinton as the next president of the United States. That’s the choice in this election.
She supports comprehensive immigration reform, including a path to citizenship. She speaks up for racial justice, for reforming policing and sentencing laws. Her years as Secretary of State have shown that she understands how to strengthen alliances abroad, respond to global crises, and continue American leadership in the world. She is forceful in her support for LGBTQ rights, including an end to discrimination against transgender people. She knows the challenges working women face. Her tax proposals and commitment to infrastructure investment will be a boon to the middle class. She will continue the important work on health-care reform begun by President Obama. She is a sane voice on guns.
Can Clinton unify a deeply divided America? Heal the wounds of this unbearably fraught political season? Our divisions are real, and it will take more than one intensely qualified leader to heal them.
And yet two words give us hope: Madam President. Women won the vote in 1920. It has taken nearly a century to bring us to the brink of a woman leading our country for the first time. Let’s put this election behind us and become the America we want to be: optimistic, forward-looking, and modern.
And we’ll close with some sick burns from Hillary at the expense of the Donald.
"People look at the Statue of Liberty and they see a proud symbol of our history as a nation of immigrants, a beacon of hope for people around the world. Donald looks at the Statue of Liberty and sees a 'four.' Maybe a 'five' -- if she loses the torch and tablet and changes her hair."
"I said 'no' to some jokes that I thought were over the line, but I suppose you can judge for yourself on WikiLeaks in the next few days."
"Let's embrace the spirit of the evening, let's come together, remember what unites us, and just rip on Ted Cruz."
"Donald, after listening to your speech, I will also enjoy listening to Mike Pence deny that you ever gave it."
"Donald will tell us after the benediction whether he accepts that this dinner is over. He has to wait and see."
"We'll either have the first female president or the first president who started a Twitter war with Cher."
"I am so flattered that Donald thought I used some sort of performance enhancer. Now, actually, I did. It's called preparation."
"I have deep respect for people like KellyAnne Conway. She's working day and night for Donald, and because she's a contractor, he's probably not even going to pay her."
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Crossposted at HillaryHQ, an independent, progressive blog committed to the electing Hillary Clinton as the next President of the United States.