I just finished watching Pres. Obama give his speech supporting Hillary in North Carolina.
I asked myself, do I really think that a “cold, calculating, lying manipulator” could (with at least 4 years of working together) con a man like that into saying the warm, passionate, and genuine things that he just did?
That is after asking myself if a “conniving crook” could have hoodwinked Elizabeth Warren (easily the sharpest tack in most rooms) into making the kind of emotional and enthusiastic endorsement that she offered in Cincinnati?
But there are people I deeply respect who really hate Hillary on a deep emotional level. I can’t, for the life of me, see it or fathom it.
But it is real.
Yesterday, I got a clue. I had a conversation with a close friend who loves Bernie … but even more, deeply distrusts Hillary … verging on hate. I have talked occasionally about it, but it never came up in any depth. I guess I knew better than to push the topic. Yesterday I (actually we) did follow it much further.
The conversation lasted for about an hour. I won’t bore you with the play-by-play, but I want to share the final result.
Late in the conversation, she got especially agitated and intense … not angry at me … more like she was totally consumed by her feelings … they were a raging inferno inside her. What she said next seemed like a clue.
She told me that she has waited her whole life for a woman to become president. Now, she is terrified (and I think that is understating it) that Hillary will be nominated and Hillary’s “baggage” will cause her to lose.
In her mind, the chance for a woman to be President will be lost for a generation … i.e. her lifetime. She simply cannot face that prospect. The fear of it tears her apart. I think I understood her to say that she would rather any man run and lose … and even that Trump win … if that means she doesn’t have to witness Hillary’s loss.
At one point, she even admitted that Hillary is “probably a nice person”. That floored me, but I think I understood her point. She doesn’t really hate Hillary for being Hillary. She hates Hillary for “stealing” the ultimate precious jewel … the first chance for a woman to be President … when, to her mind, Hillary is clearly flawed and inadequate.
Put another way, she is waiting for a woman candidate who is so perfect that failure simply cannot happen. She didn’t use those words exactly, but the lengthy conversation left me with little doubt.
Wow.
In our conversation, she was obsessed by every mistake that Hillary has made or is presumed to have made. I haven’t spoken today, but I will bet a week’s pay that she is livid that Hillary was “extremely careless” with the emails. Not because that was really so bad … but because that is another chink in Hillary’s armor that might cause her to lose.
I can’t be angry about her position. I am in no position to judge her life experience or how it might have brought her to this point. I did end up feeling more compassion with her pain and views and I was left wondering whether similar or comparable fears are hounding others who, on paper, should be Hillary supporters … but aren’t.