Coverage of Hillary Clinton during this campaign has been stomach churning. Ridiculous standards few human beings could meet are set and then when Clinton delivers, the goal posts are moved so that she still fails. Each day, talking heads and keyboard hacks who could never measure up to the standards they set, lay in wait to judge every little thing about Clinton as if she is prey. It isn’t her proposed policies they judge. It isn’t her actual record. It is her value as a human being that gets ripped to shreds on a daily basis.
She can’t speak right. Her hand gestures are suspicious. She doesn’t smile enough or she smiles the wrong way. She can’t take bathroom breaks right. She can’t dress right. She isn’t authentic enough. When she authentically jokes around, she has a debilitating disease. She isn’t accessible enough to the media. When she is accessible, she must be desperate. She made a mistake, she should own up to it. She owns up to mistakes and she is a failure.
Her guilt is decided in advance and all eyes watch until the tiniest misstep — real or perceived — validates them.
Unlike any male candidate, ever, she is forced to bare her soul again and again and again. Her life is an open book but that still isn’t enough. She is holding back from us. She must be. If the media can’t find something, it will just cherry pick information and make it up. Issues don’t matter. Policies don’t matter. Substance doesn’t matter. It is all about the “optics” of a moment in time.
It is relentless.
It is exhausting.
It is abusive.
I have never appreciated Hillary Clinton more than I do today. Her strength in the face of what has been thrown at her during this campaign is the stuff legends are made of. She is an inspiration. I am thrilled to have her representing me in this race. #IAmSoWithHer.