New York Magazine’s love letter to Hillary is an embarrassment even to an already biased media. Its thesis is that Hillary Clinton is a victim of sexism. It’s littered with absurd photos of a Hillary in yellow striding around campaign headquarters stiffly sorting through mail from her fans. And it gives Hillary a forum to be as delusional as she wants.
But this was an election that was, in many ways, about anger. And Trump and Sanders capitalized on that.
“Yes.” Clinton nods. “And I beat both of them.”
Okay then.
She argues, “what I was doing was working. I would have won had I not been subjected to the unprecedented attacks by Comey and the Russians, aided and abetted by the suppression of the vote, particularly in Wisconsin.”
All that voter suppression in a state she chose not to campaign in. A state that Bernie Sanders also won. A state with a 6.3% black population. But let’s not forget the FBI and the Russians who prevented black people in Wisconsin from voting.
When I ask Clinton about the eagerness to blame her and her alone for the election result, she gets impatient. “Oh, I don’t know, you’d have to talk to a psychologist about it. There’s always, what’s that word … Schadenfreude — ‘cut her down to size,’ ‘too big for her own britches’ — I get all that. But I don’t see this being done to other people who run, particularly men. So I’m not going to engage in it. I take responsibility, I admit that I’m not a perfect candidate — and don’t know anybody who was — but at the end of the day we did a lot of things right and we weathered enormous headwinds and we were on our way to winning. So that is never going to satisfy my detractors. And you know, that’s their problem.”
Yes, you would have to talk to a psychologist to understand why Hillary and New York Magazine assume a candidate shouldn’t take the full blame for an election defeat. It’s clearly sexism.
Having been on the receiving end of the right’s anger for decades, Clinton knows from relentless hate. They still chant “Lock her up” at Trump rallies, just as they did at the New York Stock Exchange as she gave her concession speech. “You know, these guys on the other side are not just interested in my losing, they want to keep coming after me. I mean, think about that for a minute. What are they so afraid of? Me, to some extent. Because I don’t die, despite their best efforts. But what [really drives them] is what I represent.”
Maybe it’s because Hillary Clinton committed a series of crimes. But maybe she has a point. It’s what she represents.