Yes, Hillary Clinton is an arrogant, boring, cynical, dishonest, entitled, favor-trading, greedy, hypocritical, inconsistent, joyless, Leftist, Machiavellian, nasty, overbearing, power-hungry, queen-like, ruthless, shameless, tired, untrustworthy, vain, Washington-insider embodiment of the status quo who doesn’t stand for anything that isn’t focus-group approved or that wouldn’t line her and her husband’s pockets. (I went in alphabetical order for simplicity.)
The problem is that an incoherent authoritarian populist demagogue, operating under the banner of the once-conservative party of smaller government is as dangerous as Hillary.
Donald the Dove, Hillary the Hawk
Once you get beyond the surface of the 2016 battle of the sexes, with its chest-thumping versus maternal hugging, there’s a more intriguing gender dynamic.
On some foreign policy issues, the roles are reversed for the candidates and their parties. It’s Hillary the Hawk against Donald the Quasi-Dove.
.. He has a tender ego, pouty tweets, needy temperament and obsession with hand sanitizer, whereas she is so tough and combat-hardened, she’s known by her staff as “the Warrior.”
.. “Unlike other candidates for the presidency, war and aggression will not be my first instinct,” he said in his maiden foreign policy speech in Washington last week, adding, “A superpower understands that caution and restraint are really truly signs of strength.”
These Kumbaya lines had the neocons leaping into Hillary’s muscular embrace.
.. In his new book, “Alter Egos,” Times White House correspondent Mark Landler makes the case that the former Goldwater Girl, the daughter of a Navy petty officer and a staunch Republican, has long had hawkish tendencies, reflected in her support for military action in Iraq and Libya and a no-fly zone in Syria.
“It’s bred in the bone,” Landler told me.
.. Instead, she’s meeting Trump, who is “a sheep in wolf’s clothing,” as Axelrod put it
Trump Plays the Man’s Card
There’s abundant research showing that men and women alike tend to judge women more harshly than men. One of the best-known experiments is called the Goldberg paradigm, and it asks research subjects to evaluate an essay or speech. In countries all over the world, both men and women judge the same piece more negatively when they are told it is by a woman, more positively when they believe it is by a man.
.. In a more recent experiment, more than 120 scientists around the United States were asked to evaluate an application for a job as laboratory manager. In half the cases, the name on the application was Jennifer, in the other half it was John, but everything else was identical.
The scientists recommended John more highly than Jennifer, were more willing to mentor John than Jennifer, and on average suggested a salary for John that was 14 percent higher than the one they suggested for Jennifer. It didn’t seem to matter whether the scientists were male or female.
.. The problem isn’t exactly misogyny. We’ve come a long way since President Richard Nixon told an aide why he wouldn’t appoint a woman to the Supreme Court: “I’m not for women, frankly, in any job. I don’t want any of them around. Thank God we don’t have any in the cabinet.”
.. Today it’s not a clear-cut case of men oppressing women. It seems to be more about unconscious bias
.. A central challenge is that it’s difficult for women to be perceived as both competent and likable: If they’re seen as competent, they’re grating nags, while if they’re perceived as nice, they’re airheads. There’s no such trade-off for men.
.. the first women at their level tended to be stereotyped in one of four ways: as a mother figure, as a sex object, as a cheerleader or as a tough-as-nails “iron maiden.” “If you have to be stereotyped, that’s the best one, the iron maiden,” she adds.
Donald Trump Is Not Your Father
Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams, who predicted Trump’s rise early, sums up the probable general-election matchup nicely:
So when we have Trump versus Clinton, assuming they get to the final match, it’s going to look like mom versus dad. Now, they’re not going to say that, but in our minds we’re going to start seeing them that way. And the thing about dad is that dad is kind of an a-hole, but if you need dad to take care of some trouble, he’s going to be the one you call.
Is there a worse way to choose a president? If you’re hoping Trump will be that strong, protective father figure you always wanted, you’re going to be deeply disappointed. You’re also going to be disappointed by Clinton, Ted Cruz, John Kasich, or Bernie Sanders. This isn’t a matter of their character; it’s a categorizing error. The job of the president is not to be your dad. If you want a mentor — an older, wise voice of experience in your life, go ahead and go find one. The world is full of good people who can perform that role. But the folks busy competing to be the next commander-in-chief aren’t among them.
.. There was a time when Republicans laughed at those who saw presidents as messiah figures destined to deliver instant relief from all of life’s problems. Obama supporter Peggy Joseph may be obscure nationally, but many conservatives remember her words from a 2008 rally, which perfectly encapsulated the ludicrous expectations for Obama’s presidency: “I never thought this day would ever happen! I won’t have to worry about putting gas in my car! I won’t have to worry about paying my mortgage! If I help him, he’s going to help me!”