What's that I hear, now, ringing in my ears? I've heard that sound
before! Is it the call asking Hillary to lead? I've heard that song
before!
Many times in 2013 -14 and into 2015 I stated here that
Hillary Clinton does not owe any American another effing thing. Yet you
all persist! So WTF???
- United
States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (R) calls a time-out during a
multiple question from an Indian journalist, as India's Minister of
External Affairs S.M. Krishna smiles during their news conference at the
U.S.-India Strategic Dialogue in Washington June 13, 2012. REUTERS/Gary
Cameron (UNITED STATES - Tags: POLITICS)
I know #ShePersists is the flavor of the week, but why does it always and only have to be Hillary?
I am sick and tired of people young enough to be her children and even grandchildren making demands on her.
The
latest demand is a new Seneca Falls Convention - that Hillary is
supposed to organize. Please! Go organize this yourselves! Run for
office. Stop being "idea people" and actually do something and put
yourselves out there. Give Hillary the break she deserves to spend with
her family!
This came across my "desk" (top). I didn't know the author's name but resident detectives Brassy and Carissa tracked it back to
Melissa McEwan at Shakesville. Thank you both, and thank you Melissa for this fine piece!
Hillary Clinton doesn't owe you a goddamned thing.
Hillary Clinton ran for president. She ran despite a hideous game of
cajoling her to run, only to shame her for running. She ran despite the
fact that the media has treated her like garbage for decades; despite
knowing they would treat her like garbage again—which they did. She ran
despite knowing, as keenly as any other woman in the country and more
than most, the hellscape of vicious misogyny that would be unleashed
against her. She ran despite the fact that she knew, should she win, she
would face Republican obstructionism and vitriol so vast and relentless
that it would take a tenacious beast to govern. She ran knowing she
would have to be that tenacious beast, and could be.
She ran for
president on the most progressive Democratic platform ever, and her
campaign was remarkably devoid of the typical unforced errors in most
presidential campaigns (including her previous one). She showed herself
to be a candidate capable of learning and willing to learn—when she
changed positions, it was because she came to the more progressive one.
Which is not to suggest that she was a perfect candidate, but she was a
damn good one. Yet her insufficient perfection was somehow considered a
fatal flaw by people who now demand she dance at their command.
She
wanted to lead this nation—and, more importantly, she wanted to govern
it. And she had the knowledge and capability to do it, and do it well.
She put out an enormous number of policy papers and factsheets, so we
could see exactly what she wanted to do and how she would do it. She
gave detailed policy addresses, and she answered voters' questions with
both compassion and seriousness and details.
She conveyed, in every
conceivable way, that she had the experience to be our president, and an
abundance of talent, and she was offering both to us.
And we passed.
More of us voted for her, of course, but there is a reason she is not
our president. And it's not just because of Russian interference and
James Comey being a colossal wanker. It's also because enough votes for
Jill Stein threw key states to Donald Trump, and because millions and
millions of people voted for Trump despite his reprehensible platform.
I am hardly the first person to observe that I would much rather be
spending my days encouraging Hillary Clinton to be more progressive than
documenting the fall of the republic under the presidency of Donald
Trump.
But here we are.
And now there are people—many of whom
are self-identified Bernie Sanders supporters who voted for Stein in
those aforementioned key states, or who voted for Trump, or who didn't
vote at all—who are demanding to know why Hillary Clinton isn't "doing
something" to stop Donald Trump and his authoritarian onslaught.
She
did do something, you ungrateful wrecks. She campaigned for 18 months,
the last of them against Trump himself, day after exhausting day,
keeping up a ruthless schedule that would drive most people half her age
to collapse after three weeks, no less a year and a half. She gave up
time with her family, her grandchildren; gave up anything resembling
free time; gave up her privacy. She made countless sacrifices on behalf
of this country in order to prevent this exact outcome.
You took a hard pass, and now you have the unmitigated temerity to want more from her? Fuck you.
I note with all the mirthless laughter in the universe that one of the
incessant criticisms of Hillary Clinton was that she was entitled.
She gave it everything she had already. You don't get to ask for even more.
And what, pray tell, do you expect her to do, anyway? Crash the
confirmation hearings? She's not a sitting Senator anymore. That's not
the way it works. Show up at a protest, dragging the Secret Service with
her, constantly on the lookout for people who sent her death threats;
chanted that she should be locked up or killed? That's not the way it
works, either.
Even if you could name some meaningful action that
you'd like her to be taking in this moment, this darkest of moments in
our nation's history, she doesn't owe it to you.
It hurts my heart
when I think about how not only did we reject her in favor of the
shitlord who currently occupies the Oval Office, but we sought to
humiliate her, over and over, for even trying to defeat him.
And
now, to add breathtaking insult to that grievous injury, people are mad
at her for not showing up?! She tried to show up. And a bunch of
progressive purists told her to GTFO and spit in her face for good
measure.
Hillary Clinton doesn't owe you shit.
She warned you
that it was a bad idea to set your house on fire, and now you're mad at
her for not letting you crash on her couch? How dare you.
Seriously. How dare you.
It isn't Hillary Clinton's fault that you didn't take seriously what
was really at stake. And I wouldn't blame her for never showing up again
for a country that disregarded her warnings and rejected her so
callously.
But the thing is: She probably will show up. Again. She's
probably hatching some sort of plan as we speak, because that's just
the kind of indomitable human being she is—a patriot of unfathomable
measure.
And the fact that we almost certainly haven't heard the
last of Hillary Clinton is not only testament to her extraordinary
fortitude and her profound loyalty to this nation, but is the primary
fucking reason that she deserved our votes.
She deserved them way more than we deserve her.
So if Hillary Clinton wants to spend the rest of her days walking in
the woods and playing with her grandchildren and eating delicious things
and never, ever, putting herself in front of a camera and subjecting
herself to abominably unjust scrutiny no person should ever have to
face, more power to her.
I hope she does exactly what she wants to do, whatever that may be.
Because she has already given me an enormous amount of her time, her
energy, her very self. She doesn't owe me another goddamned thing.
And she doesn't owe you anything more, either."
Not written by me but written to be shared.
Well said to the writer! To the point!!!!!
I thank Victoria Brownsworth for this.
@VABVOX
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I
have said it before - long before she put herself into the 2016 race,
Hillary Clinton owes us nothing. She has always left it all on the
field.
You, who consider yourselves leaders but lead by making demands of others, go do this yourselves or shut up. Basta! Enough!
