The condescension of Hillary Clinton.

Joining the ranks of Gloria Steinem and Madeleine Albright before her, Hillary Clinton asserts that if women didn’t vote for her, it must be because they just do what men tell them to.

Democrats “do not do well with white men, and we don’t do well with married, white women,” she said. “And part of that is an identification with the Republican Party and a sort of ongoing pressure to vote the way that your husband, your boss, your son, whoever, believes you should.”

Maybe insulting the demographics you can’t win over will improve your odds in the future.

Shortly after the election, I wrote a much more detailed explanation of why white women may have rejected Clinton. Check it out here.

1 thought on “The condescension of Hillary Clinton.”

  1. Do you th8nk you’re characterizing Clinton’s claim accurately? She said part of why Democrats do poorly with white women is the influence of the husband, boss, son, or whoever. You seem to be treating this part as applying universally, and the “whoever” as restricted to men. If we instead interpret her to be saying that some of the white women among whom Democrats do poorly are influenced by others (which seems to me a closer reading of her comments), does this seem like condescension? I would imagine that the reason for such influence is that lots of people care less about politics than some people they respect or love, and prefer to trust the judgment of those people rather than immersing themselves in petty, divisive, and often crude political commentary. Seems like a perfectly respectable position.

    In your piece linked above, you explained that you thought part of the problem was that Democrats so consistently over-interpreted any evidence of Republican bigotry that when an actual bigot came along, they had little credibility. I’ve yet to see any evidence that Democrats are more condescending to Republicans than Republicans are to Democrats. To me, it looks like Republicans are in search of reasons to be offended, and inventing them when they can’t find real examples.

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