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At this point, its safe to say that Nimrata Randhawa has a far, far better chance to be the first female president of the United States than Hillary Clinton. But heres the question: When or if Nimrata (she goes by Nikki) a conservative, Indian-American daughter of immigrants who married Michael Haley, became governor of South Carolina, and is now the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations wins a presidential election, will Hillarys friends and supporters hail Haleys ascension to the White House as a tremendous achievement for women? Will the fans of intersectional feminism laud the ultimate success of a woman of color?

Not likely. At this point, we all know the drill. There is one way and one way only for women especially black or brown women to take a true step forward, and thats through progressive politics. Identity politics works like this: Progressives do everything in their power to explicitly and unequivocally stoke race- and gender-related resentments and grievances. Any pushback against identity politics is labeled denialism at best and racism or sexism at worst. Progressive ideas are so self-evidently superior that opposition is best explained as grounded in misogyny or the always-reliable fear of change. Opposition, even from women and even from people of color, is proof of the awful and enduring power of sexism and white supremacy.

Its a poisonous ideology, its straining our national unity, and this week Hillary once again did her best to push its narrative right back in our national face. In an interview at the Women in the World summit, the New York Times Nicholas Kristof asked Clinton this:

I have to ask fundamentally, a man who bragged about sexual assault won the election and won 53 percent of the white womens vote. What does that say about the challenges that one faces in womens empowerment, that in effect misogyny won with a lot of women voters?

Clintons answer was textbook identity politics. After a quick nod to the cross currents that impact any campaign, she said:

But it is fair to say as you just did that certainly, misogyny played a role. That just has to be admitted. And why and what the underlying reasons why is what Im trying to parse out myself.

She wasnt done, not by any means. Hillary continued:

I would just say this: There is a constant struggle and not just women, women and men in a time of rapid change, like the one we are living through, between something that is different that may hold out even possible positive consequences, and something that is familiar and something that really is first and foremost about security of what you have right now. And I think in this election there was a very real struggle between what is viewed as change that is welcomed and exciting to so many Americans and change which is worrisome and threatening to so many others. And you layer on the first woman president over that, and I think some people women included had real problems.

Hillary also went on to say that Trump looks like somebodys whos been a president before.

This is a truly extraordinary statement. Lets be clear: The change that Hillary represented was nothing more and nothing less than her gender. During the campaign, she wrapped both of her arms around Barack Obama, pledged to continue all the most important elements of his cultural and political legacy, but to do it drumroll please as a woman. In this fictional universe, then, a real-estate tycoon and reality-TV star with exactly zero political experience represents the status quo mainly because hes a man.

Yet Hillary knows, Kristof knows, and everyone who has the slightest shred of intellectual integrity knows that if, say, Nikki Haley had been at the top of the ticket, she would have won the majority of white women also. She would have won the majority of white men. The alleged racist misogynists would have turned out in force for a woman of color. How do we know this? Well, they certainly did in South Carolina, a state thats hardly considered a bastion of progressive gender politics.

Heres a thought. Its revolutionary, I know, but hang with me for a moment. In the United States of America, the (R) or (D) next to a name matters far, far more to the electoral outcome in any given race than does the (M) or (F) of the candidates sex. Lets go even further (again, Im going crazy here, so be patient), and even say that the (R) or (D) matters more than the (B) or (W) of the candidates race. If Ben Carson or Tim Scott had been the nominee, wouldnt he have won a majority of the white vote and lost a majority of the black vote?

RELATED: Only Hillary Is to Blame for Her Loss

In the aftermath of the election, the Democrats are doing their own soul-searching, with many of the questions boiling down to a battle between ideas and identities. Did they lose because they nominated a bad candidate who advanced insufficiently attractive ideas? Or did they lose because, in this election cycle at least, there were just too many racists and sexists? Its understandable and human that Hillary would point the finger rather than look in the mirror, but if her side wins the argument, look for Democrats to do their dead-level best now and in the future to inflame race- and gender-based grievances. They will tell millions of Americans that the color of their skin and their gender identity should dictate their thoughts and beliefs, and that opposition isnt based on reason or logic but rather hate and fear.

Heres the thing, though that destructive narrative is so powerful that, next time, it might just win. If it does, Democrats will feel vindicated, triumphant liberal culture warriors will redouble their assault on conservative ideas and institutions, and the national fabric will continue to fray.

Democrats, ignore Hillary Clinton, for all our sakes.

David French is a staff writer for National Review, a senior fellow at the National Review Institute, and an attorney.

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The Dark Side of Hillary Clinton's Electoral Rationalizations - National Review

Hillary Clinton has given her stamp of approval on the proposed bill that would fine men $100 for masturbating. Introduced in Texas, the Man's Right to Know Act, as it's commonly known, would make it so men could only masturbate under supervision and inside approved medical facilities.

"The bill may be satirical, but the message sure resonated," Clinton told guests at a luncheon for Annie's List, though the polarizing bill may not be "satirical" for long, having made it past the first phase to becoming legislation after its reading last week in the House of Representatives.

Related |Texas Bill Fining Men for Masturbating Moves Forward

The former First Lady continued, "When you seriously try to kick millions of women and families off their health insurancewhen you believe it would be the right thing to do for your political base to defund Planned Parenthood even though the majority of America disagrees with you, that is not empowering women, that is just meanness, that is cruelty," she said to the downtown Houston audience.

Representative Jessica Farrar first introduced the Mans Right to Know Act as a response to contemporary debates surrounding women's reproductive health. The bill offered satirical commentary about how male politicians under Trump's administration feel it's their right to make decisions about women's bodies, abortion rights and use of contraceptives.

"Unregulated masturbatory emissions outside of a womans vagina, or created outside of a health or medical facility, will be charged a $100 civil penalty for each emission, and will be considered an act against an unborn child, and failing to preserve the sanctity of life," the bill reads, also forcing men to have a rectal exam before they can be prescribed Viagra or recieve a vasectomy.

"A lot of people find the bill funny," Farrar told theHouston Chronicle. "Whats not funny are the obstacles that Texas women face every day, that were placed there by legislatures making it very difficult for them to access healthcare."

Link:
Hillary Clinton Approves of Satirical Texas Masturbation Bill - Out Magazine

Since the presidential election, private citizen Hillary Clinton has permitted herself two main types of recreation: hiking in the woods outside her Westchester County home and attending Broadway shows.

Long a devoted fan of musicals, Clinton has taken in quite a few since emerging from the painful defeat that resulted in the stranger-than-fiction reality of Donald Trump as commander in chief.

The first theatrical sighting this year was at the last performance of the Tony-winning revival of The Color Purple. The musical featured one of the most resplendent Broadway turns in ages Cynthia Erivos emotionally raw, musically transcendent portrayal of abused Celie.

But before Celie had sung a note about her brutalized life, the audience at that particular performance had already undergone a catharsis. As she made her way down the aisle with husband Bill, the former secretary of State and first female presidential nominee of a major party was greeted by fellow theatergoers with the kind of cheering normally reserved for a baseball hero circling the bases after hitting a World Series-clinching home run.

The rousing ovation, recorded on phone cameras, went viral. The moment was bolstering not just to Clinton but to her profoundly disappointed supporters, who were relieved that their candidate wasnt simply taking selfies in the woods with friendly strangers but was now finding solace and reconnection at the theater. The musical was a form of medicine.

Clinton has subsequently been spotted at In Transit, the a cappella musical set in the New York subway system; the new hot-ticket revival of Sunset Boulevard, in which Glenn Close is reprising her Tony-winning performance; and the new musical War Paint, about cosmetics rivals Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubinstein, played by two of Broadways grandest divas, Christine Ebersole and Patti LuPone.

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Not shying away from more hard-hitting fare, Clinton caught the last matinee of The Humans, Stephen Karams Tony-winning drama about a white an Irish American Catholic family losing its grip on the middle class. Erik and Deirdre (played by Reed Birney and Jayne Houdyshell, both of whom won Tonys for their performances) have traveled from Pennsylvania to spend Thanksgiving with their daughter at her not-yet-unpacked New York apartment. Facing an economically bleak retirement, this couple represents precisely the kind of voters Clinton had difficulty persuading to vote for her.

The thunderous pre-show receptions chants of Hill-are-ee! blown in on squalls of applause havent died down. Broadway theatergoers are happy for the opportunity to show their love and gratitude to the woman who came closest to breaking the ultimate glass ceiling. But theyre also clearly moved by the way the theater has become part of her restoration and recovery.

Lets hope the powers that be at the Tony Awards recognize an opportunity when they see one and invite Clinton to present at the ceremony that will be held at Radio City Music Hall on June 11 and broadcast as usual on CBS. Clinton has been the biggest unbilled star on Broadway this spring season, and there is no better endorsement than her heartfelt fandom.

Clinton was criticized during the campaign by New York Times columnist David Brooks for not having hobbies. Can you tell me what Hillary Clinton does for fun? he glibly asked. We know what Obama does for fun golf, basketball, etc.

Brooks likely wouldnt have written this embarrassingly sexist column had he sat across from Clinton and her family as I once did at Lincoln Centers Vivian Beaumont Theatre for a performance of Bartlett Shers magnificent revival of The King and I. I could tell Clinton was as moved as I was by Kelli OHaras haunting reprise at the end of I Whistle a Happy Tune, because when I looked over at her through tears I could see her own eyes glistening with poignant ecstasy.

Like all great lovers of theater, Clinton is delighted by virtuosity, the alchemy of preternatural talent and unrelenting hard work. You can see it in the way she gives herself over to performers her expression beaming with astonishment and awe.

As a theatergoer with a burdensome professional life, Clinton no doubt wants to be transported from her own daily cares and woes and leave the theater humming a happy tune. But she seeks her escape not in mindless entertainment but in an art form that puts the human story front and center.

The theater brings us together not to conceal struggle but to allow us to acknowledge it as a collective body. It can be both spiritual in the way it invites us to reflect on the meaning of existence and political in the way it asks us to clarify the governing values of our society.

More to the point, playwrights and composers have long recognized that what unites us is the hard fact of loss. We gather to confront what is most challenging about our human situation and to discover how we can best meet with dignity, compassion and grace our common fate. The theater has been teaching variations of this lesson since Sophocles in Oedipus at Colonus had a messenger convey the final epiphany of the plays long-suffering protagonist: One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love.

Few public figures have experienced as spectacular a defeat as the one Clinton experienced. It was a punishing personal loss for Clinton, whose character was mercilessly maligned. But the increasingly brutal race was also, no matter how you voted, a loss for our political process.

Clinton personalizes these disappointments and failures for us, which is why seeing her at the theater constitutes its own kind of drama. Her presence tells us that though the plot of our story might seem forbiddingly dark, life doesnt typically follow the neat pattern of tragedy. The day after catastrophe inaugurates a new act.

Clintons Broadway cameos this season have also reminded us of the theaters great gift of public solitude the way it allows us to be contemplatively alone together, the way it renews our faith by discreetly connecting us to the stranger sitting beside us. No one is alone, truly. Stephen Sondheim, a famously unsentimental writer, wrote these lyrics to be heard in the one place he knew they would ring most true.

Inviting Clinton to present at the Tonys might be seen as too partisan a gesture. But the values of the Broadway community diversity, equality, acceptance were fundamental to the campaign she conducted, and having her there would be a reaffirmation of these ideals.

Whats more, at a time when Trump is threatening to scrap the National Endowment for the Arts, a strong statement by Clinton on the importance of governmental support for artists and cultural institutions would be galvanizing. Broadway may be a commercial marketplace, but much of the work showcased there (Hamilton, Fun Home, The Humans, among countless other recent Tony winners) springs from publicly supported nonprofit theaters, where these plays and musicals will return after taking their Broadway bows.

South African Athol Fugard, whose plays revealed the toll of apartheid on his countrys soul, understood, as Aristotle did millennia earlier, the central importance of the theatre to the psychic well-being and sanity of a society. The Tony Awards would provide a perfect platform for Clinton to communicate this idea to millions of Americans.

Broadway producers know as well as anyone the importance of casting. Theres no better messenger right now to deliver this arts advocacy message than our nations most resilient theatergoer.

charles.mcnulty@latimes.com

Follow me @charlesmcnulty

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Why Hillary Clinton's next big stage should be at the Tony Awards ... - Los Angeles Times

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Tina Brown, author, journalist, business owner and one of the leading voices behind the Women of the World Summit that just wrapped in New York City, said Hillary Clinton was right she was a victim of misogyny during the recent presidential election.

And she said that the misogyny was so intense, Clinton was practically turned into a Typhoid Mary on the campaign trail. Well, were already in Stupid Land, might as well look around a while.

Clinton did make some campaign errors, Brown said (ya think?). But her loss wasnt all due to those errors, she went on.

[Clinton] also was being asked to itemize some of the things that she felt from the outside had really affected things, Brown said, apparently forgetting such itemization is generally, on campaign trails, referred to as Candidate Platform.

Anyhow, moving on Brown referred to Clintons own delivery of remarks at the Women in World Summit, the ones where she said certainly, misogyny played a role in her election loss. And Browns reaction to that?

I think that she was right about the misogyny piece, Brown said, as Breitbart noted. I mean, she did talk about how, when she left the State Department, she had a 64 percent approval rating, but as soon as she began to run for office she was turning into she was turned into Typhoid Mary.

Oh come on now, Tina. Lets not insult Typhoid Mary.

The reason Clinton lost was cause and how to say this diplomatically? shes a liar. And shes not even very good at it. Shes always getting caught.

Therein lies a clue to good politicking: Dont get caught lying.

[Poor Clinton was] in a crouch position all the time during campaign interviews, Brown moaned, because she was constantly under attack for the emails, which was really, really, in the end, when you look back on it, insane.

Yes, it was insane of Clinton to think that the American people would believe her statements over those of FBIs James Comey or the revelations of document dumps by WikiLeaks. No time to go into the list right now, but this headline from National Review is an apt summary of why Clinton lost the election, and why she was insane to think the American voter would overlook her lies at the ballot box: Lie, Lie, Lie, Lie, Lie, Lie, Lie, Lie: The Quick List of Clintons Eight E-mail Lies.

Thats by Celina Durgin, from July 2016, and its a handy desk-drawer addition.

In the meantime, though: Characterizing Clintons election loss as based on some national harboring of a hatred of women is about as sensible as well, as calling out the media and U.S. voter for treating the ex-State chief like Typhoid Mary. Its just not. Whats needed here is a grip on reality; Clinton lost because the American voter weighed her on the scales of truth and found her lacking.

Presidents change and lawmakers come and go, but The Washington Times is always here, and FREE online. Please support our efforts.

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Tina Brown laments Hillary Clinton treated like 'Typhoid Mary' - Washington Times

Five months after the US presidential election, pundits and analysts are still working to understand the factors behind Hillary Clintons defeat. Now a new book by American scholar Susan Bordo, The Destruction of Hillary Clinton, makes a striking argument about the cause of Clintons loss: She had no control of her narrative, particularly as it was shaped by the media.

In culture, controlling the narrative is key to gaining authority. That is why women have historically been denied the right to control their narratives, along with their lives and bodies. Hillary Clintons experience was all womens experience, magnified on a national scale. The problem is that the people who should read Bordos book are the very ones who will not read itno matter how seductive the title appears to misogynists and the Hillary-haters chanting lock her up.

In this regard, Bordos book is bound by the same sexist constraints that hemmed in Clinton: Falling back on mindless misogynist tropes and narratives is economically more efficient than actually paying attention to, and deconstructing, them. Throughout the election, people did not judge Hillary Clinton for themselves, but let the misogynist media do it for them.

Bordos central premise, she explains, is that the Hillary Clinton who was defeated in the 2016 election was, indeed, not a real person at all, but a caricature forged out of the stew of unexamined sexism, unprincipled partisanship, irresponsible politics, and a mass media too absorbed in optics to pay enough attention to separating facts from rumors, lies, and speculation. For her part, Hillary knew, from decades of sexist attacks on her character, that she had to stay focused on the issues, even if that meant she was criticized for not being a showman on the debate stage. As a Vox language analysis of Clintons speeches shows, Hillary spoke primarily about policy and abstained from personal subjects, save the few heartfelt moments in her viral Humans of New York post: I know that I can be perceived as aloof or cold or unemotional. But I had to learn as a young woman to control my emotions. And thats a hard path to walk.

Viewed through a gender lens, the presidential election was nothing less than a manifestation of the Americas ongoing gender war, magnified to mythic proportions: the battle-worn feminist who proclaimed black lives matter faced off against, and lost to, the epitome of toxic masculinity and American exceptionalism. And, after eight years of a contemplative scholar-presidenta black man who embodies the aloha spiritAmerica was all too keen to reclaim its virility in the image of a pompous business tycoon. The magnitude of Americas misogyny was writ large when the nationabetted by the Electoral College, and perhaps the nefarious handiwork of a few international entitiesselected a grossly inexperienced man over an experienced woman.

Bordos feminist analysis is concise and incisive. She moves from the double standards faced by female politicians, often in the form of the likeability penalty, through to a discussion of the ultimate red herring, the emailswhich, she assiduously observes, were the culmination of a decades-long witch hunt against Hillary Clinton. The fact is that it was perfectly legal for Clinton to use a private email server during her tenure as secretary of state; as Bordo points out, the National Archives changed their guidelines about personal email accounts after she left her position. None of the emails Clinton sent while serving as secretary of state were classified as confidential during her tenure. A handful were given this designation years after the fact, and after she left the State Department.

Bordo is at her most powerful when she exposes how the generational gap effectively trapped Hillary in two competing narratives about Hillarys political ideology that divided women largely by age in this election. Depending on ones generation and knowledge of recent political history, Hillary was either the feminist firebrand or the establishment warmonger. In the 20th century, America found Hillary far too liberalSaint Hillary the aspiring philosopher queen, the respectable mastheads like New York Times disparagingly called her. But in the 21st century, Hillary has become known as a money-hungry, power-grabbing member of the establishment. [Y]oung women, Bordo claims, werent going to rush to order a plastic woman card for a candidate that had been portrayed [during the primary] by their hero as a hack of the establishment.

Older women who had lived through the struggle for womens rights could empathize with all that Hillary has incurred. Younger women were indifferent to Hillary as much as they are to the bathwater of this struggle. For them, a female president is inevitablesomeday. They arent, to quote the slanderous phrase, tritely voting with their vaginas.

The narratives about Hillarys marriage to Bill Clinton have also changed over time, reflecting the prevailing social mores and anxieties of the period. Hillary was blamed for Bills gubernatorial reelection loss in 1980 because she was a radical feministthe Lady Macbeth of Little Rock who refused to adopt his surname. But over 30 years later, Bordo notes, she was lambasted for taking his last name and deciding to stay with him after his consensual affair with Monica Lewinsky. Because when things go well for men, its all their doingbut when things go poorly for men, there is always a woman to blame.

A large part of Bordos objective with this book is to counter the deep trove of misogynist material that has been used to discredit Hillary throughout the decades. In this regard, Bordo faces a nearly impossible taska lone voice in the winds of misogyny. But it is admirable. Openly loving Hillary Clinton is, indeed, a radical act.

At one point in her book, Bordo outlines nearly three pages of Hillarys accomplishments (e.g. Helped create the Office of Violence Against Women at the Department of Justice; Helped create the Childrens Insurance Program). Her goal is to disprove Bernie Sanderss ridiculous quip that Hillary was not qualified to be president. If it werent the case that these bullet-points are just brief glimpses at Hillarys long and illustrious resume, they would seem hyperbolic. But this is always the fate of women. To put it bluntly: women have to do twice as well as men in order to get half the credit. Even then, the credit may not be forthcoming if men are intimated by womens intelligence and fortitude and strength.

Unlike Clinton, Sanders was fully in control of his narrativeevident by his ability to deceitfully label Hillary part of the establishment, while righteously declaring himself a revolutionary. This is how, Bordo argues convincingly, Sanders splintered and ultimately sabotaged the Democratic partynot because he chose to run against Hillary Clinton, but because of how he ran against her. Bordo could have pressed harder on this point. But it remains a glaring hypocrisy that liberals who complained about Clintons support of the notorious 1994 Crime Bill overlook the fact that the only 2016 Democratic contender who voted for that bill was Sanders.

Bordos argument would have proven stronger had she more explicitly threaded together how the exact language harnessed against Hillary Clinton by conservatives throughout the 1980s and 1990s was eagerly and blindly appropriated by young liberals during the 2016 presidential election. That critique would have proved devastatingindeed, perhaps far too devastating for publication.

What resonates most in Bordos analysis is how much Hillary has lacked the authority over her own narrativeand how much the media and the general public refused to pay attention to what she had to say. This rings especially true in recent weeks, as more is revealed about the Trump campaigns connections to Russia. All this time, Hillarys been telling us. She warned us, repeatedly, even during the presidential debates, that Trump was Putins puppet. We just havent been listening to her. Because we hate listening to our mothers.

No wonder she likes to be alone in the woods.

Learn how to write for Quartz Ideas. We welcome your comments at ideas@qz.com.

Originally posted here:
The real reason Hillary Clinton lost the US election - Quartz