Facebook’s been a rough place for a millennial Hillary supporter in California. I’ve spent too much time on defense, and I’ve realized that stepping back from the circular firing squad doesn’t just mean you refrain from shooting; it means you stop dodging the bullets. Recently, I’ve committed to only posting positively about Hillary instead. So here goes:
I like that Hillary's goal is to advance the Obama agenda.
I was an Obama zealot in 08 and fought like hell against her to get him in. In the course of opposing Hillary, I learned far more about her than I knew when I first decided to fight. I watched her speeches, not just while running for President but critically those from before that period, even dating back before Bill won in 92. I learned her history. I dissected her donor base.
The more opposition research I did against her, the more clear it became to me that she was a fundamentally decent person who'd suffered a concerted strategy to give her the air of scandal by ensuring *something* was always being investigated, no matter how ludicrous or ultimately disproven if was.
It was a good strategy; let's call it the where-there's-smoke-there's-fire stratagem. I felt like *something* must be wrong even if nothing had ever stuck. Afterall, she was always in trouble. Plus, at that point while I was young and had sunk my heart into Obama, I was invested and plausible arguments against his opponents were good as gold.
He was good, and I don't regret the choice. I fought and donated and phonebanked and evangelized. I bought bumperstickers and ruined family dinners and did everything I could to see an Obama Presidency. And it worked.
My reward was watching the finest candidate of my lifetime -- a transformative idealist with a massive electoral mandate and filibuster-proof majority -- struggle to even pass the ACA, a feat he only managed after massive compromises. I watched in real time btw, in case you didn't. Every day I consumed every article from 6 news sources across the political spectrum. He was canny as he traded priorities too. This was no bullshit, and what we got was a flawed bill. It cost all his capital, and then they pilloried him for the very concessions they'd forced on him.
Back on topic: by this point of course, Hillary Clinton had already conceded unbelievably graciously and was now a part of the administration. She didn't just concede; she worked like hell for the man. Bill went all in too. They spent money, spent political capital, took risks; they went to the mat for the progressive agenda after losing. This impressed me.
Incidentally, Hillary has raised a shit ton for the DNC this year as well while Bernie has not. Much of that money will be going to downticket candidates, as it did in 2008 even after she lost.
Anyway, back to the fact that even getting the crappy ACA took everything from the most gifted politician of my lifetime even after he was empowered with all 3 branches of government and a powerful mandate. That shocked me. It upset me that it cost so much and took so long to get incremental progress. I couldn't believe it, and having watched every debate every day as the process unfolded, I couldn't blame it on a lack of commitment. So I started looking back at previous progressive administrations to find out if this was an anomaly.
I found that Social Security was shit when it passed (racist shit too), but it got built on over time. I found the GI bill was similar. And Medicare. Suddenly, Hillary's philosophy of fighting trench to trench started to make sense to me.
More than that, I checked out the 90's and the various things I'd crucified her for in 08. I discovered that she fought in 92 for a far better bill than the ACA and almost won. I discovered that at that time, the first lady was supposed to be window dressing, and that her intolerable activist behavior fed right into the charges at the time that she was a radical and extreme leftist. I discovered that shortly after Healthcare reform was defeated, Gingrich swept in in 94 with his Contract with America. The public, the democrats, and the administration all blamed it on her over-reach.
Riding his wave election, Gingrich shut down the government and fucked everything, and that the Republican controlled legislature then foisted welfare reform on the Clintons. Bill vetoed it twice, getting a better deal each time, before he finally signed that disaster. Bear in mind the American public was racist as fuck at the time, and that a failure to sign would have meant being overridden by 67 votes without the opportunity to affect the bill. These were the days when Willie fucking Horton was an effective attack.
Today, we laud Bernie for impotently casting a minority no vote and excoriate Bill for getting the best deal he could from a despicable congress broadly supported by a despicable electorate.
The alternative of course was to be over-ridden, followed by complete legislative intransigence, a Republican win in 98, and the return of the Reagan Revolution. Don't forget the last democrat to win was Jimmy Carter, an idealist who left office after a single term, reviled.
Hillary came out in favor of the welfare reform bill her husband had twice toned down to be less catastrophic. It was that or resume the Reagan revolution. Or maybe not. I don't know what the right call was, but I know that she made a choice to try and advance liberal ends, not because it was her conviction that drug tests kick ass. This was clear to me as I studied. This was the consensus on the left about how to handle the kobayashi maru. I still can't say with certainty that there was a better alternative.
That is the story of Hillary as I've come to understand it in the course of trying to justify my hatred of her in 2008. Hillary is a quarterback who runs the ball, takes the hits, and gets 1st down. If you watch the last quarter of the last game, you're probably mad that she isn't throwing passes. If you check the stats for her career, she's a fucking hell of a player.
We got a field goal last quarter with Obama as QB. We're up 3 and we're mad we're not up 7. I get that. But we're up and the opposition are not chumps. I want solid fundamentals, not a hail mary.