As we live through these wrenching times, the truth of a quote from Elizabeth Cady Stanton comes once more to mind:
“...the best protection any woman can have ... is courage.”
Most of us who have supported Hillary Clinton over the years are aware of her flaws. But we are sustained by a belief that, at her core, she fights to uplift others, to provide equal justice and opportunity, to make the world a better place.
The reaction of some who had been lukewarm to Hillary regarding the most recent Wikileaks emails has been interesting. The emails reveal that….Hillary listens. She takes on facts and arguments and proposals, turns them over in her mind, asks advisors what they think, mulls the political pros and cons. In other words, Hillary approaches things the way every successful progressive Democratic President has done, from FDR to LBJ. Hillary has always been in this tradition — a tough pragmatist.
The Right has been after her for thirty years and counting. They are hitting her with the kitchen sink right now. Breitbart, Roger Ailes and Roger Stone — the three heads of a racist, sexist Cerberus — drive the Trump campaign. It doesn’t get any starker than that.
Imagine what it must be like for Hillary to take the stage and face off, live and under the bright lights, with the hulking form of Donald J. Trump — a man who admits to the pleasure it gives him to inflict physical and sexual abuse on women. Knowing that her every word, her every expression, her physical appearance, will be measured by hundreds of millions of people. Knowing that, if she slips up or fails, American will come under the thumb of a rabid nationalist movement bent on leading America into a new dark age.
She has taken that stage not just once, not twice — but soon for the third time.
I felt like cheering when she walked right past Trump in that second town hall debate. Her strides across that stage were a statement. She marched right across Trump’s territory — the domain of the self-professed Alpha Male. You could see his expression of suppressed rage. Here she was — a weak woman! — attempting to upset the natural order of things. A natural order where men like Trump take what they want.
Hillary’s walk was a message:
I am not afraid of you.
We are not afraid of you.
Thank you Hillary. You aren’t alone. We have your back. And we are rolling up our sleeves these last weeks to keep alive the promise of an America that cares for all its citizens.