At a recent “Town Hall” debate Hillary Clinton announced that she would appoint a cabinet that is half female if she is elected president. When questioned by MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, Clinton pledged: “Well, I am going to have a cabinet that looks like America, and 50% of America is women, right?”
Given that Clinton is the Democrats' almost-certain nominee and is given a healthy chance against any likely Republican contender – Trump in particular – 2017 could be the year that America inaugurates its first female president, and has its first gender-parity cabinet.
This would be a first for America. In total, of the 558 Americans who have served in the US cabinet since 1776, only 29 have been women. Just four of the 15 current cabinet secretaries are female.
Internationally, pre-election pledges for gender equality in the most powerful offices of state have become increasingly common. In 2004, Spanish prime ministerial hopeful Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero made this pledge before his election and went on to appoint Spain’s first gender-parity cabinet. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau famously pledged in 2015 that half of his cabinet would be female. He made good on that pledge, and when asked why, simply replied: “Because it’s 2015.”
Yet deploying cabinet appointments as electoral strategy is not just the province of the left. David Cameron also pledged in 2008 that one third of his cabinet ministers would be female by the end of his first term in office – and once he had control of all cabinet appointments in 2015, that standard was met.
But why has Clinton felt the need to join the fray? Clearly she feels the pressure to demonstrate her commitment to gender equality, so the particular politics of the 2016 race are at work here.
Clinton has struggled to win over young female progressive voters from self-proclaimed “democratic socialist” Bernie Sanders, and now his chances of winning are fading away, the pledge will fit well into her push to win them over for the general election.
However, Clinton has also felt this pressure simply because she’s a female candidate. Whereas she declined to allude explicitly to her gender for most of the 2008 campaign, Clinton has been clear about her perception of feminism, and has sought to use her female identity in her electoral strategy. Donald Trump and other Republicans have derided her use of the “woman card”, but she’s managed to turn it into a compliment.
There is also an important political contrast to be drawn here. It’s highly unlikely that we’ll see such a commitment from Trump or his principal Republican rival, Ted Cruz. Clinton, by contrast, isn’t just positioning herself as the “woman candidate”, she’s trying to set herself apart from the hard-line conservatism of her opponents.
Under pressure
Women’s representation in government has become an important measure of a leader’s attitudes to equality and diversity in representation more generally, and executive appointments all over the world are increasingly scrutinised for their gender balance. If enacted, Clinton’s pledge will also bring the US up to par with the aspirations of other countries' party leaders, especially on the progressive side.
More than ever, party leaders, national media, and electorates expect that the cabinet will represent the gender balance of the nation, and whether the women appointed actually hold power equivalent to their male colleagues. (Just ask British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn.)
So what are the numbers Clinton is looking at? A US president’s cabinet comprises the heads of 15 executive departments, the vice-president, and seven additional cabinet-rank positions. There has been speculation that Clinton will choose a female running mate, which would leave seven cabinet secretary positions to be allocated to women.
Clinton, herself only the third female secretary of state, will be conscious of the fact that the senate, whatever its makeup in January 2017, will have to approve all of her cabinet nominees. But there’s no shortage of competent female candidates for these roles, and with the increasing probability that the Democrats will take control of the senate once again, this should not be such a hurdle.
The real test isn’t just whether Clinton can keep her promise, but whether candidates in future elections find themselves under pressure to follow her lead. And now she’s gone on the record with her commitment, Clinton will certainly be held to account for it if she’s elected.
When asked to choose between the candidacies of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator from South Carolina, remarked,
It’s like being shot or poisoned. What does it really matter?
But, in fact, it really does matter for the Republican Party.
Based on a survey taken before the Iowa caucus, voters see Cruz as the most orthodox neoconservative candidate on issues such as trade liberalization, taxes and shrinking the role of government. Simultaneously, he represents a slightly less authoritarian choice. By contrast, Trump is seen as taking a more moderate economic stance on trade and taxes, but a more extreme position on authoritarian values.
Most importantly for the electoral fortunes of the GOP, both candidates are located some distance away from the position of the median American voter.
Clearly, candidate positions evolve. Nominated candidates usually pivot toward the center in the general election. Nevertheless, candidates are often unable to ditch the image about their positions which were first formed in the public mind during the primary season.
If there is a contested Republican convention – a prospect which looks increasingly unlikely – delegates will probably support a candidate based on their positions and who is regarded as the least-bad electoral risk.
Two rival interpretations about the basis of support for the candidates are commonly heard. Let’s consider both:
Interpretation #1: It’s the economy
Numerous commentators regard both Trump and Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders as economic populists with strongest support among those who are economically struggling and dissatisfied with growing social inequality.
Economists like Dani Rodrik blame globalization for rising populism and the politics of anger. In this thesis, blue collar and less educated voters have grown weary of growing income disparities, stagnant or falling wages, lack of corporate accountability for the 2008 financial crisis and the continued exodus of manufacturing jobs overseas. Researchers at The Hamilton Project found that American men without a college degree, in particular, have fared poorly in loss of real wages since 1990.
Washington Post reporters Max Ehrenfreund and Scott Clement found that Republicans worried about maintaining their economic situation are more likely to support Trump. It is thought that anti-establishment pitchforks are directed against both parties because Congress is perceived to continually promise job growth and rising living standards while in practice kowtowing to corporate donors, favoring trade liberalization and expanding tax loopholes for the rich.
From this perspective, Cruz provides an extreme version of Reaganesque economic orthodoxy on free trade, while Trump has trampled upon these neoconservative nostrums, such as by suggesting taxes on Chinese imports.
Likewise among Democrats. Sanders' appeal to white, younger voters is often attributed to his progressive economic mantra of tackling income inequality, cleaning up campaign finance, reducing student debt and taking on Wall Street. His campaign has been a one-note angry shout for the “have-nots” against the “haves.” Hillary Clinton’s speeches have gradually tacked closer to Sanders on these issues, although she is saddled with her husband’s legacy of NAFTA.
Interpretation #2: It’s cultural backlash
The alternative argument suggests that popular support for Trump taps most deeply into a cultural backlash, rather than any economic issue. In this view, authoritarian populism in the U.S. and other Western democracies has been driven most strongly by cultural values. Trump’s rhetoric stirs up a potent mix of racial resentment, intolerance, American First nationalism and isolationism. It emphasizes mistrust of outsiders, misogyny and sexism, attack-dog politics, and racial and anti-Muslim animus.
Racial politics are clearly part of this witch’s brew. Nat Cohn found that support for Trump was strongest in areas with measures of racial animosity. Survey data point toward the same conclusions. Jason McDaniel and Sean McElwee have shown that racial animosity is a critical driver in Trump’s support.
But American racial attitudes are arguably part of a broader phenomenon. My book comparing support for the radical right in many countries found that authoritarian populists typically scapegoat outsiders. Populists favor nationalism, social conformity, order and strong leaders.
Taking up this broader theme, Matthew MacWilliams in his research found that support for authoritarian values was one of the best predictors of Trump’s support.
Trump’s willingness to trample upon “political correctness” is thought to be catnip for less educated, older, blue collar Americans. This group finds themselves stranded like fish losing oxygen in a shrinking pool on the losing side of cultural tides, powerless to push back against long-term social evolution transforming the diversity of peoples and values in the United States. Meanwhile, Trump’s speech is anathema to civil discourse among educated liberals and establishment Republicans like Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney.
Survey on favorability
For evidence of which interpretation is right, we can dive into the American National Election Study, conducted in January 2016, just before the first votes were cast in the Iowa caucus.
The survey of 1,200 American citizens monitored candidate preferences by asking “Regardless of whether you will vote in the Democratic primary this year, which Democratic candidate do you prefer?” An equivalent question was asked for Republican contenders.
This does not imply that sympathizers necessarily cast a primary ballot for these candidates. Rather, the questions tap into overall favorability toward the candidates before the first vote was cast.
The position of the candidates can be assumed to reflect that of their sympathizers. These positions can then be compared with the median voter.
Economic values
What does the NES survey say about the economic issues interpretation of candidates' appeal?
Lib Con.
Author provided
The chart above shows two classic indicators of these positions in the survey, including where supporters of each candidate placed themselves on the liberal-conservatism scale and whether they favored less or more government services and spending.
The evidence suggests that among Democrats, both Clinton and Sanders sympathizers saw themselves as liberal and favoring an expansion of government services and spending. Surprisingly, Clinton supporters were slightly more left wing than Sanders supporters.
Among Republicans, those most favorable toward Jeb Bush placed themselves remarkably close to the Democrats. Supporters of the other Republican candidates were all on the right of the median voter. Most supporters of the GOP candidates were fairly close to the median voter – with the exception of those most sympathetic toward Trump and Cruz. Cruz supporters were the most extreme and farthest from the average American on economic issues.
Cultural backlash?
What does the evidence say about the appeal of authoritarian values in America?
Author provided
The chart above taps into social tolerance (how favorably respondents felt toward Muslims) and attitudes toward authority (how favorably they felt about the police).
The results provide a perfect snapshot of the range of choices on cultural values in the 2016 primary campaign. As expected, Sanders sympathizers show least support for authoritarian values. They are followed by Clinton supporters, who were closest to the mainstream position of the average American.
By contrast, supporters of most of the Republican candidates clustered together as more favorable toward these authoritarian populist values. Bush sympathizers were predictably more liberal than those of Cruz.
The most striking outlier concerns supporters of Trump, who displayed the strongest sympathy toward authoritarian populist values. This reinforces the notion that his distinctive brand of populism strikes a chord among less educated and older voters, who regard social diversity as a threat to traditional American values.
These factors continue to predict favorability toward Cruz and Trump even after controlling for other factors associated with political attitudes and electoral choices, including the age, gender, race, education and income of voters.
With Trump versus Cruz, the GOP faces a Hobson’s choice between two types of extremes. Which is the riskier bet for the future of the party – and indeed for America and the world?
Cruz’s support now appears to be lagging, while Trump has surged in recent primaries, so Trump may get a majority of delegates in the first round at the Republican convention. If the contest goes into a second round, however, the answer for Republican delegates probably depends upon whether they are most fearful of the dangers of authoritarian populism or neoconservatism.
Pippa Norris, ARC Laureate Fellow, Professor of Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney and McGuire Lecturer in Comparative Politics, Harvard University
The long-anticipated Captain America: Civil War has just hit Australian cinemas. The latest instalment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe brings to a head a problem that has been brewing for years: whether superheroes should be directed by government organisations.
The movie carries on from a disastrous battle in the fictional country of Sokovia in Avengers: Age of Ultron. In response to the enormous loss of life and property detailed over the previous Avengers movies, the United Nations demands the superheroes submit to registration and oversight by a UN committee.
The Avengers split into two duelling teams, led by the anti-authoritarian Captain America (Cap) and the pro-regulation Iron Man. A vast supporting cast brings in heroes from across the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and a political and personal crisis plays out in a series of knockout fight sequences.
Superhero movies – at their best – reflect the political anxieties of our time through a lurid mythology. This movie grapples with governmental control, overextended police powers and bloated bureaucracies that protect their members from any personal accountability when things go wrong.
The very premise of a superhero narrative, after all, is political. It relies on a recognition of the state’s insufficiency: if the authorities were doing their jobs, why would we need superheroes?
Captain America: Civil War doesn’t rely on super-villains to endanger humankind: the real enemies are power-hungry politicians, and the heroes themselves as their personalities clash in some of the best choreographed action scenes since The Raid (2011).
Captain America (Chris Evans) and Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) go head-to-head.
Supplied
Patriotically anti-authority
Heroes have always been part of our cultural imagination, adapting to fit contemporary ideologies. This is particularly true of the Captain America character, whose very name is politically loaded.
Cap’s anti-authoritarian streak has been stirring since Captain America: The First Avenger (2011). In The Avengers (2012), we saw the shady World Security Council authorise a nuclear attack on Manhattan.
In Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), Cap discovers that SHIELD, the organisation he works for, has been corrupted by Nazi splinter group HYDRA. The World Security Council is helpless to stop them. Cap’s distrust of oversight indicates that administrators are not objective. Nor are they incorrigible or accountable.
The problems the authorities are trying to fix in superhero vigilantism aren’t solved by creating more bureaucracy, but transferred to committees that lack the personal accountability of individual heroes.
Despite good intentions, Cap’s movie history shows that any organisation can be corrupted – and, ultimately, individuals have to decide if their leaders are trustworthy. While other characters would ask: “Who watches the watchmen?” Cap asks: “Who watches our watchers?”
Both previous Captain America movies (and the comics they’re drawn from, published in 2006-7) have echoed the real-world War on Terror and the increased state powers assumed since the PATRIOT Act.
Cap has previously rejected increased surveillance; criminal profiling; data collection; and pre-emptive strikes. Most of all, he denounces using fear as a tool to control a society.
Captain America: Civil War is similarly coded with terror culture. Cap objects to declaring uncontrolled superheroes as criminals; to imprisonment without trial; the over-arming of soldiers and police; and inevitable subsequent deaths.
These are real anxieties of our terror age, articulated through superhero mythology.
The Civil War story is only the most recent example of Cap’s resistance of the state. He’s rebelled against political regimes in comics released during the Nixon, Reagan, and Bush Jr. administrations.
In these comics, corrupt politicians attempt to harness him as an agent, but Cap goes rogue, fighting for his own ideals. He rejects the assumption that the name “Captain America” is a conservative moniker, and uses his own cultural leverage to publicly criticise the state.
Captain America: Civil War is definitely designed for fans who’ve been following the Marvel Cinematic Universe for some time. For the faithful, there’s an emotionally charged narrative, a complex political crisis, a witty script, and a genuinely intriguing plot between its phenomenal action scenes.
To dismiss superheroes in blockbusters as superficial ignores the fact that these movies can be meaningful, both personally and politically. Civil War manages to fit all this together. Despite being about a team divided, the movie unites its many ideas.
Jesus Christ was not a socialist. Nor was he a free-market capitalist (as one would hope should go without saying). Whether or not one believes him to be the Son of God he was a first-century Palestinian Jew living under Roman imperialism, and influenced by that very specific context of pre-modern politics and apocalyptic religion. Jesus lived before market capitalism, before the scientific and industrial revolutions, before the eighteenth-century language of human rights, and before a coherent modern philosophy of materialism. That he could be thought of as either a socialist – or a capitalist – is a presentist category mistake that imposes and projects our political milieu unto the very distant past. Jesus could have been neither of these things for the simple (and one would think obvious) reason that neither of them existed at the time he lived. At most, it could perhaps be entertained that he was a type of anarchist, though a very odd one who encouraged you to pay your taxes. As a means of political rhetoric (claiming Christ for whatever your narrow partisan side may be) it exhibits a lack of critical thought and historical context.
It’s a given in our national discourse that the right excels at claiming Jesus as a member of their own party. Jesus is enlisted as an anti-choice agitator or as an opponent of gay marriage, despite the fact that he never said anything about abortion or homosexuality. Even more incongruously he is enlisted as a type of Norman Vincent Peale enthusiast for a very capitalist prosperity gospel, certainly an odd interpretation for a man who lived communally and abjured the rich. But a resistance to wealth alone a socialist does not necessarily make, and such an interpretation can lead to a similar category mistake as the ones made on the right. As such, the left can sometimes fall into the same fallacious reasoning that pretends a two-millennia old religious figure’s modern voting preferences can be somehow ascertained. Witness the preponderance of Internet memes that proliferated upon the announcement that the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences had invited Vermont senator and Democratic primary candidate Bernie Sanders to speak in Rome. Several variations of this meme exist, but broadly they claim something along the lines that “Of course the pope likes the socialist Jew,” explicitly tying Sanders to Jesus in associating the later with the entirely modern economic and political ideology of socialism.
Interpreted in a more charitable way we could claim that such memes are not saying that Jesus was literally a proponent of a modern ideology which he would have never heard of, but rather that this modern political system is more authentically grounded in those ancient teachings. This is not an unfair claim for one to make, and I would of course not discount the power inherent in basing one’s ideology in an interpretation of theology. There are of course venerable strains of Christian socialism that build their foundation on their teachings of the Gospels, but this is different from printing a party membership card with the name “Jesus Christ” on it. And the fact remains that while it’s perhaps impossible to square Matthew 19:24 (“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God”) with supply-side capitalist economics, the socialist finds little succor with the Pauline epistle Ephesians 6:5 (“Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters”).
This is merely to point out that religion is bigger, more confusing, contradictory, powerful and in some ways stranger than to be simply reduced to mere partisan categories, much less to be reduced into matters of political affiliation. One imagines that the first century apocalyptic minded Palestinian Jew would be rather befuddled about the question of where he would fall on the particulars of the Dodd-Frank Act.
Those of us on the left take it as a matter of political fact that it’s tacky when Republicans reimagine Christ in their own image, it can be similarly obnoxious when we do the same. It generates the divisive fallacy of trying to define who is “authentically” the member of any particular religious group, always a boring and losing proposition, which serves to reduce categories and smooth out nuance. What we’d benefit more from is a certain humble self-awareness concerning these questions of “Who Would Jesus Vote For?” a historical category mistake if ever there was one. A parable of humility: During the Civil War an adviser said to President Lincoln that God was on the Union’s side, the president responded that “I do not boast that God is on my side,” bur rather “I humbly pray that I am on God’s side.”
Ed Simon is a PhD candidate in English at Lehigh University, where research focuses on early modern literature and religion. He has written for several academic and general publications, and can be followed at edsimon.org.
After winning four of five states in the ‘Acela primary’ on Tuesday night, Hillary Clinton’s speech focused on collecting Sanders followers for November
In every other primary, Hillary Clinton has downplayed expectations. But Tuesday night, after winning four of five primary races, she was shimmying before she even started her victory speech.
This is the Clinton we got a glimpse of after New York dealt her a double-digit win last week: happy, confident – and campaigning in the general election. And this time her shift toward November isn’t just a blip in campaign rhetoric or a passing swipe at Donald Trump; it’s a call for Democrats to come together.
“We will unify our party to win this election,” an exuberant Clinton told the audience in Philadelphia. “We win by holding each other up rather than tearing each other down.”
This is the de facto end of the primary battle, and as she beamed out at the crowd, she seemed to have nothing but kind words for opponent Bernie Sanders. “Whether you support Senator Sanders or you support me, there’s much more that unites us than divides us,” Clinton offered, running down a laundry list of Democratic priorities she feels she has in common with her opponent, even as he’s worked tirelessly to highlight the daylight between them, forcing her to tack left.
This was the stage of the election she’s been waiting for, and she was all sunshine on stage, referencing Trump only obliquely when she gushed her enthusiasm about how great America is. She had goodwill to spare.
It was by any measure a good showing for the Clinton campaign, but it was an especially good night by the math. Clinton racked up wins in Pennsylvania and Maryland, the biggest pots of delegates of any of the night’s five contested states, helping her cement her already immense lead over Sanders. She also netted the smaller prizes of Delaware and Connecticut.
Sanders’ deficit is already much worse than even her lowest moments in 2008, and after tonight it’s unlikely the Vermont senator can recover. According to an AP analysis , Clinton could lose every race going forward and still win – and that was true after New York.
But the night was not without silver linings for Sanders. He managed to wrest a win from Clinton in Rhode Island, and to present a strong showing in Connecticut as well, though Clinton ultimately pulled out a slim margin of victory.
In many ways, Sanders’ Rhode Island win is intuitive. The population is 85% white, and it was the one state in play with an open primary, an important advantage since Sanders does well with independents (advocates blamed his New York loss on the state’s closed primary and restrictive registration calendar). A difficult economy means more of the disaffected voters comprise Sanders’ base (Trump also won there), and the proximity to water means a resonance for Sanders’ lefty positions on climate, which he drove home in a speech in Providence on Sunday.
But Rhode Island and Connecticut are some of the smallest states in the union. Rhode Island in its entirety, for instance, offers only 24 delegates. And the base Sanders reached there, while an enduring and significant one, doesn’t represent any the sort of inroads to new demographics.
Sanders spent big ahead of the night’s primaries – $4.6m to Clinton’s $2.4 – and he lost big, just as he did in New York. It’s more than a troubling trend: it’s a new, unwelcome reality check for Sanders. Really the only question on the table for the Democratic primary right now is how and when it will end.
Team Sanders has publicly promised to stick it out until the convention, vowing to try to flip delegates and do whatever it takes to win. But privately the senator is thought to be weighing his options. He took a full day away from the campaign trail to go home to Burlington, Vermont, after his disappointing loss in New York, for instance, a move interpreted by some as a chance to recalibrate his strategy after a failed Hail Mary pass.
So far though, there’s no sign that Sanders is backing off as Clinton continues to rack up wins. She’s pulling further – probably unreachably far – away from him, whether or not he keeps up the chase all the way to the Democratic National Convention.
Luis is an upper-middle-class American-born Latino.
When I interviewed him in 2008, he told me he had spent long hours, and a substantial amount of money, restoring a classic Chevy truck. One day, clad in grease-stained work clothes, Luis decided to take the truck for a test drive around his affluent neighborhood. As he cruised past his neighbors' large homes, his truck broke down. He got out to tinker with the engine. As he did, the police arrived.
The officer claimed to be responding to a call from a neighbor who anxiously relayed that an unauthorized Mexican immigrant in an old truck was casing the neighborhood.
Stories like Luis' are not uncommon. And they shouldn’t be laughed off. These racist conventions are dangerous for American society because they prevail and unfold in communities and institutions, like schools and the workplace, that are becoming increasingly racially diverse.
Data and research, including my own work on the Latino middle and upper class, contradict the stereotype that Latinos are overwhelmingly unauthorized, are criminals and are unable to assimilate.
It also suggests these stereotypes have consequences for the mobility of young Latinos, a growing segment of our population whose integration is critical to the social, political and economic vitality of the United States.
This year’s election has only added to the problem.
The Mexican government is forcing their most unwanted people into the United States. They are, in many cases, criminals, drug dealers, rapists, etc.
Contrary to what you hear on the campaign trail, Mexican immigration to the U.S. has fallen below zero. A recent Pew Report finds that between 2009 and 2014, more Mexicans left the U.S. than entered. Latino population growth in the U.S. is now being driven by births, not immigration. In fact, the majority of Latinos in America are not immigrants. Nearly two-thirds of Latinos in the U.S. were born in America.
Latinos are also younger than any other racial or ethnic group. The median age of Latinos is 29, compared to 34 for blacks, 36 for Asians and 43 for whites. And the share of young U.S.-born Latinos is growing. Today, some 800,000 U.S.-born Latinos enter into adulthood each year, and the median age of U.S.-born Latinos is only 19.
The youth of this population means that they are a demographic critical to all aspects of our economy and civil society. As the white population ages and baby boomers exit high-skilled jobs en masse, Latino youth are poised to sustain our economic, social and civic institutions. They will be going to college and filling the jobs the baby boomers depart. They will pay taxes, contribute to Social Security, start businesses, begin families, buy homes and vote.
Nearly half of all eligible Latino voters are millennials. They are the main drivers of growth among Latino eligible voters.
The presidential primary voting in five eastern states April 26 underlines the importance of the Latino millennial voter. In Pennsylvania, the state with the 13th-largest Latino population in the nation, 41.3 percent of Latino eligible voters are millennials. In Connecticut, millennials represent 39.2 percent of Latino eligible voters. In Maryland, they are 41.9 percent of eligible Latino voters, in Rhode Island they are 44.2 percent of Latino eligible voters and in Delaware their share is 47.4 percent.
Increasingly attend college
The presence of young Latinos is also evident in America’s educational institutions. Latinos make up nearly one-quarter of the children enrolled in public schools, and they comprise a growing share of students on college campuses.
Although Latinos still lag behind other groups in earning a college degree and educational barriers are substantial, the Latino high school dropout rate has reached a record low. The number of Latinos ages 18 to 24 in college increased by 201 percent between 1993 and 2013. During the same period, college enrollment increased 78 percent among blacks and 14 percent among whites.
Fabiola Santiago graduates from UCLA.
REUTERS/Jonathan Alcorn
The majority of these young Latinos have at least one immigrant parent, and many are the first in their families to enter college. My research on socially mobile middle- and upper-class Latinos, and that of others, demonstrates the challenges that they will likely confront as they navigate an environment where nativist rhetoric at the national level hardens racial and ethnic boundaries at the local level and plays out via implicit and explicit bias and institutional racism.
Mobility challenges
The middle-class Latinos I have studied have college degrees, they work in professional occupations or own successful businesses. They make incomes well above the national median income of US$51,939. Some Latinos have even entered into the top one percent of income earners. Los Angeles is a case in point, where seven percent of people in the top one percent of income earners – those making a total personal income of $421,000 or more – are Latino.
Despite their accomplishments, some middle- and upper-class Latinos report having to constantly deflect the criminal, unauthorized and immigrant labels, leading them to question whether they belong in prestigious educational institutions or the white-collar workforce. Consistent with the disparaging stereotype bolstered by Trump, they may be viewed as dangerous criminals – as Luis' case demonstrates – or low-skilled immigrant workers, even though they are American-born and economically successful.
As part of my study of middle- and upper-class business owners, I interviewed Richard Ruiz, owner of a successful investment banking firm. He relayed an incident at a networking event where a fellow attendee asked him, “Oh, can you bring me a water?”
Others shared experiences where they were mistaken for table bussers when dining at restaurants or valets when waiting for their cars on the curbs of swanky restaurants.
My respondents also face a glass ceiling in both corporate America and in business, where some report being passed over for promotions, jobs or business opportunities, despite being extremely qualified.
Negative stereotypes may also lead to barriers when those in positions of authority exclude Latinos from networks and opportunities that provide entrée into positions of power, including managerial and executive positions and seats on corporate boards. In 2013, only two percent of all CEOs at Fortune 500 companies were Latino. In addition, Latinos held only three percent of board seats in the Fortune 500. Seventy percent of Fortune 500 companies did not even have one Latino person on their board.
Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric is already materializing in an institution that is crucial for the mobility of Latino youth: schools. His campaign is emboldening some to bully and harass students of color. Racist chants like “Donald Trump, build that wall” are being hurled at Latino and black athletes.
On college campuses around the country, Trump’s supporters are “chalkening” racist messages like “Build the wall, deport them all.”
A two-way process
Integration is a two-way street. As a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences on immigrant integration emphasizes:
The process of integration depends upon the participation of immigrants and their descendants in major social institutions such as schools and the labor market, as well as their social acceptance by other Americans.
Racist political rhetoric hinders social acceptance, creates a climate of fear and legitimizes discrimination.
As young Latinos increasingly enter America’s core social institutions, like schools and the labor market, and as they represent a burgeoning share of Latino eligible voters, a strong message is being sent that they do not belong. Politicians can hold up their end of the integration obligation by conveying that the growing population of young Latinos is essential to our collective future.
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. But apparently a woman scorned is also the foundation of a creative tour de force.
On HBO this past Saturday – in a time slot generally reserved for feature films – Beyoncé released “Lemonade,” a series of music videos compiled into a short film that’s both eclectically cinematic and starkly personal. The songs and accompanying visuals are laced with poetry; each offers historical and psychological codes for hurt, betrayal, depression and renewal.
The story begins with her suspicions of a cheating husband. By the next vignette, we know he’s been untrue.
As a professor of representations in media, I get to spend my days diving into popular culture, and picking apart why it inspires and entertains us.
In “Lemonade,” Beyoncé contrasts her life as a deity with the struggle of being a black daughter, wife and mother. At a time when race, gender, sexuality and politics are merging in her public life, they are also colliding inside of her home. In Beyoncé’s case, this collision leads to familial strife ending in hard-fought reconciliation.
Where Prince had “Purple Rain” and Michael Jackson had “Thriller,” Beyoncé, with “Lemonade,” now has her own authentic, self-reflective masterpiece.
A gift from mother to daughter?
In “Lemonade,” betrayal chips away at Beyoncé’s self-identity and, at points, sanity. Who is in the house when she’s not there? What secret is her husband hiding? Who is this bifurcated man – a good father during the day who, in the middle of the night, contributes to his family’s demise?
In one of the vignettes, she says she knows he’s been cheating because she sees him behaving in the same suspicious ways her father did when he cheated on Beyoncé’s mother.
Although some might critique Beyoncé for airing her dirty laundry, others could argue she’s using “Lemonade” as a teaching tool for her daughter, Blue Ivy.
In one sense, Beyoncé is telling a story of recognition and rebirth to her daughter in the best way she knows how – through song.
In another, she’s surrounding her daughter with a support system that all women need as they navigate becoming women. In “Lemonade,” tennis icon Serena Williams, intersectional feminists and actors Amandla Stenberg and Zendaya, and Somali-British poet Warsan Shire make appearances; all have stories to tell of being broken, experiencing a rebirth and emerging stronger.
While women of all races can relate to stories of infidelity, “Lemonade” isn’t made for them. Instead, it is a mature lyrical epic of the journey black women take – the attempt to triumph in a world that frequently tells us we are not enough.
Within black families in America, a legacy of struggle is passed from one generation to the next. A dominant trope is that the mothers in this community are the ones that make the sacrifices. They are the ones that must stay, persevere, and succeed – even when their fathers or husbands mistreat them or leave.
This is the story Beyoncé is telling. And by interweaving these confounding societal structures, it makes her husband’s betrayal all the more poignant.
The most disrespected person in America is the black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the black woman. The most neglected person in America is the black woman.
Their smiles convey resilience in the face of nearly insurmountable odds.
For black men, society cultivates insecurity
While Jay Z’s suggested infidelity isn’t excused, the mothers of Trayvon Martin, Mike Brown and Eric Garner appear in “Lemonade” to remind viewers that the black man, too, has been literally broken and beaten.
Their sons, killed for simply looking or acting suspiciously, now symbolize the pervasive fear black male persons feel. The toll this takes has been highlighted by social work scholars Christopher Salas-Wright and Trenette Clark, who have shown how the disrespect and hostility of racial discrimination negatively impacts mental health of black men.
How could any man – even a man as wealthy and famous as Jay Z – retain his psychological security in a world that cultivates his insecurity?
Of course, it is from “Becky with the good hair” (the other woman, according to Beyoncé). What more does a man who has everything need? More validation of his masculinity, of course.
By the end of the piece, it does appear that Beyoncé has forgiven her husband and father, deciding to let love heal the familial wounds.
Her decision to forgive – but clearly not forget – is her choice. This is significant, too: Beyoncé’s black feminism celebrates the ability of black women to choose out of love, not necessity.
The story of Beyoncé healing her black family is one of those rare moments where an artist ascends to icon status.
And by telling her truth, Beyoncé takes what is bitter and gives it new life, setting herself, her mother and her daughter free.
Donald Trump is the Republican establishment’s worst nightmare, but the GOP leadership can’t find a way to stop him.
Tuesday night provided the latest example. The New York billionaire swept all five of the GOP primaries, winning Pennsylvania, Maryland, Connecticut, Delaware and Rhode Island.
Trump’s victory margins were particularly telling. Until lately, he had only managed to win primaries with a plurality of the vote. For example, he won New Hampshire with 35 percent of the vote, South Carolina with 32 percent, Michigan with 36 percent, and Illinois with 38 percent. Even in Florida, Trump’s home away from home, he was held under 50 percent.
Trump’s inability to win a majority of the vote in the early primaries gave the Republican establishment hope. The idea was that if they could find an anti-Trump candidate to coalesce around, they could block his path to the nomination.
A majority candidate
Dump Trump? Not likely.
REUTERS/Jim Urquhart
But Trump is no longer merely a plurality candidate. The first breakthrough came in New York on April 19 when he carried 60 percent of the vote, a smashing victory. New York opened the floodgates. On Tuesday night Trump won large majorities in each of the five GOP primaries. He carried Connecticut with about 58 percent of the vote, Delaware with 61 percent, Maryland with 55, Pennsylvania with 57, and Rhode Island with 64.
Trump’s victory margins exposed the weakness of the non-aggression pact Ted Cruz and John Kasich struck on Sunday. In a much ballyhooed agreement, the two Republicans pledged to work together to stop Trump’s momentum in the final primaries.
But Tuesday night’s results suggest that their efforts are too little, too late. A one-on-one matchup won’t help Cruz or Kasich if Trump keeps winning primaries with more than 50 percent of the vote.
Making matters worse for the “Stop Trump” movement, the upcoming primaries do not look promising for Cruz or Kasich. The latest polls show Trump with a 5-point lead or better in Indiana, which holds its primary on May 3, and the polls suggest he has a 25-point lead in both California and New Jersey, which hold their primaries on June 7.
Consequently, for all the talk of a brokered GOP convention in July, the likelihood is growing that Trump will secure the 1,237 delegates he needs to clinch the nomination.
Not the GOP of old
So why hasn’t the “Stop Trump” movement worked?
The reason is because the Republican party is changing before our eyes. In the modern era, Republicans have traditionally embraced three core ideas: social conservatism, libertarian economic policies, and the aggressive use of American military power abroad.
But none of those ideas have resonated with Republican voters this year.
Start with social conservatism. If Republicans had wanted to promote a conservative social agenda in 2016, Ted Cruz was the perfect candidate. The son of a minister, Cruz has made opposition to abortion and same sex marriage central themes of his campaign.
But even in the archconservative Deep South, Republican voters have largely rejected Cruz. Instead they have chosen to support a thrice-married, foul-mouthed, reality TV star who does not seem to attend church regularly.
Likewise, small government conservatism has also fallen by the wayside in 2016.
If Republicans wanted a budget balancing, tax cutting, free market conservative, John Kasich would be the ideal choice. A successful GOP governor of the swing state of Ohio, Kasich spent 18 years in Congress, where he served as chair of the House Budget Committee and developed a well-earned reputation as a budget hawk.
Yet, Kasich is running a distant third in the GOP primaries. He’s losing to a New York billionaire who wants to massively increase government spending on everything from border security to infrastructure projects.
But perhaps most striking of all is Trump’s apostasy in foreign affairs.
The contrast between Trump and past Republican presidents is stark. Reagan bombed Libya, invaded Grenada and told Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall. George H.W. Bush invaded Panama and expelled Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. And George W. Bush invaded Afghanistan and Iraq.
Trump, in contrast, wants to leave the Middle East to Vladimir Putin’s Russia and openly questions the value of NATO.
Trump’s GOP
In short, Trump is creating a new Republican party, one that is deeply pessimistic about America’s prospects at home and abroad.
Under Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, the old Republican party supported free trade policies, NATO’s containment of the Soviet Union and amnesty for 3 million unauthorized immigrants.
In contrast, Donald Trump’s GOP is a party that advocates trade protectionism, isolationism, and severe restrictions on immigration. In an implicit rejection of Reagan’s “morning in America” optimism, Trump warns that “the American dream is dead” and “we’re becoming a Third World country.” For all his bluster about making America great again, Trump’s GOP is a party that has lost its faith in America.
If the polls are any guide, Trump’s approach is not likely to work in November. He began the primaries with the highest unfavorability ratings of any candidate in history and his standing with the general public has only gotten worse with time. Today 70 percent of women and 67 percent of Americans overall view him unfavorably.
But a critical mass of Republicans back him and he’s riding that support to the GOP nomination. Therefore, no matter what happens in November, Trump will leave a deep and lasting impression on the Republican party long after the 2016 election is over.
Bernie Sanders said something he wasn’t supposed to say : that poor people don’t vote. Although it’s true that voter turnout is inversely correlated with income, all anyone wanted to comment on was that Sanders looked defensive and deflated on Meet the Press, where he made the statement on Sunday. Lost was the fact that this is a truth we should be struck by, ashamed of even, and should do more about.
The impolitic remark came in response to a question about why the candidate had been losing so much in the places he should have been winning (he’s lost 16 of the 17 states with the highest levels of income inequality). The most straightforward thing for him to say would be to acknowledge that he hasn’t performed well with minority voters who tend to be less affluent. But he didn’t want to say that on television. Instead, he decided to talk about something else that’s actually more important than where he, personally, is up or down.
He said: “Poor people don’t vote. I mean, that’s just a fact. That’s a sad reality of American society”. He also noted that “80% of poor people did not vote” in the 2014 election.
On the airwaves he was chided for acting like an analyst rather than a candidate and for bringing his campaign down to reality in all the wrong ways. Fact checkers immediately aimed to set the record straight only to discover that Sanders claim was “mostly true” or even, looked at comprehensively, totally correct.
What Politifact found was this: “In 2014, about 75% of people who made under $10,000 and about 69% of those who made under $30,000 didn’t vote. If we look at financial insecurity, however, Sanders is right on the money.”
Of course, financial insecurity should not, in fact, be excluded from an analysis of whether poor people voted in 2014. Sanders’ observation is as valid as it is disturbing.
Only 36.4% of eligible voters voted in 2014. Turnout was historically low, the lowest our country’s seen in 72 years . Typically nonvoters are overwhelmingly the less educated, the less affluent, the racially and ethnically diverse and the young, according to an analysis by Pew.
That means last election cycle was a record-breaking bad year for disadvantaged communities. Sanders performs well with some of those communities (young people, for instance) and very poorly with others (African-American voters). A Washington Post analysis confirmed what we already know and have known for months: Sanders real problem is less with poor voters than with African-American ones, who are statistically more likely to be low-income.
That he’s losing and will acknowledge he’s losing isn’t a revelation – he’s been losing since the race began. But hell hath no fury like an unfortunate utterance on a Sunday show and in this unguarded moment, he’d cast something obvious and uncomfortable for him in a new light.
It was an admission that his revolution had failed. What’s more, it had failed in its express purpose of firing up, enfranchising and ultimately empowering America’s poor and disadvantaged.
If Sanders has failed to motivate the less affluent broadly speaking, he’s essentially failed to fix an entrenched problem in American democracy with what amounts to a phenomenally successful, but probably ultimately not successful enough, insurgent campaign.
Perhaps, we ought to spend more energy figuring out how to more fully realize our democracy rather than tally all the ways he fell short of fixing it. Barriers to voting like long wait lines and strict voter ID laws contribute to the effect, as does the potential for the increased use of provisional ballots among minorities. Reform in those areas would have meaningful effects.
As Danielle C Belton explained in The Root , it is those who most need representation that are denied it. “The reason politicians ignore so many of the working poor is that they don’t vote”, she writes. “And the reason so many of the working poor don’t vote is that certain politicians have made sure it’s as inconvenient as possible for them”.
That, not some “gotcha moment” about how Bernie Sanders is losing, is what we ought to be talking about.
This story was co-published with The New York Times. During my many years as a correspondent in Mexico, some of my best reporting happened around dinner tables. So on a recent trip back, I dined with a range of old contacts to catch up on how Mexico was handling its most pressing challenges, like the 2014…
With her new album, Beyoncé became the ultimate survivor – and made her husband the most hated man in the country. Hillary Clinton could learn from her
As the 2016 presidential campaign grinds past April and lurches toward convention season, it’s a true blessing to have cultural moments like a new Beyoncé album to distract from how tedious, worrisome and contentious the whole process has been up until now. I can try to forget that the nation teeters on the brink of electing an undulating orange sphincter as president while I watch Bey work through her own, far more personal nightmare scenario: her husband’s infidelity. If Beyoncé can get past the trauma of being cheated on, America should be able to survive beyond November. Beyoncé is the ultimate survivor, defined by her strength in the face of adversity. Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, might need a bit of that resolve if she’s going to get through the next few months.
Hillary knows a few things about the trauma of a husband breaking his vows and the subsequent necessary self-healing. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that Hillary ran into the woods or demolished a load of cars with a baseball bat when she heard the news that her spouse – the leader of the free world – violated her trust. Instead of releasing an album of caustic rebukes and introspective malaise accompanied by an epic short film, she dropped a memoir called Living History in 2003. It was Lemonade without Serena Williams, Zendaya, explosions, dozens of costume changes, and highly woke intersectional feminism . In truth, it was a book by a rich, old white lady, but close enough.
In Living History, she explained that her commitment to Bill was tested, but not broken because their connection was too strong, that they’d been through too much together to throw it all away. She managed to explain her decision and own her feelings without looking weak in the process – like a miniature, whiter Beyoncé. The book did wonders for her poll numbers and helped her cast aside the political negatives associated with Bill’s betrayal, but eventually, he came out of whatever Axe Body Spray-scented lair he was hiding in and started campaigning for his wife as she sought to fulfill her career ambitions, whether we all liked it or not. During the 2008 Democratic primary, Bill spent much of his time talking down to Barack Obama, further cementing his reputation as a southern-fried narcissist. He called Obama’s record a “fairy tale” and compared his campaign to that of Jesse Jackson’s failed candidacy in 1984 and 1988 . He looked and sounded out of touch and more than a little sad.
Seeing Jay Z in Beyoncé’s HBO special is the pop music equivalent of Bill Clinton popping up on the trail to mansplain his way through a stump speech. When Jay came into the narrative, his face was met with teeth grinding, face-palming and a varied collection of expletives from my wife. “I would have dumped his ass,” she said as it became apparent that this new record was not being delivered in a sealed manila envelope via process server. There would be no epic divorce announcement, just a melancholy realization that it’s easier to get through life with a partner. In my wife’s eyes, Jay’s appearance and the themes of reconciliation explicit in the final act of the narrative grant him absolution from his crimes. Never before have I seen her so perturbed by something expelled from the creative womb of the Bey-gemony.
The choice to “stand by your man” is surely not an easy one. When Hillary Clinton gave Bill a second chance, her supporters labeled her brave, but her detractors claimed it was a cynical choice dictated by her political ambition. The conventional wisdom was that she couldn’t be divorced and ascend to the presidency. With Beyoncé, her decision to stay seems out of character for the singer who brought us Single Ladies and Flawless . Forgiveness isn’t very fierce at first glance. She smashes up a car with a baseball bat: it’s logical to ask why she wouldn’t choose to do the same to her husband’s genitals. That this woman so many revere and shower with acclaim would follow a path that appears from the outside to be against her best interest drags her down to our sordid level. It’s a bit like the Greek god Zeus disguising himself as a human and living on Earth for a laugh. Actually, it’s more like Superman II , wherein the Man of Steel relinquishes his power (and, by default, his responsibility to defend humanity) in order to carry on a romantic relationship with Lois Lane. Instead of a holographic representation of the feminist will to power, Beyoncé appears as real flesh and blood – fallible, sentimental and ruled by contradictory impulses. What is Beyoncé if she’s not a meta-human avatar for every young woman to aspire to?
There’s still something of the otherworldly in Beyoncé, though, because she was able to perpetrate the most elaborate diss in hip-hop history in almost total secrecy. Her husband is now one of the most hated men in the country thanks to this album. If she had dumped him, would it have been all that much worse than what she already did, exposing his crimes to the world through the magic of song and dance? I can’t imagine listening to Jay Z perform Big Pimpin’ without either laughing or booing (or both at the same time). How does one portray an unflappable media mogul and ex-gangster after being torched to such an extreme degree? Well, maybe Bill Clinton knows. You never saw the man touch a saxophone after his impeachment hearing, did you?
The real trick of Lemonade is that Jay Z might appear to kiss Beyonce’s ankles and look forlorn, but he doesn’t speak. He doesn’t rap. He doesn’t sing. He’s been muted. His voice is irrelevant and unnecessary. He exists only to atone, a voodoo doll for every woman’s righteous indignation over being deceived. Anything more would be in poor taste. He forfeited his right to posture when he scorned the most popular music act on the planet. I think many on the left would be thrilled if Bill Clinton took his cues from Hova for the remainder of the campaign. When he chastises young people and Black Lives Matter protesters , you kinda wish he would go back to the Pick-Up Artist convention he stumbled out of.
Beyonce spent years allowing herself to be defined by Jay Z, so much so that she named one of her tours The Mrs Carter Show , in reference to her legal married name. She’s only recently overtaken him in cultural stature as his albums get lazier and hers more complex and artful. Lemonade is a perfect expression of her internal fortitude and a declaration of personal agency, even if the end result for her relationship is something akin to the status quo. Beyoncé does not need Jay Z to help her sell records any more than Hillary needs Bill to help her win the White House.
At the end of the clip for Sandcastles, Beyoncé sits alone at a piano, contemplating her decision to renege on her promise to leave Jay and try to make the marriage work. It’s affecting because it’s framed as her choice. She’s the engine moving the story to its bittersweet conclusion. He doesn’t win her back as much as she has processed the moment and settled on this solution. Hillary made her peace with what Bill did to her and her own “Becky with the good hair” has been able to reclaim her own sense of self in the last few years too . It might be time for another Lemonade moment for Hillary though. Even if America is surprised to see Beyoncé rendered so raw and flawed, but the version of Hillary Clinton we seem to want is not far off from that. We want the one who cries , who struggles and who perseveres through it all – and who does it without her philandering husband getting in the way.
Will Bernie Sanders’s supporters rally behind Hillary Clinton if she gets the nomination? Likewise, if Donald Trump is denied the Republican nomination, will his supporters back whoever gets the Republican nod?
If 2008 is any guide, the answer is unambiguously yes to both. About 90 percent of people who backed Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries that year ended up supporting Barack Obama in the general election. About the same percent of Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney backers came around to supporting John McCain.
But 2008 may not be a good guide to the 2016 election, whose most conspicuous feature is furious antipathy to the political establishment.
Outsiders and mavericks are often attractive to an American electorate chronically suspicious of political insiders, but the anti-establishment sentiments unleashed this election year of a different magnitude. The Trump and Sanders candidacies are both dramatic repudiations of politics as usual.
If Hillary Clinton is perceived to have won the Democratic primary because of insider “superdelegates” and contests closed to independents, it may confirm for hardcore Bernie supporters the systemic political corruption Sanders has been railing against.
Similarly, if the Republican Party ends up nominating someone other than Trump who hasn’t attracted nearly the votes than he has, it may be viewed as proof of Trump’s argument that the Republican Party is corrupt.
Many Sanders supporters will gravitate to Hillary Clinton nonetheless out of repulsion toward the Republican candidate, especially if it’s Donald Trump. Likewise, if Trump loses his bid for the nomination, many of his supporters will vote Republican in any event, particularly if the Democratic nominee is Hillary Clinton.
But, unlike previous elections, a good number may simply decide to sit out the election because of their even greater repulsion toward politics as usual – and the conviction it’s rigged by the establishment for its own benefit.
That conviction wasn’t present in the 2008 election. It emerged later, starting in the 2008 financial crisis, when the government bailed out the biggest Wall Street banks while letting underwater homeowners drown.
Both the Tea Party movement and Occupy were angry responses – Tea Partiers apoplectic about government’s role, Occupiers furious with Wall Street – two sides of the same coin.
Then came the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in “Citizens United vs. the Federal Election Commission,” releasing a torrent of big money into American politics. By the 2012 election cycle, forty percent of all campaign contributions came from the richest 0.01 percent of American households.
That was followed by a lopsided economic recovery, most of whose gains have gone to the top. Median family income is still below 2008, adjusted for inflation. And although the official rate of unemployment has fallen dramatically, a smaller percentage of working-age people now have jobs than before the recession.
As a result of all this, many Americans have connected the dots in ways they didn’t in 2008.
They see “crony capitalism” (now a term of opprobrium on both left and the right) in special tax loopholes for the rich, government subsidies and loan guarantees for favored corporations, bankruptcy relief for the wealthy but not for distressed homeowners or student debtors, leniency toward corporations amassing market power but not for workers seeking to increase their bargaining power through unions, and trade deals protecting the intellectual property and assets of American corporations abroad but not the jobs or incomes of American workers.
Last fall, when on book tour in the nation’s heartland, I kept finding people trying to make up their minds in the upcoming election between Sanders and Trump.
They saw one or the other as their champion: Sanders the “political revolutionary” who’d reclaim power from the privileged few; Trump, the authoritarian strongman who’d wrest power back from an establishment that’s usurped it.
The people I encountered told me the moneyed interests couldn’t buy off Sanders because he wouldn’t take their money, and they couldn’t buy off Trump because he didn’t need their money.
Now, six months later, the political establishment has fought back, and Sanders’s prospects for taking the Democratic nomination are dimming. Trump may well win the Republican mantle but not without a brawl.
As I said, I expect most Sanders backers will still support Hillary Clinton if she’s the nominee. And even if Trump doesn’t get the Republican nod, most of his backers will go with whoever the Republican candidate turns out to be.
But anyone who assumes a wholesale transfer of loyalty from Sanders’s supporters to Clinton, or from Trump’s to another Republican standard-bearer, may be in for a surprise.
The anti-establishment fury in the election of 2016 may prove greater than supposed.
To announce you’re excited about Hillary Clinton is an oddly subversive act, and to suggest others ought to feel the same, even more so.
But following a decisive victory in New York and with her path to the presidency ever-more surefooted, the possibility of the first female president is sinking in. And whatever your feelings about Clinton as the vessel for this achievement, it’s an extraordinary one.
Even Clinton herself will acknowledge she doesn’t have the magnetism of certain politicians, telling feminist writer Lena Dunham memorably of her candidacy, “If you can’t get excited, be pragmatic.” Clinton’s bid for president may not have the dreaminess of Barack Obama’s, but it’s on track to be every bit as historic. And to simply say she would be the first female commander-in-chief is almost too glib. Should she actually win in November, she’ll have overcome a political process that, until Obama, systematically kept everyone but white men from the presidency for the last 220-plus years.
If young Democrats, who champion inclusivity in politics, can’t start getting excited about upending that centuries-old tradition, they – to quote a popular internet meme – are doing it wrong.
Ellen Malcolm, the founder of Emily’s List , which campaigns to get pro-choice Democratic women elected, thinks it’s just a matter of time until even the Bernie holdouts come around. “I think electing the first woman president is going to unleash a sense of emotion and pride from women across this country and from across the world,” she told MSNBC earlier this year. As someone who’s been dealing with the question “Why should I vote for someone because she’s a woman?” for the last 30 years, she should know.
Another exciting plot twist came this week when Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, announced that his boss is currently mulling a number of women on her VP list. It’s a move that, if realized, would shatter the glass ceiling not once, but twice. Yet that it comes as such a surprise that Clinton has multiple qualified women she’s considering underscores how far from representative government the US is.
There are just three Democratic women governors Clinton might choose from. Women, though they make up more than half of the population, hold just 104 of 535 seats in Congress, and for minority women the numbers are considerably worse. There have been just two women of color elected to the Senate – ever – and only one black woman in the history of the institution: Carol Moseley Braun in 1992.
That Veep talk has turned so quickly to progressive favorite Elizabeth Warren, who still hasn’t even endorsed Clinton, is evidence mostly of a shallow bench.
Many of Clinton’s feminist detractors will tell you they want a woman president, just not this woman. But if not this woman, which woman, and how long are they willing to wait?
Even those who can’t appreciate the symbolism of the first woman president, can surely appreciate the political victories of a candidate who’s spent her life fighting for women’s rights. And Clinton has , from leading on developments of the Paycheck Fairness Act to carving out a name for herself around paid family leave, and from working at the Children’s Defense Fund early in her career to speaking up for abortion access and minority rights on the campaign trail.
More, her lived experience means she sees the world differently than her white male counterparts and when it comes to sexism, she sees more. She has a visceral understanding of discrimination, an understanding that’s colored by her experience as someone who’s endured it herself, in politics and in media and in life, for decades and at times to an excruciating degree. Frankly, it’s a miracle she still wants to run for public office.
This election she’s made women’s issues central to her campaign to a degree she didn’t dare back in 2008 but even now she deploys the message somewhat sparingly: “Sometimes, it is choices between people none of whom excite you, but study it enough to figure out. OK, if I vote for this person over that person, I’m more likely to see progress on something I care about,” she told an audience of female fans at a campaign stop in New Hampshire.
In case you missed it, that’s code for she’ll put women’s rights (read: human rights) at the center her presidency. And that should excite you whether you’re a man or a woman, or just a sentient creature with a heart.
