It's been really interesting (in a ~gloomy kind of way) to see just how much Hillary being a woman instantly undermines the legitimacy of anything she does relative to if we were considering a man in her place.
And the flip side of that is people (and this is actually more likely from men who support her or who are pretty positive on both candidates) completely overlook that social force? "Oh, she lost her ~inevitability, she was going to ~waltz to the nomination" and it's like, no, she absolutely wasn't. There was always going to be a critical mass of people who would kick and scream against her nomination. If Bernie the Special Snowflake hadn't run, then Chafee or O'Malley or someone else would have gotten enough support to justify staying in the race. Not based on anything about their platforms, though they'd have created some platform based on being Not Hillary, but just because there are enough leftist misogynists to vote for anyone Not Her. And it would be harder for her to deal with than it will in the general, because she can't take the gloves off and rip into the implicit sexism for what it is.
LOL that's one of the reasons I never got beyond S1 of The West Wing--the politics just didn't feel... real. Obviously the show had lots of great points, not least a cast of incredibly likable, charismatic characters who were just great fun to watch--but there was just so much of it I didn't and couldn't buy.
Yeah. It's ultimately more like the early seasons of Parks and Rec than it is a political drama, in that it's less about politics than it is about civics. Here is a thing the government does, here are the arguments for and against one or two different ways of accomplishing this thing the government does. But that doesn't fly in a drama that looks like a political drama based on the real world, where the argument isn't between people who have sincere disagreement on the how, but between one group of people who want the government to do its job and another group of people organized around an ideology that actively opposes the government doing its job.
It's still a good show and I love it, obviously. A while back I did a "best of" list that I'm still mostly on board with, if you ever want to try skipping around. Looking back at it, I do think that these episodes were further away from storylines with unicorns made of rainbows The Nice Republicans Who Mean Well, which is probably part of why they work so well for me.
And the flip side of that is people (and this is actually more likely from men who support her or who are pretty positive on both candidates) completely overlook that social force? "Oh, she lost her ~inevitability, she was going to ~waltz to the nomination" and it's like, no, she absolutely wasn't. There was always going to be a critical mass of people who would kick and scream against her nomination. If Bernie the Special Snowflake hadn't run, then Chafee or O'Malley or someone else would have gotten enough support to justify staying in the race. Not based on anything about their platforms, though they'd have created some platform based on being Not Hillary, but just because there are enough leftist misogynists to vote for anyone Not Her. And it would be harder for her to deal with than it will in the general, because she can't take the gloves off and rip into the implicit sexism for what it is.
LOL that's one of the reasons I never got beyond S1 of The West Wing--the politics just didn't feel... real. Obviously the show had lots of great points, not least a cast of incredibly likable, charismatic characters who were just great fun to watch--but there was just so much of it I didn't and couldn't buy.
Yeah. It's ultimately more like the early seasons of Parks and Rec than it is a political drama, in that it's less about politics than it is about civics. Here is a thing the government does, here are the arguments for and against one or two different ways of accomplishing this thing the government does. But that doesn't fly in a drama that looks like a political drama based on the real world, where the argument isn't between people who have sincere disagreement on the how, but between one group of people who want the government to do its job and another group of people organized around an ideology that actively opposes the government doing its job.
It's still a good show and I love it, obviously. A while back I did a "best of" list that I'm still mostly on board with, if you ever want to try skipping around. Looking back at it, I do think that these episodes were further away from storylines with unicorns made of rainbows The Nice Republicans Who Mean Well, which is probably part of why they work so well for me.
Reply
Leave a comment