IT WAS INEVITABLE -- POLITICS 2016

I've been steering clear of political discussions this election season.   So contentious!  And demoralizing!  But it was inevitable that at some point I'd start to write about it.  (Stop Reading Now if You Are a Conservative Republican...you won't like this post.)

I'm not going to deconstruct what has happened with the parties and their standard-bearers so far.  I'm actually not all that well-informed about the minutia, as I may have been in past Presidential election years.   I've been watching mostly from the sidelines, reading the occasional article, catching most of the the so-called "debates" and Town Hall Meetings, and seeing the ubiquitous partisan Facebook posts.  I do believe I have the main talking points for each candidate down.

God knows I won't be supporting any of the Republican candidates who I find to be mostly terrifying and diametrically opposed to all I hold dear.  Our values do not align.  At all.  Plus, what can one say about The Donald?  His seemingly successful candidacy as the R frontrunner is such a demoralizing degradation of our political system that I fear for the health of the Republic.  (See?  I told you you wouldn't like this.)

That leaves me with either "Feel the Bern" or "Hill Yes!" which, in turn, leaves me in an unfamiliar and rather squirmy position.  I have never been a true-blue Hillary gal.  Like many, I often have found her to be too politically cautious, too politically expedient.  I parted company with my feminist cadre of friends in 2008 and jumped early and completely into the Obama camp and never looked back.  If he could run again, my response would be the same.  But he can't, so here we are.

Bernie is the Progressive darling of the political left and according to many of my friends, the Second Coming of the Christ, he is so pure of spirit and intention.  Never mind that he hasn't even been a Democrat until relatively recently, having been mostly a local boy done good as an Independent from a chilly and homogeneous Northeastern state which prides itself on irascibility.  The thing is, his "revolution" talk has caught fire  with the "kids" and idealistic left-leaners of all ages.  Plus, he does seem to display a consistency of values and has "walking the talk" to his credit.  I like that.  A lot.

And yet....I don't know how this will play out nationally when push comes to shove in Ohio and Pennsylvania and Michigan and the like.  I'm a Midwest girl from a conservative mostly rural area of northern Illinois.  I KNOW those folks.  They are mostly Republicans or moderate Democrats.  Bernie is not Moderate.  I just don't believe his Progressive momentum will carry the day in areas where people are more than a little skeptical of his list of Liberal bonafides.  Moderate Dems will lean right, not left.

What I like is that his candidacy has pushed Hillary to the left a bit.  She has had to ditch her knee-jerk caution and come out with some positions she might have considered too risky without his nudge.  Is she just being politically savvy?  I don't think so.  I think she says what she believes and not all of it is popular with either side of the Left/Right divide.  Do I agree with everything she says?  No.  But, I'm with Hillary this time.

Unfortunately, being with Hillary puts me on the outs with people I love, many, if not most of whom, are completely enamored with Bernie and truly believe he is the inspired leader of the Uprising of the People.  I believe he has said some very important things and has pointed out some very ingrained problems and hypocracies.  I just don't think shouting about it and being able to fix it are the same thing.  What we will all need to do is clean house in Congress to really get anything to change.  How many Bernie or Hillary supporters are willing to work their butts off for down-ticket races that will put new faces in the Capital building?  Remains to be seen.

Hillary is pragmatic and that's where she and I align.  I am a realist when it comes to the glacial pace of change.  And I have learned in my own life that the person in leadership can't do anything unless those further down the pecking order are with him/her.  One can hold a vision all day long of how things "should" be.  How they are, however, takes a cool-headed pragmatist to admit and then start to chip away at what can be changed little by little over over a long, long time.   Compromises must be made -- not always palatable and not always successfully -- to move the behemoth that is our government forward.

Am I being a pessimist or a realist?  Have I lost my youthful enthusiasms for movements?  Have I become a cynical and jaundiced old fart?  Well, I don't know.  I'm just trusting my gut on this one and I will be happy to be proved wrong if Bernie gets the nomination and wins the Presidency.  I just doubt that will happen.

The other thing I have to admit, but by no means is this the reason I support her -- it's just a happy add-on -- is that Hillary, in spite of having to play like the boys in a good old boys sport, is a woman.  I don't have that many election cycles left to see a woman president.  I'd like to see one -- one from my party.  And I do admit my feminist ire has been raised by the double standard that she is up against.  I admire her gumption to just keep fighting her way to holding an office that is so masculine-centric that for some people the very thought of a woman in the Oval is anathema to Americana.  Sheesh!  Get over it!

I'm watching a lecture series on the 2016 election that is available online presented by the Chair of the Communications Department of the University of Washington.  http://www.washington.edu/alumni/election16/    His last installment was a discussion of Politics and Gender and he outlines very clearly that candidates in presidential campaigns are in the business of emasculating their opponents.   Hillary has a double whammy, since she starts out with those scary girl-parts already and must prove her "masculine mettle" while still demonstrating her feminine side which should be at all times compassionate and comforting and sort of nice (and not shrill -- girls can't yell and flail their arms around like boys can.)  That she should have to walk that tightrope at all just makes me hopping mad.

Well, I'll stop now because I can imagine I might write more political posts between now and November.  So, like I say, if you don't like the Dems, I know you won't like my politics.  But I hope you might still like me.  I'm really nice; I don't yell.

At least, that's the view from here....©