USA TODAY International Edition
Insults shadow Clinton’s moment
Why her feat resonates less than Obama’s did
Feminists here to see Hillary Clinton become the first major- party female presidential nominee worry the historic sound of her breaking what she calls “the hardest glass ceiling’’ is being drowned out by insults: “Liar!” “Crook!” and worse.
“We always knew this would happen to the first woman,” says Eleanor Smeal, a founder of the modern U. S. feminist movement. “She would have to be the most qualified, and she would be the most vilified.”
And now, “she alone is catching all the crap — all the sexism, all the misogyny,” said Terry O’Neill, president of the National Organization for Women.
Clinton has been vilified from the floor of the GOP convention — where delegates chanted “Lock her up!’’— to the dark side of Twitter. There, some detractors have moved from casually calling her a five- letter word beginning with “b’’ to a four- letter one beginning with “c.’’
In his convention speech, Ben Carson linked Clinton to Lucifer. In an interview, a New Hampshire state legislator said that because of her inaction during the attacks on U. S. diplomats in Benghazi, Libya, she should be shot for treason.
Whatever the effect of such vitriol, Clinton’s achievement seems less acclaimed than Barack Obama’s eight years ago.
“I don’t think anyone questioned in 2008 what a big step forward that was,’’ says Lucy Beard, director of the Alice Paul Institute, an educational group named for the early 20th- century women’s suffrage advocate.
“I’m disappointed that this isn’t more of a story,” she adds. “Are we more apathetic to gender issues than racial issues?”
A Morning Consult poll taken after Clinton clinched the nomination last month found that only 38% of voters ( 33% of men, 42% of women) viewed it as a “historic moment” for the country. In contrast, Obama’s election as the first black president was widely heralded as a watershed moment in American history, even by those who opposed him.
Analysts suggest reasons why Clinton’s moment seems not as broadly resonant as Obama’s was.
THE SOCIAL MEDIA REVOLUTION
In 2008, Twitter reported 100 million tweets posted per quarter. Users now post about 500 million tweets per day. Some contain content that used to be confined to the walls of lavatory stalls.
For Hillary haters, there is no better megaphone than Twitter.
One example: The actor Scott Baio, who spoke at the Republican convention, tweeted a photo of Clinton standing in front of a sign with the word “count” and her head obscuring the “o.’’
At the convention, he was not only unrepentant but unwilling to accept responsibility. “It was just a picture somebody sent, and I just sent it out,’’ he said, meaning that he’d embedded the photo, which was on the Web, in one of his own tweets. “You make of it what you want.’’
POLITICAL POLARIZATION
Obama rose to power arguing that America was “more than red states and blue states,” but politics has become more extreme during his tenure.
If familiarity breeds contempt, remember that Clinton has been a national figure for 25 years; when Obama ran, he’d been one for less than three.
Matthew Kerbel, a Villanova University political scientist, says the political climate helps explain what he described as the “rancid’’ attacks on Clinton: “What we saw in Cleveland is not typical. The rhetoric is on a different order of magnitude this year.”
Several Republicans pushed back against the “Lock her up!’’ chant, including Sen. Joni Ernst, who said on CNN, “I wouldn’t say that she belongs in jail.’’
CONTRASTING RHETORIC
In 2008, Obama used some of the most deliberately aspirational and inspirational rhetoric in decades, based on themes of hope and change. Whatever the validity of his promises, they made many Americans feel that his election, historic by any gauge, was even more special.
Clinton, in contrast, sometimes has struggled to articulate a vision or motive for her candidacy. Instead, she’s emphasized her résumé and record.
DONALD J. TRUMP
The Republican nominee may or may not have helped his chances by tagging his rival “crooked Hillary’’ — even some of his supporters say they’re uneasy with his insults. But Trump seems to have damaged Clinton’s reputation more than John McCain did Obama’s eight years ago.
‘ LAST PERSON TO BE THE FIRST WOMAN’
Many Americans across the political spectrum felt the election of an African American validated a system in which they had a stake. Clinton’s nomination hasn’t sparked such intensity.
Take Bob Hayssen, 65, town supervisor of Varick, N. Y., and a Republican convention delegate. He says he met Hillary Clinton in 2000 when she visited the Women’s Rights National Historical Park in Seneca Falls and found her likable enough.
Hayssen says he took some pride in Obama’s election and was “ready to give him a chance.’’ And he says he long has favored the nomination of a woman as a major- party candidate.
But now that it’s here, the moment “is spoiled for me,” because the nominee is Clinton.
“She’s about the last person I’d want to be the first woman president, because I don’t trust her,’’ he says. “I’d have loved Condi Rice,” the former secretary of State, “or a lot of other women.”
As it is, he says, the nomination of a woman “is not as big a deal, because it’s Hillary.’’
“I’m disappointed that this isn’t more of a story. Are we more apathetic to gender issues than racial issues?” Lucy Beard, director of the Alice Paul Institute