Now that Hillary is launching her "Excuses Why I Lost" book tour, I'd like to debunk one of her favorite excuses: Sexism.
Yes, there were many circumstances outside Hillary’s control that worked against her and effected the outcome in November. And yes, Sexism and Misogyny certainly exist, especially on the Republican side. But they are not among the valid reasons for Hillary's loss. If anything, being a woman helped her. In fact, her gender was the only thing she had to distinguish her from the other corporate Dem candidates.
Many of us, including myself, were excited about the prospect of finally having a woman president, even if it was someone as flawed as HRC. (for the record, I voted for her in the general and abstained from criticizing her after she won the primary.) Sure, there are sexists and misogynists out there. And they suck. But think about it: most of those people were always going to vote Republican anyway, even if the Dem candidate were another male. And the number of voters who voted for her largely because they wanted to make history by electing the first woman president far exceeded the number of people who voted against her specifically because she was female. Even most Republicans are open to the prospect of a female president. Have we forgotten already that Michele Bachmann was leading the Republican field for a time in 2012? Or that Carly Fiorina came damn close to doing the same in 2016?
So let's face reality: If Hillary had a penis, she never would have even made it through the primary! She would have been virtually indistinguishable from O'Malley or Chafee (anybody remember them?). Bernie would have won the primary easily. And we'd have a President Sanders right now. Sanders had the populist progressive energy behind him to beat Trump (as all the Sanders vs Trump polling showed us). But a mainstream corporate Democrat, even one as smart, competent, and experienced as Hillary, did not.
So if that had been a man in her shoes, with the same exact resume, the same exact positions (anti-single payer, anti-$15 minimum wage, anti-free college, etc), and the same exact debate performance, they would have lost to Trump even worse. For example, imagine if that had been Gore or Kerry running against Trump. Do you really think they'd have done any better? And do you really think the right-wing attack machine would have gone any easier on them? No, they would have been relentlessly crucified by both the right and the left, and they’d have lost even more badly than Hillary did. And instead of “Trump That Bitch” signs, we’d have seen something equally mean-spirited and hateful from the far-right messaging cesspool. Have we already forgotten how Gore and Kerry were treated in 2000 and 2004???
But if, oh, I don’t know…, hmm...let’s say...Elizabeth Warren had run, she likely would have cleaned Trump's clock! And then we would have that first woman president we were all waiting for. Because like Bernie, Warren would have attracted millions more of the progressive voters who were disgusted by Hillary's anti-progressive arguments and coziness with Wall Street.
So let's stop blaming sexism for Hillary's loss. Her gender didn't hurt her. In fact, in the unique campaign climate of 2016, it actually helped her get further than an uninspiring centrist candidate like her ever could have gotten otherwise.
EDIT: A lot of people with very poor reading skills are accusing me of referencing her book, even though I didn’t read it. Note: This is not about the book itself. It is about the arguments and comments she has been making while supporting the book. Nowhere in this piece do I even suggest that I’ve read the book. As for using the book cover as an image, what do you expect? This is about the interviews in support of said book. What publicly available image would be more suitable to this topic???