A young man I know is a perfect example of the reason why I desperately hope we do NOT

[tblue37]

nominate Hillary, though I believe she would be a good president. (Not as good as Edwards, but probably at least as good as Obama--perhaps even slightly better, because she knows the levers for exercising power better.)

At 28, this young man, whom I have known since his childhood, is a smart, politically involved fellow who follows the news assiduously—but ONLY on the MSM. He considers anything else to be “leftwing,” “conspiracy theorist,” and “crackpot” now, because deep down in side his own daddy issues has made him into someone who follows only the voice of sanctioned authority, even when he is not aware of how much of a “follower” he is, so he believes only the “MSM can be trusted.” (This is very common, even among many liberals.) He was raised to be a liberal Democrat, but has become less and less liberal over time, mainly because he has been indoctrinated by the media to believe globalization is good and that “liberal” is a dirty word. But still, he does want the Dems to win both houses of Congress and the presidency this year.

He has also been taught to hate Hillary with a hatred so passionate that he says if she is nominated he won’t even go to the polls to vote for the downticket Democrats. In fact, he even said that he might in protest pull the lever for the Republican candidate, especially if it is McCain. (The press LOVES McCain, so this young man has heard and read only glowing stories about him in the media.)

He thinks the world of Obama, and part of his resentment of Hillary is his fear that she will keep Obama from getting the nomination, but even before Obama was a candidate, he despised Hillary for no other reason than that the MSM indoctrinated him to hate her. His hatred is entirely unreasoning. He can’t even give a specific reason for it. He insists it is because she is a “snake” and an evil bitch—which is odd, since he would not normally call a woman a bitch, since his mother raised him better than that, but where Hillary is concerned, all limits on language disappear.

He can’t offer a single reason for considering her a snake or an evil bitch, except for what the MSM says about her. As an example of her being a snake, he says that her “crying” was an act (of course, she never even cried a single tear or sob, but that doesn’t matter).

This young man, like many otherwise likely Dem voters, won’t vote for Hillary no matter what. I point out to him that the federal bench and the Supreme Court are at genuine risk if we don’t get a Dem president and a Dem majority in both houses of Congress this year. No matter. His blinding white hatred of Hillary is so passionate that he is willing to screw himself and his generation forever if that’s what it takes to register his hatred of her. I point out that her positions on the issues are essentially the same as Obama’s, whom he essentially worships, No matter. Positions are not what he cares about. He has been trained, and exceedingly well trained, to hate Hillary.

People wonder why Repub voters vote against their own interests. When I talk to this young man, I understand it completely. His determination to not vote in his own interest if that means voting for a woman he hates for no particularly good reason, just because he has been indoctrinated by the MSM to hate her, is an example of the effectiveness of the MSM’s training of the populace to believe all the utter crap the RW Republican talking points encapsulate. The media incessantly presents the RW Republican point of view, while constantly misrepresenting the liberal Democratic point of view.

We are at a specal moment this year, when the people are so angry that they just might break in our favor in the election. But if we nominate Hillary, I fear that hordes of voters like this young man will either stay home or vote Republican.

[demnan]

1. The problem is

Once Obama is nominated the hate machine will really begin against him too. I think there will always be a hate machine against any of our candidates.

I would hate to see what they would come up with against him.

[jasmine621]

9. The problem is that once the hate-mongerers beat Hillary they won't

even give Obama a wink at the GE polls. This way they keep a woman and a black from the Presidency.

[Vanje]

15. They've been doing it to Hillary Clinton for well over 15 years.

Thats nearly a lifetime for the young man the OP profiles.
The media is only has a few months to demonize Obama or Edwards.
They wont be able to catch up to the decades long job they've done on HR Clinton.

[tblue37]

2. True, but it won't have been going on

for as many years as the indoctrination against Hillary has. He hates Hillary because of those years--decades--of indoctrination.

[tblue37]

3. Sigh. So many "reads" in such a short time gives me the

feeling that people are opening the thread and then clicking away from it almost immediately, simply because it is a longish read. The unwillingness of people to sit still for an analysis is part of our problem. The liberal position is the logical one, but people have no patience for anything longer than a sound bite. The RW noise machine is expert at sound bites, of course.

[tblue37]

18. My bad. The comments suggest that people were

just taking the time to read, think, and respond intellignetly. Sorry..

[terisan]

4. So you are saying that Obama is appealing to the "unreasoning hate" voters?

[tblue37]

10. No--I am saying that "anybody but Hillary" is appealing to

the "unreasoning hate" voters--and that the country is chock full of such unreasoning hate" voters. Among them are many, many people who would otherwise gladly pull the lever for a Dem candidate in the fall--unless that candidate is Hillary.

Unfortunately, to win the election, we need those votes.

[pnwmom]

5. How about the young women? And the older women?

I agree there will be a lot of irrational Hillary-haters if she's the nominee. But I think there will be even more people -- women and open-minded men -- who warm to her as time goes on, just as they have in New York state. And there will be others who vote for her just to spite the crazy Hillary-haters.

Because underneath the Hillary-hate is a lot of good old-fashioned misogyny. And women, and even men, of all ages are sick to death of it.

[tblue37]

11. I hope, hope, hope that you are right about this,

because it is obvious to me that she doesn't deserve this hatred, and that she would make a good president--as would any of our candidates.

But because I believe that unreasoning hate is a strong motivator, I think that in addition to all the people who will stay home or vote against her, we will also have to contend with her unparalleled effectiveness as a GOTV motivator for the Republican base.

[pnwmom]

21. HRC polled 75% of the women's vote in NY state,

leading to more than 60% overall, since women comprise 54% of the electorate. NYC is a blue area, but she also polled well in upstate NY -- red country.

If the Hillary-haters are beating the drums against her in the general election, I expect a backlash against the haters, just as there was in New Hampshire.

[tblue37]

22. I hope so. And of course the Clintons really are experts at winning

elections. I will keep my fingers crossed on that. Reading this response has given me more hope than I had before. Thanks.

[sinkingfeeling]

6. I would say your young man is totally immature. I don't think he is repesentative of most

people registered as Democrats or leaning that way. When one cannot give a reasonable answer for their emotions, I guess I'd encourage him to stay home election day.

[tblue37]

12. Oh, yes--he is very immature, though also very bright.

But have you been reading the DU boards lately? His passionate yet unreasoning attitude is evident in threads and replies all over our boards. I think such immature attitudes are typical among voters, including many voters registered on our side.

I teach college. I see up close how the American educational system has failed to teach young people to think. They are ripe for such indoctrination. I have been teaching since 1970, so it isn't just this current generation of young voters who are unreasoning--but also those who are in their 40s and 50s now. The American people have always been anti-intellectual, as is revealed in the effectiveness of the RW charges against "pointy-headed intellectuals" and the "Ivy League liberal elite."

[sinkingfeeling]

23. I whole-heartedly agree with you. I'm also at an university. I also think we have had a great number

of younger people joint DU in support of Obama, in particular, over the last few months. Most of these avid supporters are the ones saying they will not vote for the nominated Democrat unless it's their candidate.

[robbedvoter]

7. Any dem candidate becomes satan to GOP's saint. At least Hillary knows to fight

kerry didn't. We don't know about Obama. He, his supporters - seem to think his likeability - real as it is - will protect him from the inevitable.

[MADem]

8. The guy is an idiot, then. He's been taught, and he can't 'unlearn?'

I know people who are crummy racists. I know people who are diehard sexists.

I know people who have a perverse and unreasonable dislike of anyone who speaks with a southern accent.

None of these idiots make me 'hope' that a candidate won't be nominated because these fools have been indoctrinated to hate, by the MSM or anyone else.

You are always going to have hating fools. Pandering to them and tiptoeing around them isn't going to help matters.

Tell that idiot young man to fucking grow up, to think for himself, to do his own research, and to vote on the merits, not based on what some loonytunes have told him to do.

[robbedvoter]

13. Great answer!

[tblue37]

14. I do tell him these things--all the time--and he respects my opinion

on every other subject. But on this one subject, he cannot even hear me.

I agree that there are haters of every stripe, but the extreme passion of the hatred agains Hilalry is what stikes me.

Hillary would be a good president, and if she is nominated, I will do everything in my power to help her get elected. I just feel that with her, we start out in the hole to a degree that we would not with other candidates.

[MADem]

25. And with Obama, we have to worry about the racists, and with Edwards, we have to worry about

the 'southern haters.'

That's not even an EXCUSE you're shopping, there.

Let's pander to people who hate women, because we .... what? Might make them MAD?

Fuck them. Fuck people who hate women in power, fuck people who hate black people in power, fuck people who hate southerners in power.

I won't empower bigots of any stripe. I recommend you take the same tack.

Vote for your favorite candidate based on their VIEWS--not gender, not race, not region of origin.

[sufrommich]

16. I had a "democrat" tell me "I'll vote for a republican

before I'll vote for a black man".I also had a self professed "liberal" tell me he's not voting for Clinton because"I just think she's a bitch"See how that works? We will lose morons like this whether it's Clinton or Obama. If we are going to choose our candidates based on the inexplicable fears of the worst among us,it's going to be "white male" forever and ever. There is a lot of blatantly reptilian indoctrination out there,Hillary or Obama.Some people,even those we least expect it from,will vote for ugliness.

[Kucinich4America]

17. The other unfortunate reality for this 28 year old man

Is that there has been a Bush or Clinton in the White House his entire life.

What is wrong with that picture?

[Beam Me Up]

19. The Republicans/Corporatists want either Hillary OR Obama, IMO.

Even if they loose (which they probably won't as they can alter the tally to look as if they won), they win.

EDIT to add: IOW, I think getting either of them the nomination is THE PLAN because they believe they can beat them or more easily make it appear that they have beaten them whether they actually have or not. And even if by some chance they DID get the WH, they wouldn't vary far from the status quo established by the Bush administration.

I'm not going to be the least bit surprised if we have McCain or equivalent in the WH next year. Makes me want to throw everything in my household and kick the dog but that's the way it is looking to me.

[MNDemNY]

20. Must pander to uninformed voters, at all costs!

Gobama! Hope for Change!

[Psyop Samurai]

24. Excellent post, and outside the manufactured reality bubble...

...it is all discernible in an instant. Too bad I lack the patience or skill to lay it out as you have.

It is us against the perception management matrix. Period. Has been all along, still is, and will continue to be.

The brilliant thing about the "Hillary" construction too, is that it achieves a particularly insidious Möbius strip form, wherein the rejection of Hillary on legitimate, self-interested, strategic grounds, gets conflated by those inside the bubble with the fake media-manufactured hate, resulting in a Democratic Tower of Babel - a counter-productive cacophony among people who are not speaking the same language, or even living in the same reality.

k&r :thumbsup:

[Psst_Im_Not_Here]

26. Sounds just like my mother

and sister. There's no particular reason for the hate but, it's there. My mother says she'd hate to be one of Hillary's friends, because they all end up dead or in prison, no actual examples of such a horrid thing to say, but, she believes it and nobody will convince her otherwise.

This is the woman who raised me to be a civic minded, well-read, think for yourself woman! She's a declared independent and always has been. I just shake my head and move on because there's just no way to change her mind. It's truly bizarre!