Madame President
NOTE: This essay was originally written in 2016 before the U.S. Presidential Election
“From now on, little girls across America can grow up and know that they too can have a chance at being President. Being a woman won’t inherently make them better or worse for the job as the leader of the free world, but they’ll know that the trail has been blazed before them, and by the way, we shouldn’t forget that it hasn’t even been a hundred years since women got the right to vote in America, we’re not even gonna hit that anniversary for another three years in 2019. But beyond being a woman, as many people have pointed out, Hillary’s basically the most qualified person ever to be nominated.”
- Political commentator Dave Rubin, host of The Rubin Report.
Vote for Hillary Clinton.
I have nothing else to say, vote for Hillary Clinton. If you don’t, then you’ll be handing our future over to Donald Trump. That blathering narcissist is probably one of the worst presidential candidates to run for office. He doesn’t want the presidential office out of any concern for the country, but for the pure self-aggrandizement of such a position. At this point, only the highest office in the land is the most palatable substance to feed his obnoxious ego. Surprisingly, the media mogul who fired celebrities on The Apprentice hasn’t the faintest idea how to run a country. He has exposed the moral bankruptcy of what’s left of the Republican Party, which would rather normalize his hate than stand with conservative principles. He has also exposed the xenophobia of the American people, who would cheer the deportation of 11 million immigrants and a ban on all Muslims entering the United States. The logic behind the Trump phenomenon is that there is none. His following resembles more a religious cult than a political movement, where a messianic hero claims to solve problems real and imagined, but he can only do so at the cost of our submission. Trump is a secular Rev. Moon.
Against him stands Hillary Clinton, the only credible line of defense for our democracy. She may not be perfect, but perfection is nary to be found in any President. The fact of the matter is that Hillary best represents the interests of America and preserving the gains of the Obama Administration. Gains that would surely be reversed, were Trump to take office. Most notably, the Affordable Care Act, which brings us one step closer to a national health care system. Listen, I’m a Bernie voter, so Hillary clearly wasn’t my first choice, nor do I endorse her without reservation, but her advance of liberal causes is respectable enough that I can confidently hand her America’s leadership. Though at this point, choosing between Hillary and Trump is really a no-brainer, I feel it prudent to summarize Hillary’s accomplishments as best as I could for the average reader. While the following is by no means comprehensive, I believe it may help voters in divining what Hillary may attempt as president.
As First Lady
“As first lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton jaw-boned the authoritarian president of Uzbekistan to leave his car and shake hands with people. She argued with the Czech prime minister about democracy. She cajoled Roman Catholic and Protestant women to talk to one another in Northern Ireland. She traveled to 79 countries in total, little of it leisure; one meeting with mutilated Rwandan refugees so unsettled her that she threw up afterward.”
- Patrick Healy, The New York Times
One could say that Hillary redefined the office of First Lady. Of course, there were exemplary First Ladies before her, such as Dolley Madison, Lady Bird Johnson, Betty Ford, and my personal favorite, Eleanor Roosevelt, but Hillary’s ambition, even while First Lady, was such that she could even overshadow her husband. She was so involved, that Bill touted his election to the Oval Office as a two-for-one sale, while the press referred to them as “Billary.”
Her first bold step was the speech she gave in Beijing, China, “Women’s Rights Are Human Rights” for the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women. In the speech, she told international dignitaries from over a hundred countries that the uplift of women was indispensable to the uplift of all humanity,
“What we are learning around the world is that if women are healthy and educated, their families will flourish. If women are free from violence, their families will flourish. If women have a chance to work and earn as full and equal partners in society, their families will flourish. And when families flourish, communities and nations do as well. That is why every woman, every man, every child, every family, and every nation on this planet has a stake in the discussion that takes place here,”
She also didn’t shy away from criticizing the host nation, not directly mind you, but her implicit barbs were well felt by the Chinese authorities,
“Freedom means the right of people to assemble, organize, and debate openly. It means respecting the views of those who may disagree with the views of their governments. It means not taking citizens away from their loved ones and jailing them, mistreating them, or denying them their freedom or dignity because of peaceful expression of their ideas and opinions.”
Keep in mind that the Tienanmen Square massacre had only been televised seven years prior and the Chinese were none too happy about a recent visit to the White House by Taiwan’s president, Lee Teng-hui. So Hillary was taking quite a risk in damaging US-China relations by calling out these abuses in a nation where such abuses are hardly discussed. The New York Times reported at the time, “Ordinary Chinese citizens did not hear Clinton’s speech, which was blacked out on official radio and television.” Those in her husband’s administration were worried about her even going, as Newsweek recalled, “When word reached the West Wing of Hillary’s interest in attending the conference, her husband’s aides saw only the political downside for the president and feared the First Lady would derail already fragile bilateral-relations.” Twenty years later, Hillary headed an investigation into progress for women in China and elsewhere.
Giving a speech may seem small, but it was a part of Hillary’s “soft power” strategy, which defined much of her career. You may find that in the course of her three major careers, it’s often difficult to point to one or two major accomplishments of Hillary, but rather, several incremental ones. While they may have inspired women from various lands to act, the results are more symbolic than concrete. When asked by the New York Times to point out specific foreign policy accomplishments while First Lady, Clinton “responded in generalities more than specifics” and “replied with broad observations.” Ambassador Susan Rice later chimes in to add that Hillary didn’t do the “heavy lifting of foreign policy”, such as “Making tough decisions, responding to crises, making the bureaucracy implement decisions they may not want to implement.” Hillary seems to be the type who works better in coalitions and groups than trying to force a single muscular vision into her goals. This isn’t to say that Hillary is without ambition, but that she knows how to compromise with others in order to get things done, however meager. A natural politician, as well as a complete opposite to Trump’s authoritarian posturing.
Several years before the Affordable Care Act was passed, Hillary fought fiercely to reform healthcare. It should be said that nearly every industrialized nation in the world recognizes the value of a universal health care system. While doing so inevitably requires a tax increase, it helps to lower the overall costs of healthcare. I should also add that the costs of America’s healthcare system often spiral out of control, and we pay more for our healthcare than most other nations who have universal healthcare systems. When Hillary, in tandem with Bill, pushed hard to pass a healthcare bill, it was opposed by many Republicans and insurance companies because it sought to fundamentally upend the very structure of our system, as Bloomberg has explained,
“The sprawling proposal sought to achieve universal health coverage by offering all Americans a standard minimum-benefits package and imposing limits on out-of-pocket expenses, along with broad requirement that employers provide insurance.”
This would, of course, require many Americans to switch their healthcare plans, but those comfortable with their coverage, however lackluster, opposed the bill. They called it “Hillarycare”, and excited fears of “socialism” and “government overreach”, as epitomized by the Harry and Louise attack ads. The attacks were successful in hitting a popular nerve. As Dr. Drew Altman, then president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, said at the time, “You were always dealing with a fundamental underlying dynamic: the American people want change as long as it doesn’t cost them too much or affect them too much personally. The problem wasn’t Harry and Louise. The problem was us.” “Hillarycare” never made it to a vote in the Senate, and the backlash against Hillary’s proposal was so severe that, as Reuters reported, “Republicans in 1994 won a majority in the House for the first time since the 1950’s, and Gingrich became speaker in early 1995.”
Even though “Hillarycare” was never passed, Hillary was able to improve healthcare in a number of lesser ways. One was by helping to get Ted Kennedy’s health care program for children, SCHIP, passed through the Republican Congress. The 1997 program, according to Politifact, “promotes health coverage for children by providing federal funding to the states. The states then put their own money and set rules to provide care for uninsured children.” The late Senator Kennedy said of of Hillary’s role in the bill’s success, “The children’s health program wouldn’t be in existence today if we didn’t have Hillary pushing for it from the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.” According to the National First Ladies Library, Hillary also: increased funding at the National Institutes of Health for research into prostrate cancer and childhood asthma, spoke about the possible affects that Agent Orange may have had on Gulf War veterans, and helped passed the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997, which she calls her greatest achievement as First Lady.
As State Senator
“So when she left the White House and decided to run for the U.S. Senate from her new home in New York State — something no First Lady, not even Eleanor Roosevelt, dared to do — I was blindsided by hostility toward her from some women. They called her cold, calculating, and even “unfeminist” for using political expertise gained as a wife. These were not the right-wing extremists who had accused the Clintons of everything from perpetrating real estate scams in Arkansas to murdering a White House aide with whom Hillary supposedly had an affair. On the contrary, they mostly agreed with with her on the issues, yet some were so opposed to her that they came to be called Hillary Haters.” (158)
- Gloria Steinem, My Life on the Road
Hillary’s ambition would not let her settle for Senator of her husband’s Arkansas. She had to capture the Big Apple itself. She was elected to Senator in 2000, one of the few outsiders to do so. 2000 was an auspicious year for a New York. The eve of the War On Terror. Much of her career would be defined by the actions she took during this state of crisis. Her first was to secure proper healthcare for the 9/11 first responders, the hallmark of her senate career, Politifact reports,
“Soon after the attacks, Clinton and fellow New York Sen. Charles Schumer pushed legislation to aid New York City’s recovery. She also has been a proponent of government programs to track the health of workers who were exposed to smoke and dust at the site. The doctors who monitored the worker’s health credited Clinton with steering $12 million to a Centers for Disease Control program for that work.”
Hillary’s advocacy for the 9/11 first responders was so great, in fact, that she won endorsements for a second term from the Uniformed Firefighter’s Association and the Uniformed Fire Officer’s Association. Newsday quotes the president of one firefighter organization, Steve Cassidy, who said, “She’s been a leader out front on World Trade Center issues, and God knows New York City firefighters were exposed more than any other group and we appreciate it.”
Hillary’s senatorial career may seem more tempered than one would expect, only three bills she sponsored were passed, but this came from a cautiousness born from her healthcare failure in 1993. Jim Manley, a junior staffer for Ted Kennedy has observed, “The senator I saw was someone who was very cautious. She picked an issue and worked very hard to build consensus.” Many Republicans have commended Hillary’s bipartisanship. A former GOP Senator from Virginia, John Warner, has said, “When we had issues, she studied. She was well-prepared, almost without exception. She did her homework, and she was well-prepared. When she spoke, she spoke quite intelligently, factually, and persuasively.” Indeed, Politifact records that 74 bills that Hillary co-sponsored were passed, including most notably, the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009.
Hillary also kept on the fight for better health care. Senator Harry Reid listed giving full health benefits to veterans and the National Guard as one of her finest accomplishments. During her 2008 run for President, Hillary proposed health care reform far more modest than the upheavals of her 1993 plan, which “included an individual mandate to buy insurance.” The individual mandate (which requires individuals to select their own plan instead of an employer), was first proposed by conservatives as a means of combating Hillarycare, in the words of Newt Gingrich, “In 1993, in fighting ‘Hillarycare,’ virtually every conservative saw the mandate as a less dangerous future than what Hillary was trying to do.” Obama himself opposed the mandate during his debates Hillary, according to the New York Times, he called for a mandate for children only. He later adopted the individual mandate for his Affordable Care Act, which, according to Timothy Jost, a professional in health care law, “was modeled after Romney’s Massachusetts plan.” So while neither Hillarycare nor its watered down variant provided the basis for Obama’s health care plan, he learned from the failures of Hillary’s attempt. A health care economist who advised both the makers of Obamacare and Romneycare, told Bloomberg that, “I think the success of the ACA would not have been possible without some of the key lessons learned during the Clinton era debates.”
While senator, On the Issues records that Hillary also voted for the contraception for low-income women (2006), voted for emergency contraception for rape victims (2006), voted for sexual orientation to be added to hate crime definitions (2002), voted against an amendment banning gay marriage (2006), voted against drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (2005), voted to reduce oil use by 40% in 2025 (2005), voted to have 25% national use of renewable energy by 2025 (2005), and voted to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide (2007).”
As Secretary of State
“The next time you hear someone say that the fate of women and girls is not a core national security issue, it’s not one of those hard issues that smart people deal with, remind them: The extremists understand the stakes of this struggle. They know that when women are liberated, so are entire societies. We must understand this, too. And not only understand it, but act on it.”
Hillary’s role as Secretary of State has often been overshadowed by the apparent disaster of intervening in Libya. To be honest, I don’t know quite what to think about that intervention. Perhaps it would have been better not to intervene, but Libya’s problems have as much to do with the Libyans as they have to do with NATO. In any case, much of the criticism at the time was directed against U.S, Ambassador Susan Rice, who fled from being Hillary’s successor as a result.
Libya notwithstanding, Hillary remains among the most praised Secretaries of State in American history. This is because she helped repair the image of America as a gone-alone “cowboy diplomat” that shunned international norms. Hillary continued her reliable policy of coalescing with others to achieve palpable results, which is why her career, while acclaimed, is so subdued. The Los Angeles Times spoke to one former official who said, “She was a fully functioning member of the team. But not a first among equals.” Supporters of Hillary tout that many of the successes in Obama’s foreign policy, such as the Iran Deal, were due to her influence, as Senator Harry Reid has said, “From the agreement to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, to the landmark normalization of relations with Cuba, nearly every foreign policy victory of President Obama’s second term has Hillary Clinton’s fingerprints on it.”
Hillary’s tenure as Secretary Of State was marked by what was popularly dubbed, “The Hillary Doctrine”, which can be best defined as putting women’s rights at the forefront of foreign policy decisions, in her own words, “I want to pledge to you that as secretary of state, I view [women’s] issues as central to our foreign policy, not as adjunct or auxiliary in any way lesser than all the other issues we have to confront.” Speeches may sound superficial, but did they lead to some real results, as Politico explained,
“The idea that Hillary Clinton simply doesn’t sincerely believe in her own doctrine doesn’t just tally with her rhetorical and substantive support for women and women’s rights across decades of public service. After all, this is the secretary of state who elevated the Office of Global Women’s Issues to the seventh floor of the State Department with a special “ambassador at large,” who mandated gender training for all new foreign service officers and under whom USAID programming for women mushroomed. This is the secretary of state who traveled the world advocating for the use of cookstoves to improve women’s health and oversaw the creation of the U.S. National Action Plan On Women, Peace And Security. There’s very little, if any, personal political payoff for Clinton from these far-flung and outward-reaching initiatives; indeed, she was criticized for her attention to what some considered a ‘small-bore’ issue.”
All that being said, her role as Secretary is arguably weaker than her roles as Senator or First Lady, being that it was beset by so many problems. While First Lady, Clinton had no real power, so some mishaps were excusable. While Senator, Hillary may have made the mistake of voting for the invasion of Iraq, but at least she had a progressive record to boot. Much of the instability in the world isn’t Hillary’s fault, as many of the fires were already lit by the time she came to the fore. Yet while I do believe that she did the best she could with what she had, many of the accomplishments that defined her profile as Secretary have come with terrible drawbacks.
For instance, Hillary is credited with helping to support Burma’s democracy efforts by re-establishing diplomatic relations, and for that she deserves praise. In fact, Hillary is the first Secretary of State to visit Burma since John Foster Dulles in 1955, and made no hesitation to meet with its most famous dissident, Aung San Suu Kyi, saying, “It was like seeing a friend you hadn’t seen for a very long time even though it was our first meeting.” In the time since then, however, an ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya Muslims has gone under way, with the Nobel Peace Prize laureate responding with either silence or equivocation.
The initiatives undertaken by Hillary to seek new diplomatic relations with Russia were well meaning. The START treaty to reduce nuclear weapons between the former Cold War powers. Treaties that reduce nuclear weapons make the world safer and ease tension between nations. However, the same bounty cannot be had with the now-infamous “restart” with Russia, in which the word “restart” wasn’t even translated properly. While the effort was well-meant, it hardly stopped Putin from giving arms to Bashar Al-Assad or covertly invading Crimean territory. Of course, it can be argued that Putin was provoked into invading by the ouster of Ukraine’s democratically elected leader, Viktor Yanukovich. An overthrow which was broadly supported by NATO and the EU. I admired the efforts of the Euromaidan protests, but now question whether it was right to remove an “elected” prime minister. No, I didn’t like Yanukovich, but then, I didn’t much like Mohammad Morsi, either, and look what happened when the Egyptians removed him.
By helping to seek a peace treaty between Israel and Gaza to end the bloodshed of their war in 2012 proved that she could negotiate on a dime when it counted. However, none of the long-term grievances that drive these conflicts are addressed by such treaties. Hamas continues to fire rockets at Israeli civilians, while using their own as human shields. Israeli settlements run rampant in the West Bank without pause or reduction. Gazans are still closed off from the world in an unlivable hell, while murderous antisemitism runs rife in the Palestinian territories. The United Nations is often hypocritical in its obsessive focus on Israeli behavior, while America is often incompetent to raise a finger against the Zionist far-right. The sad truth is that we can only do so much to assuage these race hates, as they go back well before 2000, 1967, 1948, or even the twentieth century. That Hillary’s husband came very close to a peace settlement with the 1993 Oslo Accords may make him a good advisor to have around. As Jeffery Goldberg has written, “No one has come closer to achieving peace than Clinton, and it is at least somewhat plausible that, had Rabin lived, and had Palestinians been led by someone other than Arafat, Clinton would today be known as the man who brought an end to the Middle East’s 100-year war.”
The blame for these failures, and others, shouldn’t all rest at her feet, of course, but it tempers some of the laudatory claims made by her supporters. It distorts the portrait of either greatest secretary or worst diplomat. Regardless, Hillary is familiar with foreign nations and foreign crises. She may not act in a way that behooves us all, but she’ll act most capably, if sufficient pressure is provided.
She Is Qualified
“Lawyer, Mother, First Lady of Arkansas, First Lady of the United States, First Female U.S. Senator from New York, Secretary of State: her qualifications for the job are formidable and unprecedented. She has seen the Oval Office from a vantage point that gives her primary executive experience. Her service in the legislative branch was hailed as exemplary because she reached across the aisle for bi-partisan solutions for the good of the country. Her depth of knowledge about policy, international and domestic affairs is second to none. As Secretary of State, she established contact with rulers in 112 countries, setting an example for diplomacy. Regardless of one’s views about her, what she has achieved during this election season has been utterly historic. She became the first woman to be nominated for President by a major political party in the United States and set the bar for future presidential aspirations. (And she did it even though her own mother was born before women had the right to vote.) Don’t take your eye off the ball with all the noisy distractions, she is the only candidate who has served the people in various capacities her entire life. And she has done it capably and of her own volition.”
I like Bernie Sanders, but the dumbest moment of his campaign, by far, was when he stated that Hillary Clinton was not “qualified” to be president. This was in response to an insult that Hillary never actually said. Whether or not you approve of someone for a job is a wholly different question as to whether or not they are qualified for it. We’re electing the President of the United States, not hooking up with friends. On that note, I won’t pretend my views on Hillary aren’t complex (for reasons I’ll get into later), but my reservations aren’t deep enough for me to disavow her on the whole. I can’t afford to and neither can you.
It also isn’t lost on me that, should Hillary be elected, she’d be the first female president of the United States. Of course, it’d be foolish to vote for her simply to put a woman in the White House, however, we can’t ignore the impact of such an accomplishment, either. An election of a woman following the election of a black man would be, as Prince would say, a sign o’ the times. It would mean that American society has changed. Not only in the opportunities afforded to those not originally recognized by the Constitution, but also in the identities of those who we accept to represent us in America’s highest office. I imagine that it’ll be inspiring for many women to see Hillary ascend for the same reason it was inspiring for me to see Obama. That someone who comes from a similar background as I can accomplish so much. I may not agree with everything Hillary’s done, but I’d sure as hell sooner take my chances on her than on the quasi-fascist groper running against her.
Bibliography
Steinem, Gloria. My Life On The Road. New York: Random House, 2016. 158.
Originally published at http://sansuthecat.blogspot.com on October 18, 2016
