Liberalism (Bites)

Yeah, THAT’S Democratic.

By J. Wesley ⋅ May 19, 2008 ⋅ Email This Post Email This Post ⋅ Print This Post Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

Susan Estrich, a feminist and high-profile Hillary supprter, recently made one of the most revealing statements of the primary season:

If you can remember that far back, this was supposed to be another one of those “Year of the Woman” elections, the first time a woman was entering the race as the frontrunner for her party’s nomination, with the big question being whether women would see this as the historic occasion it was and abandon their concerns about whether Hillary should’ve dumped Bill over Monica and whether it was her ambition that kept them together.

Consider the assumptions embedded in this paragraph.

    1. 2008 was “supposed to be” a specific sort of election.
    2. The “big question” was whether or not average women would be smart enough to “see this as the historic occasion it was and abandon their concerns about. . .”" Blah blah.

Assumption #1 is rather creepy — a handful of elite opinion makers deciding what sort of election it’s “supposed to be” before the first vote is cast. But Assumption #2 is the more telling. It really reveals the elitism at the core or modern liberalism. In Estrich’s America, voting isn’t a matter of free citizens picking their own leaders. Instead, one’s chromosomes should dictate your choice. I’m amazed she restrained herself from calling anti-Hillary women Uncle Toms.

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Discussion

2 comments for “Yeah, THAT’S Democratic.”

  1. This entire election cycle has been the triumph–or, maybe, could we dream, the high-water mark–of identity politics.

    It thoroughly disrupted the Republican primary; it dominated (more than Estrich, a lifelong identity politics player, could have expected) the Democratic primary…. and now the Democrats are going to have to hash out, let us hope in embarrassing detail, the relationship between the Will of the People, the votes people cast, and the rules the people agreed on….

    It would be deeply, deeply gratifying if the result of this was that identity-group ID became so cumbersomely open to challenge that we could talk about something else.

    Fat chance. But a guy can dream.

    Posted by pgepps | May 19, 2008, 9:40 pm

  2. Feminists have the world’s biggest inferiority complex. Get a look at this NPR commentary from last week:

    http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90447578

    I’m surrounded by non-feminist women who know that they’re respected for who they are and what they do by the men in their lives — unlike Susan Cheever. They don’t feel threatened by people taking an interest in their or their daughters’ personal lives — unlike Susan Cheever. And they don’t feel the need to see another woman succeeding in a “power position” in order to feel validated in their own place in the world — unlike Susan Cheever.

    It’s the feminists who are insecure — it’s the feminists who think their only chance to make it, is to make it about identity politics. And it’s the non-feminists, specifically the Christian ones, who feel secure enough in their callings to be able to judge things without constant recourse to feminist truisms about “what women are valued for.”

    I felt so sorry for Susan Cheever after hearing this commentary last week. How bleak it must be to go through life convinced that the thing that you’ve chosen to value above all others — in her case, her dedication and hard work at being a fulfilled woman in terms of worldly power and success — isn’t valued by anyone who matters.

    Posted by pentamom | May 20, 2008, 7:31 pm

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