Urge to kill rising

Just a minute ago, I sent this email to a friend of mine. I thought it's worth reposting here.

This article about something being somehow spoiled and not-right and anti-women about Obama supporters is WAY too long, but it raises some interesting points: Namely, the point that I want to hurl my computer through a plate-glass window after reading it.

It contains such gems as the following:

“Maggie Merrill, a 31-year-old graduate student in urban studies ... is a Clinton supporter who told me that she will happily vote for Obama in the general election. But, she said, "There is this Obama-mania, where these young men get glassy eyes and start spitting out vague things about how Barack Obama is going to save humanity. Really, have you seen their eyes? It's this faraway look. It's scary."”

So now we’re cult members, huh? Sort of like wild-eyed feminists who see a woman-hater on every corner? Is that right?

And this:

“Obama loyalty, like white masculinity itself, has become normative -– if you're not for him, you'd best be prepared to explain your deviation.”

Yes, that’s right: Obama loyalty—loyalty to a BLACK man—is somehow “like white masculinity itself.” What a beautiful fucking backflip of doublespeak.

And this:

“That does not mean that all privileged white male Democrats are sexist, anymore than it would be true to suggest that all working-class white Democrats (the segment of the party that is breaking for Clinton) are racist. But a lightly disguised uneasiness with female power, as well as the "we love women, just not that woman" rhetoric will be familiar to anyone who has paid attention to the reception of the feminist movement.”

Oh, thanks, that's sweet of you. Thanks for saying we are not all sexist. All Arabs aren't terrorists, either, by the way. You see what that does? Saying "All X aren't Y" implies, without having to actually commit and say "Most X are Y," that in fact, really, "Most X are Y. I mean, come on. You know it to be true."

Also, and: Except maybe it’s not rhetoric? Maybe we think that Hilary has—sadly, because lots of us once liked her—chosen to take the lowest possible road as she has descended into a primal panic over not winning, and THAT’S why we don’t like her?

And this beautiful para:

“Valenti continued, "I pinpoint sexism for a living. You'd think I'd be able to find an example. And I hate to rely on this hokey notion that there's some woman's way of knowing, and that I just fucking know. But I do. I just know." When it comes to feminism, she continued, so much proof is required to convince someone that sexism exists, "even when it's explicit and outrageous. So when it's subdued or subtle, you don't want to talk about it."”

Oh that’s great. “You just know.” Wonderful. I’m a UFO expert, and I just know that there are aliens. So now it’s true. Also, relying on the stereotype of “some woman's way of knowing" (aka "women’s intuition”) to “prove” a point about the existence of sexism in a particular instance is so fucking beautiful and symmetrical it kind of makes me happy.

But so: Doesn’t this all smack a bit of McCarthyism, and the Red Fear of the 1950s? I think so. And of course I will vote for Hillary come November if somehow she subverts the will of the electorate via superdelegate shenanigans and ends up the nominee—I just won't be as happy about it as I could have been if she had run a more hopeful, inspiring, high-road campaign, LIKE OBAMA HAS DONE (which is why I like him).