Source: CVDaily Feed
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“Every night in my dreams, I see you, I feel you. That is how I know you go on.”
—from the song “My Heart Will Go On”, by Celine Dion
No one actually likes Hillary Clinton. Not one person. She is shrill, condescending, insincere and just flat out unlikeable. Those who support her and claim to hold some form of affection for her do so for limited reasons. In short, they hate Republicans. And Hillary and her husband Bill are the idiosyncratic emblems for those who hate Republicans. The Clintons have marched behind the gonfalon of Republican-bashing since they marched into public consciousness in the early 1990’s.
Ahhh, the ‘90’s! The decade that gave us frosted hair, tinted sunglasses, one-shouldered overalls and bucket hats. The decade where the Backstreet Boys piggybacked on to “Baby Got Back” headlong into the 7th rung of music purgatory. The decade in which “Beverly Hills, 90210” was parlayed with “Melrose Place” to numb our brains and give al-Qaeda the motivation to try destroying our way of life.
And then there was that television show that featured four distinctly annoying characters who barely spoke intelligible English, were often in fixes of their own making and basically walked around doing nothing. No, not “Seinfeld”. I am talking about “Teletubbies”.
The PBS station back in Philly used to show Teletubbies at 1 AM on Friday nights. Do you need any more proof that the real target audience was not toddlers, but pot-smoking slackers who grew tired of watching the same “Beavis and Butt-head” reruns over and over?
From this decade of touchy-feely, introspective, life-coached preening came the Clintons. Bubba, the aw-shucks John Kennedy apostle who was a prodigy of the New South; and Hillary, the Chicago-bred, Wellesley-educated feminista who moved to Arkansas with her husband to jazz up the place.
In 1992, they were the future. Both aged in their mid-40’s, they represented what was supposed to be the best of the 60’s generation. Idealistic and ambitious, the Clintons were the antithesis argument for the “Reagan-Bush” years that were steered by the generation that fought and won World War II. They swaggered their way through two presidential election victories, a robust economy, the life-altering explosion of the Internet, the dot-com boom and, from the ashes of the fallen Soviet Union, a belief that a world community was inevitable.
Why do we not look back at those times with glassy-eyed longing? What Svengali-esque trance has been cast on us that we would not want the wife of the man who single-handedly made our lives prosperous and meaningful to be our unquestioned potentate?
Some of it could be blamed on 9/11. We are a different country since that horrific day. Every day since, we live with the knowledge that those who hate us could strike at our core without warning.
I would much rather embrace a more cynical premise as to why we want to leave the 1990’s–and, by extension, the Clintons—dead and buried. I blame (credit?) social networking/media.
The fact is, in today’s age of perpetual monologue, no one really needs a symbol or an ensign to lead them to their bitter, biased monstrous id. Back then, nearly every argument about the Clintons lead to tribal feuds defending or criticizing the First Couple. It was the purest form of polarization that could be found in America.
Today, we can hate anything, anytime for any trivial reason we can self-justify. We can mean tweet or leave hideously cancerous comments on Facebook without need for a muse. We can just do it because we are nasty people freed from the impulse to implement tact, discretion or integrity. Like beepers and VCRs, the Clintons are outdated and no longer useful.
But there is Hillary…still trying to conjure up what the adoring media tritely refers to as the “Clinton Magic”. That mysterious elixir which failed to ascend Hillary to the presidency in 2008 when pitted against an inexperienced community organizer who only spoke in platitudes will certainly work in 2016! After all, her only competition is a 74 year old socialist from Vermont. This is a coronation. The 90’s are back and better than ever!
Uh oh.
The Clinton Magic is a myth. Whatever alchemy once existed within the Kingdom of Clinton, it was Bubba who was the sole apothecary. Hillary was a doppelganger. And that pixie dust that spewed from Bill’s mouth when he spoke had an expiration date on it that has long since past.
Every single day I thank Cthulhu for C-SPAN. Watching Bill Clinton campaign for his wife in 2016 has the same level of cringe-worthy awkwardness as that infamous encounter between Bill Cosby and Sofia Vergara when they both were on David Letterman’s show.
What’s the difference between Bill Cosby and Bill Clinton? Bill Cosby was not the first black president.
Those who supported the Clintons way back yonder would forgive and ignore any transgression, any ideological imperfection or any abuse of power because of their deranged hatred for Republicans. Included in this fortified position was Bill Clinton’s conduct with women.
I cannot state emphatically that Bill Clinton sexually assaulted anyone. I think it is quite clear that he used his immense power base to destroy all who levied charges against him. And it is obvious that Hillary was standing by her man when she helped the Clinton Machine slut-shame any woman who spoke up against Bill.
Back then, feminists and those of a liberal persuasion thought it more important to oppose Republicans than to forthrightly condemn the Clintons and their methods of operation. Those who once laid down with the Clintons no longer want to scratch the flea bites. And the guilt of their fait accompli is all they have left. That and that torturous theme song from “Friends”.
In 2016, young women do not feel a sense of female empowerment by supporting a woman who is a senior citizen and who does not speak to the issues that are deemed current priorities. Hillary does not know the language of those she is failing to woo. An entire generation—jaded, entitled, and self-absorbed—has come of age since our Clinton overlords ruled over us.
To those who we have branded as Millennials, Hillary Clinton is only an artifact from a museum dedicated to a decade no one appears to remember with any fondness.