Saturday, February 11, 2017

The Hillarization of Elizabeth Warren



I coined that term in an earlier post.  It's intended to define the process which the right-wing uses to demonize Democratic politicians who are female.*  That process is harsher than the one used for Democratic politicians who are male.  Much smaller flaws are used and they are greatly magnified by repetition, repetition and repetition.  Just consider how many times Trump in his campaigns called Hillary "crooked."

Now he has said this about Elizabeth Warren:

President Trump reportedly mocked Democrats in a meeting with senators this week for allowing Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) become the face of their party.
"Pocahontas is now the face of your party," Trump said in the meeting, sources told CNN.
Trump frequently called Warren "Pocahontas" as an insult on the campaign trail, mocking her for previously talking about having a distant Native American ancestry.

Remember Trump's imaginary Swedish ancestry?   Well, it's true that we have a cornucopia of horrible stuff to pick when trying to call Trump names, whereas Warren is so squeaky-clean that something like one comment about possible Native American ancestry will be thrown into her face forevermore.

To be honest, I don't have statistical evidence on Hillarization, because too few women have reached high enough a level to be deemed dangerous enough for it, so right now Hillarization is my working hypothesis.  If you see evidence for or against it, let me know.

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*  The same process could work in the opposite direction, too, so that female conservative politicians get attacked for flaws which would not be employed to attack male conservative politicians.