Thursday, December 28, 2017

Echidne's Pitch to Vanity Fair



What do you think of the idea of Joe Biden running in 2020?  Something along these lines:




Or do you think Biden's history is so tainted by the right-wing propaganda over the years, that he is so much in the pockets of the capitalists that he should rather take up
a) crocheting
b) ice-fishing
c) lobbying?

Which should I propose as a topic for the Vanity Fair magazine, to match this recent take by them on Hillary Clinton?




That is really cutting and great.  Young white women and men suggest that the first woman who got within spitting distance of the US presidency should take up knitting or do more walking in the woods or start teaching alternate nostril breathing.

I have nothing to say here about Hillary Clinton as a politician or as a person.  What I am interested in this post is Hillary Clinton as the first female candidate who almost became the president of this country. 

The smoke and mirrors treatment of her whole career has effectively hidden that fact from our eyes and turned her candidacy into its exact opposite:  The old old same same shit of the powerful in American politics. 

It's not necessary to ignore the criticisms of her to also point out that what she was trying to do would have been path-breaking for the women of this world.  But very few in the media point that out.

To suggest that an older woman in politics should take up knitting, a traditionally female occupation or hobby, will strike future historians as one example of the reason Hillary Clinton did not win the 2016 presidential election.  Old women should be doing volunteer work or knitting.

And of course the video is a joke, and I get it.  But for a joke to be funny one must agree with the underlying hidden assertion, and in this case it just might be a sexist-and-ageist assertion.