Hating Hilary by Cecil Poole
(Note that a terrific article with this title was written by Henry Louis Gates, Jr in The New Yorker in 1996, the hating is not new)
I’ve recently undertaken an extensive research trip into the far reaches of the United States of America. The trip commenced at the Canada/US border just west of Glacier National Park in Montana. Being unable to rent a car in Canada and take it across the international border into the United States I assumed I’d have to cross the border on foot, negotiate no-man’s land leaving armed Canadian Mounties from Border Services behind me and approach heavily armed Border Guards from the US Department of Homeland Security. I expected barbed wire, burly guards and Aviator Sunglasses. Instead we were courteously welcomed to the US in the Canadian registered car of our Canadian friends by a guard who despite obvious hours of TAFE type training had not been trained on the border transfer we were attempting. We wanted at that Border Crossing to transfer from the car of our Canadian friends to the car of our American friends. After the third explanation his eyes lit up and he said – Oh, your US friends are parked just through here, drive through and you’ll be fine.
The United States of America is another country in more ways than one. Yet it bares remarkable and disturbing similarities to the country of my birth, as I hope to make clear.
I stayed with friends throughout my trip down the Rockies from Glacier NP, through Yellowstone, Teton NP and on to Salt Lake City Utah. From thence I flew to New York City and drove up to rural Connecticut, staying again with friends.
Being somewhat interested in United States politics, economics, commerce and social mores, given that we in Australia seem to copy what goes on there about 18 months later and usually quite badly* I did from time to time ask about these things. A couple of things stood out.
Firstly it was assumed that I would think their President, Donald Trump less than “Presidential”. That assumption was and is correct. This did not surprise me. What did surprise me was that many of these friends expressed support for his populist ideas. It seems that he offers ‘hope’ to those white people whose pursuit of the American Dream has foundered, and that he has clearly identified those responsible for the foundering. He also offers hope to the wealthy that their realisation of their dream can be enhanced through policies that increase the rate at which common wealth is transferred to their private realm.
The second thing that surprised me was the expression, unprompted, of almost universal vitriolic hatred of Hilary Clinton. This hatred seems to be white hot, filled with venom. The reasons given for this hatred seem to be that she stood by that husband of hers, that she must have been so sexually cold that she drove her husband to predate other women, that she is an inveterate liar, that she is self serving, that she used her private email for national business, that she was a woman, that she is closer to Wall Street than she is to the average citizen. It seemed to me that the hatred was visceral, based on deep emotional feelings rather that on reasoned thought.
It seems the misogyny in the United States is not far from that in Australia. I was relating the “Hilary Hatred” story to a golfing companion the other day, and wondering aloud how this could be so. My companion turned and said “It seems just like the hate I have for Julia Gillard”. The comment reminded me of a discussion I had with tennis partners a decade ago when one of them, again unprompted referred to Julia Gillard as “That slut”.
Nice friends I keep.
* Note, for example, the privatisation of Prisons – in the US approximately 10% of prisons are private, the rate in Australia is 45%.