SocraticGadfly: The cult of Hillary grows — anti-populist human bites dog

June 15, 2015

The cult of Hillary grows — anti-populist human bites dog

Maybe this adds to the inevitability factor, but Democratic presidential campaigner Hillary Clinton is asking for people to do unpaid summer internships — and they are.

But, you're thinking, this is dog bites man. Sure, she claims to be a populist, but she's not the first to want college kiddos to work for free during the summer.

Nope. It's man bites dog. She wants people with previous paid professional experience to do this for free — and they are.

Your choice, folks, but P.T. Barnum, in talking about births every minute, or Sinclair Lewis, in a secularized version of Babbitt, already has your name and number.

To me, that's the big takeaway, even more than Hillary's seeming hypocrisy after positioning herself as a populist. It's the cultlike attitude of people, similar to those who would have gotten more than $30,000 a year in the past, doing this for free, at least during the summer.

Again, Barnum and Lewis have your number.

Beyond this, though, the idea of the Hillary cult, that makes people willing to do this, is fascinating.

First, she's not the most feminist of women. While she dissed the idea of baking White House cookies, she bought whole hog into "stand by your man," and long before the Slickster became the POTUS of us all. She's OK on the equal pay, but no trailblazer.

Second, despite a tack left so sudden that it looks like she took parasailing lessons from John Kerry, she's not that liberal, and, unless you're already in the cult, not that believable at looking that liberal. Maybe she's mashing up "1984" and "Brave New World," speaking of authors. Soma-induced serfdom, anybody?

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I compare everything to music, and to me, Hillary Clinton reminds me of latter-day albums by Madonna or Michael Jackson.

You know, where you can tell that a bunch of producers had been brought in by the record company to bring the singer up to date with the latest music styles for the album?

The kids weren't into gay marriage and peace in 2002, but they are today, so so is she!

I'm sure she'd be passably okay as President. I just question whether she can get there, because we don't elect people as President when they don't feel authentic. John Kerry and Mitt Romney learned that...

Gadfly said...

Speaking of music, Katy, she has her official 2016 for Prez Spotify playlist! Sign up now!

https://play.spotify.com/user/hillaryclinton/playlist/43JJ50RsHoyUXj8eI8FaPQ?play=true&utm_source=open.spotify.com&utm_medium=open