But maybe this sudden rush of charged-up Democratic party unity is just sort of flattening. Trump is manifestly, grotesquely unfit for office. Among all thinking people, therefore, everything’s a no-brainer now. I don’t mean I’d be scratching my head about who to vote for if Cruz, say, were the GOP nominee, I mean it bums me out that the first female presidency will come about — must come about! — in large part as a result of a situation in which the opponent is such a revolting parody of sheer incompetence that his own party has to try to run away from him as best it can. If it’s a blowout, great, but if Clinton were running against any even barely legit GOP male, the whole idea of female presidency would be getting put to a national test, and if she were to win, the question would be decided for all time and go away.
Under these idiotic, cartoon-like circumstances, the many middle-of-the-road liberals who would have found themselves somehow reluctant to vote for Clinton — not, in this hypothetical situation, because she’s too hawkish, or too Wall Street, those are both perfectly good reasons — but just for some nagging, unspoken reason they can’t quite put their fingers on, like she seems slippery, or doesn’t always tell the truth, or isn’t inspiring, or she’s been around too long — qualities they’d be quicker to shrug off in a man — they’ll vote for Clinton now without any reluctance. But only because of Trump! So nothing really gets decided and resolved, psychologically, in this retrograde country about female fitness for office.
As CVFD has mentioned here, such a victory may be presented by future opponents as hollow: yeah, she beat Trump, big whoop. Merely as historic moments go, the presence of that monstrous fool is rendering a first-time female candidacy kind of lame. I’d like to see her beat an actual politician. Trump has just rendered everything meaningless.
On the other unity front, yes, Warren is great at eviscerating Trump. Biden’s OK. And of course Obama will be great at that. And I guess it’s interesting that a sitting pres and VP are in a rare position to campaign forcefully for their successors. But again, whether or not they’re successful, intellectually and ideologically it’s pretty much shooting fish in a barrel. It can’t be that tough for the writers to come up with reasons why Trump sucks. (We could do it, if we weren’t so busy putting out this blog.) He handed them the most obvious issue with this judge thing, so Warren can (rightly) say that he’s constitutionally unfit, just on separation of powers and potential abuse of office. That’s not a radical position, totally MOR, which is why it’s such an easy and appealing hook, of course.
I get it. But the fact that presidents can’t go after federal judges on any matter, let alone personal ones, doesn’t have much to do with EW’s real issues, which have to do, not with that most conservative American definition of equality — equality before the law — but with economic equality, a far more radical concept here.
So my real question has to do with Warren. It’s a real question in that I have no idea how this is going to go down.
Having joined forces intellectually, against Trump, with the most basic, unarguable, Civics 101, conservative definition of equality, will EW now be able to get Clinton to campaign actively on behalf of some of EW’s real issues? Make them part of the platform? Like the bill that would seek, anyway, to reverse the effects of Citizens United, which should be an issue HRC could bring some enthusiasm to, without seeming “impractical” or too far left or whatever . . . ? If so, that might be a huge plus, and possibly could be achieved without the mutual rancor that marks and will continue to mark negotiations between the Clinton and Sanders camps, Sanders peoples’ desire to throw Barney Frank or whoever off the convention committees, HRC’s supporters’ resentment of having to give Sanders anything at all, etc. . . . ?
Maybe I’m not still flipping the bird. But man, these are still very weird times.
In at The End of The World 
Not sure I followed all of this post, so apologies. But I don’t want an incomplete udnerstanding to stop me from a rare moment of praising HRC. 1) I’m not nearly the student of history you two are, but Poppy Bush and Nixon ’72 are never covered as less than because of the weakness of the candidates (Dukakis and McGovern). 2) Unless my Trump punches editor scenario takes hold, he’s been remarkably tough to beat thus far and HRC could look strong for holding together a fractured Democratic Party. She can claim to have succeeded where the Kochs, the R establishment, and 16 candidates couldn’t. 3) He may not be tough, but he’s dangerous as a candidate. Not dangerous because of what he stands for and would do, but for his unpredictability. There’s something formidable about getting in the ring with a mad man or sit at the table with a crazy poker player – takes a certain cool to take him down convincingly. It also takes a certain power to stand up to rise above the name-calling, insult and still look presidential. Look at me, I’m all aglow with admiration for HRC! I gotta say, though, under the “weird times” idea, I’d love to know what both camps’ debate preps look like. Oh! That’s a fun one to speculate: who will the campaign to pick to play Trump in the debate practice?
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“who will the campaign to pick to play Trump in the debate practice?” Nice thought. One to ponder. Nobody can play that role! (Maybe Meryl Streep.)
My post was incoherent because I changed my mind about what i was saying halfway through . . . gotta love blogging!
I think I do take something away from Bush1 because of Dukakis (and from Bush 2 because of Gore and Kerry!) but I guess my point is that this is on another level, like comic-book larger-than-life: never had a female candidate before, never had a freakazoid like this before. . . But if my ramblings have brought you around to a glowing defense of HRC, then my work as a triangulator is done.
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Nice call on Meryl Streep.
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I was thinking about the debate prep the other day, as well. Yes, Meryl Streep. Sadly, it will end up being Carly as the Hillary stand in. Who will the Clinton campaign hire to stand in for Trump? Dan Aykryod? “Hillary, you ignorant slut! ”
Meanwhile, Trump is on day twp of speaking from a teleprompter. It’s not that hard to look presidential. He only needs to avoid biting someone in the face or using the “n” word or any of the “c” words, and he can win. His poll numbers–the only thing he cares about–are down. Which means he’ll try to play it straight for a while.
And, also, meanwhile, Clinton leading in a poll in Kansas!
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Dan Ackroyd.
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Coming back to this post – you mention “EW’s real issues” (I think I need a middle initial, not only to be Presidential, but to re-program my grooves to associate EW with Elizabeth Warren instead of Entertainment Weekly). Elizabeth Warren is taking on an interesting cultural role – the real leader of the progressive movement, the endorsement that should bring the country together, the baddest of any bad-ass democrats, and (secretly) what we think HRC would be if she didn’t have a 30 year political career already and a halo for her. Each of those characterizations is very unspecific to CFPB, Glass-Steagall restoration, trade, Citizens. I’ve tended to view her as a skilled wonk with very similar positions to Sanders and with enough economic savvy to be able to work with the McCains of the party. But I’m asking for help here as I’m not sure I know what to call her or how to characterize her.
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I don’t know either I (I don’t even know her middle initial), but I think her real issues (not really the right word) have to do with the list you gave: erfective bank regulation (and even if G-S isn’t the main thing, it’s a symbol), taking down CU to start getting $ out of the system, various tactics for active “safety net” improvement, foreclosure protections, higher corp,. effective tax rate . . . Point being, a GOP candidate threatening a judge violates basic definitions of equality: judges are supposed to be independent of exec pressure in order to render equal justice. For ELW (Linda?) that’s an easy one, because it’s totally non-controversial, except to Trumpists. Everybody supposedly believes in that kind of equality, She has more ideas about using government to bring about forms of equality far more radical than that . . .
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