Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Citizens, Fighting Over Second-Place

Op-Ed Contributor - Second-Place Citizens - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com:

Clinton supporters speak over and over of feeling heartbroken and disillusioned, of being cheated and betrayed.

In their minds, Barack couldn't possibly have won fair and square. It was supposed to be Hillary's. She was inevitable. All of the men running against her were inferior. The most junior among them defeated the most invinvible. Therefore, he must have cheated.

“I see this nation differently than I did 10 months ago,” reads a typical posting on a Web site devoted to Clintonista discontent. “That this travesty was committed by the Democratic Party has forever changed my approach to politics.” In scores of Internet forums and the conclaves of protest groups, those sentiments are echoed, as Clinton supporters speak over and over of feeling heartbroken and disillusioned, of being cheated and betrayed.

"In one poll, 40 percent of Mrs. Clinton’s constituency expressed dissatisfaction; in another, more than a quarter favored the clear insanity of voicing their feminist protest by voting for John McCain. “This is not the usual reaction to an election loss,” said Diane Mantouvalos, the founder of JustSayNoDeal.com, a clearinghouse for the pro-Clinton organizations. “I know that is the way it is being spun, but it’s not prototypical. Anyone who doesn’t take time to analyze it will do so at their own peril.”

The despondency of Mrs. Clinton’s supporters — or their “vitriolic” and “rabid” wrath, as the punditry prefers to put it — has been the subject of perplexed and often irritable news media speculation. Why don’t these dead-enders get over it already and exit stage right?

Shouldn’t they be celebrating, not protesting? After all, Hillary Clinton’s campaign made unprecedented strides. She garnered 18 million-plus votes, and proved by her solid showing that a woman could indeed be a viable candidate for the nation’s highest office. She didn’t get the gold, but in this case isn’t a silver a significant triumtriumph?

Many Clinton supporters say no, and to understand their gloom, one has to take into account the legacy of American women’s political struggle, in which long yearned for transformational change always gives way before a chorus of “not now” and “wait your turn,” and in which every victory turns out to be partial or pyrrhic. Indeed, the greatest example of this is the victory being celebrated tonight: the passage of women’s suffrage. The 1920 benchmark commemorated as women’s hour of glory was experienced in its era as something more complex, and darker.

Suffrage was, like Hillary Clinton’s candidacy, not merely a cause in itself, but a symbolic rallying point, a color guard for a regiment of other ideas. But while the color guard was ushered into the palace of American law, its retinue was turned away. "

The struggle for women's rights and civi rights for African Americans have been closely tied, and periodically in conflict, since the days of the Abolitionist movement prior to the Civil War. Frederick Douglass, one of the best known and most articulate free black spokesmen during the antebellum years, was born a slave ca. 1817. After he ran away, Douglass tirelessly fought for emancipation and full citizenship for African Americans and women. Douglass founded the North Star newspaper in December 1847. The masthead contained the motto: "Right is of no sex; truth is of no color, God is the Father of us all--and all are brethren." He died, returning home from a rally for women's suffrage.

When the constitution was amended to give black men the vote, many perhaps most of the wonen who would become Suffragettes, felt betrayed. In fact, they were the backbone of the abolitionist movement, had sacrificed reputations, risked life and limb to be repaid by being left out of full citizenship. Voiceless, in the halls of government, Nevertheless, they were persuaded to support black male suffrage as achievable then, persuaded, that insisting on women's suffrage too, would result in continued suffrage for white males only.

Many of those women, in the prime of life, died of old age before women got the right to vote.

So there's always been this tension about whose turn it is. There's always been suspicion about who benefits most from rules that supposedly benefit all. The close losses always hurt more than the blowouts. Especially, when you expect your team to runaway with the score.

Then there's the other side of this coin. Why is it that playing by the rules isn't enough? Why isn't recognizing that the primary season was about delegates, organizing around the rules, competing for and winning the delegates, cause for celebration instead of protestation? Why, from colonial times to the 21st century, is black achievement seen as impudent under slavery, uppity under jim crow, and some form of affirmative action cheating in this post civil unrest era?

Can we stop playing this zero sum game? Will anger beget anger until we're stuck with four more years of self destruction masquerasing as public policy? Are we going to get mad, get even or get ahead? http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/26/opinion/26faludi.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=all