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Random Confession – I don’t trust people who ran to the right in the election

I just don’t. Especially self-described feminists or liberals/progressives.

Is this a personal failing I should be working on? Maybe so, but I actually suspect not, considering history.

I am not sure why this was weighing on me this morning but it was, so I thought it best to get it on out.

I can understand principled objection to whomever the Democratic candidate turned out to be. I, myself, declared early in the primary season that I would not vote for Clinton, should she win –I would sit it out, instead, or vote for the Green candidate, Cynthia McKinney. (There is no way to know for sure, but I suspect I would have come around on that by the time election day rolled around and would have made my mark for Clinton, and for history.) So, yeah, I can understand and accept being so disgusted or disappointed with a candidate that you feel you just can’t vote for them, no matter what. It happens.

What I can’t understand, or accept, is individuals with any awareness – and I put self-described feminists, liberals, progressives, general lefties in the “at least minimally aware” group – of the often devastating effects Republican policies have on communities of color, on the poor, on non-monied women, on reproductive justice and rights, on education and a vast array of other issues -

I have just lost trust in anyone who, knowing all these things, felt that the principled remedy for electoral disappointment or angst was to run into the arms of the Right.  I would feel the same had Clinton won the nomination.

Well, wait… let me be a little more accurate here since this is a confession, random and rambling though it may be. Just as I would have little or no trust in the motives of aware men (or women, actually) who ran to the right had the nominee been Clinton, I have little or no trust in the motives of aware white people who ran to the right when the nominee was Obama.  The unaware (or simply don’t care, really believe in the policies, etc) ones already vote Republican, so I don’t care much about them. They never (seriously) claimed to care about Black folks, about people of color in general, the poor, anti-racism, women’s rights, the environment, or much that was important to me, anyway.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, March 8th, 2009 at 9:14 am and is filed under bellybutton bedazzlement, feminism, politics, random confession. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

5 Comments, Comment or Ping

  1. Chris Clarke

    12:23 pm on March 9th, 2009 1

    Is this a personal failing I should be working on? Maybe so, but I actually suspect not, considering history.

    I firmly believe it’s not a failing. Possibly because I’m biased from sharing that failing.

    There’s only one reason for someone claiming to be a progressive or liberal to have supported the GOP last year because Obama was the nominee. Sure, there was plenty of misogyny directed against Clinton from the Democratic Party rank-and-file, but supporting the GOP for that reason would be like, I don’t know, nuking Baghdad because you oppose the war in Iraq. Something along those lines.

  2. Joan Kelly

    3:35 pm on March 9th, 2009 2

    I feel like I’m having a say-obnoxious-things day. Or month. At any rate, my random confession re: this random confession of yours is that, I swear to god, Nanette, I really do believe this – some self-proclaimed liberals/feminists/progressives who voted for McCain/Palin *as a supposed protest of how Clinton was treated by the Democratic Party* were being passive aggressive. Literally doing it, and then talking about it, to be assholes. Not out of misguided or even deliberate rationalizations.

    And the worst thing is – in the ugly part of me, I wish they and they alone had somehow been able to get what they asked for. I am that pissed off about it.

    Which means their passive-aggressiveness worked on me! I should find a way to not-care, so as to really stick it to them.

  3. Nanette

    8:09 am on March 10th, 2009 3

    Hey Chris, good to see you here.

    I’m glad I’m not the only one – I was offline for quite a bit of the primary and election season (weirdly, it almost made it feel as if I missed it all), but the few times I was able to get on, I was just appalled at some of the rhetoric.

    Still, things can get heated when people are passionate about something but, truly, “supporting the GOP for that reason would be like, I don’t know, nuking Baghdad because you oppose the war in Iraq” puts it very well!

  4. Nanette

    8:17 am on March 10th, 2009 4

    “And the worst thing is – in the ugly part of me, I wish they and they alone had somehow been able to get what they asked for.”

    Me too, Joan! I wished that quite a few times, lol. But, for some, it goes way beyond voting against their own interests.

    What got me was (some, not all) of those voters would say stuff like “just because I’m in a higher tax bracket and these things won’t affect me, doesn’t mean that I don’t care about everyone else, but sometimes you just have to go with your conscience” or similar nonsense.

    If your conscience is telling you to just care for yourself and just screw everyone else over, it might be time to trade it in for a better one.

  5. Joan Kelly

    2:01 pm on March 10th, 2009 5

    Yeah, there was at least one person who, when I read them talking about their reasons for voting for McCain/Palin, it was exactly what you said – the circumstances of their own life made them untouchable, in terms of what the right does and would do to people that’s harmful.

    There was such a “now I’m going to teach you a lesson, but I’m doing it in a calm voice so you can’t accuse me of being an asshole who’s lashing out,” vibe about it all. Ugh. And for the record, I would much rather some asshole say something asshole-ish than some passive-aggressive fuck go slithering around with self-righteousness and spite.

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