Bizarre, Media, Politics, Society

Clinton Aide: Hillary Lost Because Women Suffer From “Internalized Misogyny”

220px-annie_kenney_and_christabel_pankhurst-1We recently discussed how, within minutes of the loss on election night, Clinton aides began to spin the loss and entirely the fault of FBI Director James Comey — a spin picked up by Clinton herself the next day. Many of us have questioned that spin in light of Clinton’s long-standing low polls on truthfulness and her ranking as (with Trump) the most unpopular nominee of a major party for the presidency. Now, former Clinton campaign communications director Jess McIntosh has come up with a new culprit. Of course, it is not the Democratic establishment that engineered the nomination despite ample warning signs in the polls. It was not the campaign that preferred spin to honesty at every turn. And it was not the candidate herself. No, it was the self-loathing and inherent sexism of women.


In an appearance on MSNBC (which seems at times to be moving through the stages of grieving of Kübler-Ross), McInstosh insisted that the problem was with sexist, self-hating women: “Internalized misogyny is a real thing and this is a thing we have to be talking about as we go through and see.” She added “We as a society react poorly to women seeking positions of power. We are uncomfortable about that and we seek to justify that uncomfortable feeling because it can’t possibly be because we don’t want to see a woman in that position of power. As we go through these numbers, as we figure out exactly what happened with turnout, it seems to be white college-educated women . . . We have work to do talking to those women about what happened this year and why we would vote against our self-interest.”

Of course, there could be a more obvious answer: people really did not like Hillary as a leader regardless of her gender. It may be that the large numbers of women refused to vote for Hillary simply because she was a woman. Clinton and Trump were the most unpopular politicians ever to be nominated for president and over 60 percent of voters viewed Clinton as fundamentally dishonest. None of that stopped the DNC from engineering her victory over Bernie Sanders who presented precisely the populist campaign that many voters were looking for. Clinton had the Democratic establishment and many allies in the media — everyone agreed except the public. That was enough . . . until the voters had their say on November 8th.

Jess McIntosh is the Communications Director for Emily’s list and previously served as spokesperson for Senator Al Franken.

McIntosh’s statement reflects what turned off a lot of women that I spoke with. The Clinton campaign hammered away at different groups “voting their interests” and specifically drum beat the notion that women had to support Clinton as the first possible female president. It was all about “self-interest.” That pitch itself can be viewed as sexist. Many women did not trust Clinton and saw nothing in her that spoke to their lives or the difficulties of their families. Notably, Clinton was losing among various female groups to Sanders in the primary. Again, Clinton staffers spoke of educating women to see their self-interest, but tended to avoid the anomaly of running female-centric themes without the support of most women. For many women and men, picking a president is not about “self-interest” but the best for their country and their families.

According to the New York Times, Clinton carried only 54 percent of the female vote against Donald Trump. However, nearly twice as many white women without college degrees voted for Trump than for Hillary and she basically broke almost even on college-educated white women (with Hillary taking 51 percent). Trump won the majority of white women at 53 percent.

The dismissal of white women by the Clinton camp as self-loathing, sexist robots is another effort at avoidance. The Democratic leadership and consultants proved out-of-touch with the public despite polls that gave ample indication that Clinton was the worst possible candidate to put forward in this anti-establishment period. Nevertheless, the Democrats appear to be rallying around again many of the same leaders and the Clinton family (including reportedly grooming Chelsea as the new “brand” name candidate). The position of aides like McIntosh is that the fault is that white women simply did not listen or learn. It was not the message or the candidate or her campaign. It is a remarkably insulting spin but it seems to be preferred to the more difficult questions raised by the campaign.

287 thoughts on “Clinton Aide: Hillary Lost Because Women Suffer From “Internalized Misogyny””

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  4. So apparently, the Republicans in 2012 examined what they had one carefully and without histrionics (no smelling salts, no fainting couch, no blaming the Russians and the Martians, just looking at what they had done wrong and what they might do right in the future.

    The in-denial Dems with the perpetual foam at mouth moaning, bitching and pointing at everyone but themselves and their almost certain self interested acquiescence to an utterly corrupt and failed candidate and to a stolen nomination, will henceforward, by order of facts on the ground, be sworn enemies of Glen Greenwald (who they used to drool over as hero – :-)).
    https://theintercept.com/2016/11/18/the-stark-contrast-between-the-gops-self-criticism-in-2012-and-the-democrats-blame-everyone-else-posture-now/

    Indeed, even if they hated Greenwald, he has them by the tail…

    One would assume that the operatives and loyalists of such a weak, defeated and wrecked political party would be eager to engage in some introspection and self-critique, and to produce a frank accounting of what they did wrong so as to alter their plight. In the case of 2016 Democrats, one would be quite mistaken.

    At least thus far, there is virtually no evidence of any such intention. Quite the contrary, Democrats have spent the last 10 days flailing around blaming everyone except for themselves, constructing a carousel of villains and scapegoats – from Julian Assange, Vladimir Putin, James Comey, the electoral college, “fake news,” and Facebook, to Susan Sarandon, Jill Stein, millennials, Bernie Sanders, Clinton-critical journalists and, most of all, insubordinate voters themselves – to blame them for failing to fulfill the responsibility that the Democratic Party, and it alone, bears: to elect Democratic candidates.

    What a read! Truth, truth, everywhere and not a drop to drink [for the Dems, anyway].
    (I’ll be posting this twice in honor of the dazed and mud slinging Dems)

    1. Good post BB. Is Glenn the villain du jour? =) Been following him since his days at Salon which actually used to be a good read until they started to shill for Hill.

    2. That message is worth shouting from the rooftops since we won’t be hearing it from the mainstream media analysts. Trump enlightened voters and exposed the tired old con game that the Democrats and the mainstream media have been playing on the American people. Obama’s worldview of unlimited migration, multiculturalism and globalism was rejected in this election. But anyone who stands against those policies, like Trump, is being called a racist, a bigot, a white nationalist, a Nazi, and a hater. This is the Democrats losing argument – they resort to name calling – and the voters rejected it — while Obama continues to refuse to see it as a rejection of HIS policies. The Democrats have used ‘us’ versus ‘them’ wedge issues forever and it is not resonating any longer. The truth is that Trump punked the Democrats at their own con game and the voters understood. The Democrats count on the ‘stupidity’ of the American people (like Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber infamously said) and Trump tapped into their ability to see through that hypocrisy.

  5. Now that JT has defeated Hillary, we can move on to more important topics. Like; What is misogyny? I never heard of it.

    1. I read that this is Hillary’s strategy. How to get people to feel sorry for me? Don’t wear makeup in my first public appearance.

      1. dlm27 – the no-makeup thingie is a ploy for sympathy. Besides, she has a professional do her face and hair. She can still afford it. Lots in the Foundation till.

  10. I was accused of ‘internalized misogyny’ the other day on Twitter. I’m still trying to figure out what it is.

    1. There is also the refusal to make an actual argument. Just plops a link out there, as if that says it all. To be on the safe side, I am cleaning my laptop with Holy Water to keep the bad juju far away from me!

      Squeeky Fromm
      Girl Reporter

      2. Squeeky – water, Holy, or not, is not good for you computer. Spoken as someone who has spilled just about everything into his computer. Try an exorcism.

          1. Squeeky – as many times as I have cursed my computer, I have never gotten a positive result. However, on occasion kicking it has worked.

      3. Squeek, don’t y’all have hoo doo practioners in LA? Nothing like a good spirit cleansing =)

        1. Oh yes, they have that stuff here. You would be surprised at the people who believe it. I used to have a voodoo doll myself, and I tried it a few times. Mixed results. You can buy them on Amazon.

          Squeeky Fromm
          Girl Reporter

  12. Here is more. This goes back to occupy and will move forward with Trump:

    Unicorn Riot has obtained a federal training manual, Field Force Operations, from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Center for Domestic Preparedness (CDP). The federal government uses this document to train local law enforcement in techniques for quelling protests. It was acquired during our reporting on direct actions against the Dakota Access Pipeline when we filed a records request to the North Dakota Department of Corrections.

  13. More fascism, right now, under a Democratic administration. Please Democrats, wake up and protest your own party as well as Trump.

    Emails obtained by Unicorn Riot show @ndgov employee saying “I’ll ultimately be paid by the oil people” http://www.unicornriot.ninja/?p=10712 #NoDAPL

  14. Michael Flynn, Trump’s reported pick for national security advisor, sat in on intel briefings — while advising foreign clients
    https://www.yahoo.com/news/michael-flynn-key-trump-aide-sat-in-on-intel-briefings-while-advising-foreign-clients-004512931.html

    Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who has reportedly been offered the role of national security adviser in Donald Trump’s White House, began receiving classified national security briefings last summer while he was also running a private consulting firm that offered “all-source intelligence support” to international clients.

    Flynn’s relationship with his overseas clients is coming in for new scrutiny amid recent disclosures that two months ago, during the height of the presidential campaign, his consulting firm, the Flynn Intel Group, registered to lobby for a Dutch company owned by a wealthy Turkish businessman close to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey.

    Robert Kelley, the chief counsel to the Flynn Intel Group, read a statement from Flynn to Yahoo News on Thursday, promising that “if I return to government service, my relationship with my company will be severed, in accordance with the policy announced by President-elect Trump.”

    But critics today dismissed Flynn’s pledge as “Too little, too late,” given that he began sitting in on U.S. intelligence briefings for Trump in August while working for foreign clients. Classified national security briefings are by tradition provided to the major presidential candidates and their top aides.

    “This is profoundly troubling and should be disqualifying,” said Norm Eisen, who served as President Obama’s ethics adviser and later as an ambassador to the Czech Republic. He predicted that if Flynn is named as Trump’s national security adviser, “there will be wholesale resignations of national security professionals, and I believe some have already drafted their resignation letters.”…

    The criticism of Flynn over his overseas clients came on a day that the Trump transition team announced a sweeping new conflict-of-interest policy that will require all members of the transition team to sever their relationships with lobbying clients and, if they join the administration, forswear lobbying for five years after ending their government service. It does not apply to past lobbying contracts. A transition official said that “instead of looking backward,” the new policy “looks forward.”

    But according to a copy of a Memorandum of Understanding signed on Election Day, and released today by House Democrats, the Trump transition team, as a condition of receiving government briefing materials, was required to provide a statement to White House chief of staff Denis McDonough last week that all designated members of the transition team had disclosed their financial interests and did not have any conflicts of interest.

    A Trump transition spokesman did not respond to questions about whether Flynn had made such disclosures. But Rep. Elijah Cummings, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said the terms of the memorandum raise questions about whether Flynn is even eligible to continue to receive national security briefings at this point

  16. Trump’s pick for national security adviser brings experience and controversy
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trumps-pick-for-national-security-adviser-brings-experience-and-controversy/2016/11/17/0962eb88-ad08-11e6-8b45-f8e493f06fcd_story.html

    But Flynn has also shown an erratic streak since leaving government that is likely to make his elevation disconcerting even to the flag officers and senior intelligence officials who once considered him a peer.

    Flynn stunned former colleagues when he traveled to Moscow last year to appear alongside Russian President Vladi­mir Putin at a lavish gala for the Kremlin-run propaganda channel RT, a trip Flynn admitted he was paid to make and defended by saying he saw no distinction between RT and U.S. news channels such as CNN.

    Flynn said he used the trip to press Putin’s government to behave more responsibly in international affairs. Former U.S. officials said Flynn, seen dining next to Putin in photos published by Russian propaganda outlets, was used as a prop by the autocratic leader…

    Civil rights groups denounced the Flynn selection, saying he has refused to reject Trump’s repeated statements supporting the use of waterboarding and other brutal interrogation measures on terrorism suspects. Trump has also advocated killing or capturing innocent relatives of terrorism suspects.

    1. re: “Flynn stunned former colleagues when he traveled to Moscow last year to appear alongside Russian President Vladi­mir Putin at a lavish gala for the Kremlin-run propaganda channel RT, a trip Flynn admitted he was paid to make and defended by saying he saw no distinction between RT and U.S. news channels such as CNN.”

      Flynn is correct – RT.com spews propaganda as does the US MSM. However, the difference is the obvious bias is easier to spot AND they have excellent, intelligent reporters and news stories. No Megyn Kelly or those hideous and hateful crones like Maddow and Mitchell on their channel.

      Also, Larry King, Ed Schultz, Jesse Ventura, Chris Hedges, and other people have programs on RT.com

    2. edm – since CNN is known in conservative circles as the Clinton News Network, I can see Flynn’s point.

    3. “Civil rights groups denounced the Flynn selection, saying he has refused to reject Trump’s repeated statements supporting the use of waterboarding and other brutal interrogation measures on terrorism suspects. Trump has also advocated killing or capturing innocent relatives of terrorism suspects.”

      I agree, this is very concerning. This is an opportunity for pro-civil liberties advocates on both sides of the aisle to work together to prevent further abuses.

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