Why I Support Barack Obama
...which is surprising based on how strongly I feel about women taking leadership positions and being equally included. I remember being angry as a kid realizing that I often saw Jeopardy with three male contestants but never with three female contestants. (That's changed.)
I've been hearing a lot recently about how older voters seem to support Hillary more and younger voters gravitate toward Barack. An NPR piece I heard recently gave two reasons that make sense to me:
1. Older feminists and members of the Civil Rights movement feel an affinity toward Hillary because she was part of those movements, while we as younger voters take that for granted.
2. Younger voters are attracted to Barack's message of hope. That is certainly the strongest pull for me. We've grown up tired of seeing older people perpetuating their ideas of racism, sexism, homophobia, classism, and American imperialism. We'd like to see something better. (Now, I'm not saying everyone over 30 is a bigot, mind you, but, at least as my generation perceives it, the majority of people who think that way are older than us. There are plenty of people who actually grow in wisdom as they age, and I'm grateful to those around me that teach me about life, but don't we all know someone 60 years old who thought he knew everything there was to know at 20, and has changed not at all for the last 40 years?)
However, this doesn't address my largest concern with Hillary Clinton becoming president. I was conflicted about my feelings between the two at first until I read an article in Newsweek that pointed out that the Bushes and the Clintons have occupied the White House for 20 years straight now, and Hillary becoming president would continue to keep the power within only 2 families. Now if you're older, it might be easier to overlook, but think of how long 20 years seems to a 20-something like me. I was born in the Reagan administration, but the first election and first president I remember is George H.W. Bush, who was elected when I was 6. If Hillary is elected president that means when I am 31 (or 35 if she gets 2 terms), my entire living memory would be of only 2 families in power. That's possibly a third of my lifetime. It smacks of dynasty and is distasteful to me, however much I like some of Hillary's ideas, particularly health care. So, while I would probably vote for her in 10 or 15 years, if Indiana has any say in the matter (which it probably won't), I'm supporting Obama.
An incidental concern I've heard some mention is that Hillary is too polarizing to the opposition. Meaning that if she was the nominee, more conservatives would come out to vote, just to vote against her because they don't like her. I think there is some truth to that, but it wouldn't make me choose someone over her if that were the only concern I had. Why? Because while I think that few hard-line conservatives would admit it (because it would mostly make them unpopular), it's not really a problem with Hillary that they have. It's a problem with women. Yeah, they dislike her personality, but it's going to be similar to the personality of any woman that can go that far in politics. I suspect that what they dislike is how vocal she is, how strong she is, how she speaks her opinion, which is not what they think a woman should be. So while they (mostly) say that they support having women in leadership, they don't like any of the women capable of doing that.
That's my opinion, to have it on record before this all shakes out. Super Tuesday is in two days, and it seems quite likely that there will be a clear front runner after that. But...who knows?
...which is surprising based on how strongly I feel about women taking leadership positions and being equally included. I remember being angry as a kid realizing that I often saw Jeopardy with three male contestants but never with three female contestants. (That's changed.)
I've been hearing a lot recently about how older voters seem to support Hillary more and younger voters gravitate toward Barack. An NPR piece I heard recently gave two reasons that make sense to me:
1. Older feminists and members of the Civil Rights movement feel an affinity toward Hillary because she was part of those movements, while we as younger voters take that for granted.
2. Younger voters are attracted to Barack's message of hope. That is certainly the strongest pull for me. We've grown up tired of seeing older people perpetuating their ideas of racism, sexism, homophobia, classism, and American imperialism. We'd like to see something better. (Now, I'm not saying everyone over 30 is a bigot, mind you, but, at least as my generation perceives it, the majority of people who think that way are older than us. There are plenty of people who actually grow in wisdom as they age, and I'm grateful to those around me that teach me about life, but don't we all know someone 60 years old who thought he knew everything there was to know at 20, and has changed not at all for the last 40 years?)
However, this doesn't address my largest concern with Hillary Clinton becoming president. I was conflicted about my feelings between the two at first until I read an article in Newsweek that pointed out that the Bushes and the Clintons have occupied the White House for 20 years straight now, and Hillary becoming president would continue to keep the power within only 2 families. Now if you're older, it might be easier to overlook, but think of how long 20 years seems to a 20-something like me. I was born in the Reagan administration, but the first election and first president I remember is George H.W. Bush, who was elected when I was 6. If Hillary is elected president that means when I am 31 (or 35 if she gets 2 terms), my entire living memory would be of only 2 families in power. That's possibly a third of my lifetime. It smacks of dynasty and is distasteful to me, however much I like some of Hillary's ideas, particularly health care. So, while I would probably vote for her in 10 or 15 years, if Indiana has any say in the matter (which it probably won't), I'm supporting Obama.
An incidental concern I've heard some mention is that Hillary is too polarizing to the opposition. Meaning that if she was the nominee, more conservatives would come out to vote, just to vote against her because they don't like her. I think there is some truth to that, but it wouldn't make me choose someone over her if that were the only concern I had. Why? Because while I think that few hard-line conservatives would admit it (because it would mostly make them unpopular), it's not really a problem with Hillary that they have. It's a problem with women. Yeah, they dislike her personality, but it's going to be similar to the personality of any woman that can go that far in politics. I suspect that what they dislike is how vocal she is, how strong she is, how she speaks her opinion, which is not what they think a woman should be. So while they (mostly) say that they support having women in leadership, they don't like any of the women capable of doing that.
That's my opinion, to have it on record before this all shakes out. Super Tuesday is in two days, and it seems quite likely that there will be a clear front runner after that. But...who knows?
Labels: culture, philosophy, politics
posted by mennorose @ 1:11 PM
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