Darkly dreaming dynasties

In case I haven't been clear about it, I like Obama and I like Hillary and I don't really care which one gets the nomination.  I come riding to her defense more often because she's fighting off more orcs than Obama has had to so far.  But I can see the point of most of the arguments against her.   Except one.

The dynastic one.

I understand how it rubs against the democratic grain to imagine looking at a list of all the Presidents some time in the future and seeing a section that goes Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton.  And I sympathize with the feeling, because I share it, of having been somehow cheated by history to have to live the entire prime of your life under essentially two Presidents.  Assuming Hillary wins and is elected to a second term, if you were 18 in 1989, you will be 46 when she leaves office, possibly older than your own parents were when the first Bush took office.  It's worse if you were 30, because her second term will bring you the brink of old age.  And if you were already 58 back then there's a good chance you won't be here to see her go.

If you enjoy progress and change, that seems like stagnation.   Actually, with all the focus on Bill, it's even beginning to feel like regression.

But feelings aren't reasons, and they aren't facts either.

It's not Hillary Clinton's fault that she would be following another Bush.  It's the Bush family's fault.  The Clintons aren't a dynasty, they aren't likely to be one, not in the near future, at any rate, even if Chelsea has a lot of children all of whom have a lot of children who go into politics.  At the moment there are only the three of them.  There is no large extended family of rich and well-connected movers and shakers.  The Bushes are a dynasty.  It's an accident of history that Hillary is in the position of becoming the second President Clinton, but that accident was caused by the Bush Dynasty who so believed that they own the White House that they stole it, not once, but twice.  Hillary is actually in the position to put an end to dynastic rule, simply by taking the White House away from the Republicans who would hold onto simply by virtue of its having been stolen for them by the Bushes.

It might look better in the history books to have that dynastic theft righted by someone with a name brand new in American political history.  But that doesn't make it necessary to vote for that someone.

Basically, either Hillary or Obama will end the dynastic pretensions of the Bushes and the Republicans who seek to benefit from them---assuming, of course, a staunch and active and brave Democratic Congressional majority backs the new President up.

This is why voting against Hillary because you don't like the appearance of dynastic rule by either side strikes me as an aesthetic judgment more than as a political argument.

It may be a good enough reason for you but it is not a compelling one for anyone else who doesn't share your taste.

As I've said, there are good arguments against her on the merits.  If you really believe Obama will be the better President then you've already got specific reasons for your vote and you don't need the anti-dynastic argument, and this is why I wish you'd stop making it.

It isn't necessary and you'll drop it if and when she's the nominee and vote for her entirely as if the dynastic thing didn't matter a bit (unless you are one of the Obamaniac crybabies who are going to stay home and pout on election day to punish the whole country for not being as smart and good and wonderful as you were for supporting Obama).  You'll drop it, but guess who won't.

The Republicans.

They are already making the case that a vote for Hillary is a vote for dynastic rule.

The party of the Bushes, the Royalist Party, the Party that holds the White House solely because of a dynastic misuse of power and influence, is running against hereditary rule and we're laying the groundwork for them.

But, Lance, you object, they would do it anyway!  They're utterly shameless or have you forgotten that?  They won't care that the candidate they'd all really hoped to run this year was Jeb Bush.  They'll portray themselves as the true Democrats and the Clintons as the royal pretenders.  By running Obama we take that one away from them.

Plus, Lance, if an important part of the job of the next Democratic President is to put an end to the dynastic rule of the Republicans, which is not just a matter of their holding the White House but also of their having put in place a lot of federal judges who are already at work enforcing and solidifying that rule and a bureaucracy that enables it and extends it by helping friends and cronies profit from it, then it will be very useful, if not necessary, if that President is clearly not benefiting from any family connections himself.

What's more, with his rhetorical harping on change and putting the past behind us and moving on, Obama is already preparing the country to reject the dynasty not just in the voting booth but in their heads.

Hillary can and does talk about change and she probably intends to try to bring it about.  But she herself is not a symbol of change, for all her being the first woman President if she wins.  In herself she is a symbol of the past, including the dynastic rule she would seek to end, simply by being a constant reminder of what the dynasts hated and sought to destroy when they were in power, and symbols are extremely important in politics.

What do you say to that, Lance?

(Lance thinks this over. Says:)

Hmmmm....

(Thinks some more.)

Nevermind.

Comments

[Tom W.]

Well, I agree with you and I'd go further.

The dynastic argument against Hillary is deeply sexist at its root, disqualifying a "wife" for her role in marriage.

It's distasteful to Obamacans, I know, to suggest this - but it's also true. Raising the dynasty card is raising the gender card in an absolutely negative fashion.

[e_five]

You're only looking at the dynastic argument from one side. What if the argument is that it shows how American politics has degenerated into pointless trench warfare akin to World War I, with both sides content to hold their lines while opportunities, blood and treasure are squandered in service to egos, pride, and selfishness?

Jeez, even in World War I they finally figured it out.

[actor212]

What I find hilarious is the people who tout Obama because of the dynasty aspect, while ignoring the log in their eyes over the fact that he is now in the pocket of the single largest political dynasty in American history.

[Lance]

e_five: What if the argument is that it shows how American politics has degenerated into pointless trench warfare akin to World War I...?

Ok, e_five, I'll bite. What if it has?

[Bluegrass Poet]

First ever woman president looks like a symbol of the future to me. Just like first ever person of color. And they're both running as Democrats and whoever gets elected we look like change and the future. And McCain looks like a Schmoo from the old Al Capp cartoon.

[KC45s]

The dynastic argument against Hillary is deeply sexist at its root

This is utter hogwash. I know because I've made the argument and I'm not a sexist. I like identity politics as much as the next liberal, but please, a little originality.

Having argued for the dynasty argument to Lance before, I feel compelled clear it up (again). First, no one I have ever read or spoken to would refuse to vote for Hillary on the basis of a dynasty worry. It's one (small) issue among many. As shocking as this may seem--sit down, Tom W.--some voters weigh a number of factors before filling out the ballot. In a primary election where both surviving candidates share views on about 90% of the issues, it can be argued that one starts looking at these inconvenient other factors to make a decision.

I think Clinton would be a solid president. Good gas mileage, excellent safety rating, decent warranty, not likely to require much maintenance. To me it's unfortunate that it looks like she'd bring her husband's machine back into power--but when you agree to dynasties, you get the courtiers, too. I'd argue that's another good reason to be leery of the concept.

I didn't vote against Hillary this morning. I did vote FOR someone, however. And it wasn't the dynastic argument that threw it his way.

Incidentally, it wasn't sexism, either. I mean, do Clinton supporters really believe this sort of thing? Do you really accept the equally ludicrous counter-argument--that you're a bunch of racists for opposing Obama? Or, for that matter, Yankee carpetbaggers for opposing Edwards? Or robot-haters for opposing Romney?

[Mary Jane]

Here is the Pick your candidate quiz.... Direct from David Byrnes online journal.... The quiz will match your views to the candidates, rate them in order of compatability and point out which issues you disagree on.

[Rana]

But to claim that HRC represents a "dynasty" IS sexist. She's not the child of Bill Clinton, she's his wife. You know, that adult person who belonged to another family before she married him, and who continues to belong to that family?

She's as much - perhaps more - a Rodham as a Clinton; this cannot be said of the Bushes, where you have a father succeeded directly by a son, and hopes of a second son doing the same.

You can only make the dynastic argument about a wife following in her husband's footsteps if you see being a wife as akin to being a child inheriting its parents' (political) capital.

Somehow, I suspect that if she had held the office first, we wouldn't be having this conversation; that's why it's a sexist argument. That, and the fact that the issue of a wife running for president has never come up before!

[Ken Muldrew]

OK, so much for the dynasty argument. Now what about the aristocracy argument?

[Chris the Cop]

Rana - I would argue that NOT calling it a dynasty because HRC is a wife and not part of a family succession is what's sexist.

She may be "as much - perhaps more - a Rodham than a Clinton," but she wouldn't be a Senator nor a viable presidential candidate if she hadn't first been the wife of a popular President.

It's also true we'll never know what she could have done on her own because she decided to hitch her star to WJC. But that was her choice and so far other than a few public humiliations over Bill's zipper problem, it's worked.

[KC45s]

I'm willing to call it the aristocracy argument. In fact, I like it a lot. It's a more accurate term and apparently less sexist (oy). Perhaps it will also provoke fewer manifestations of mind-reading powers by Hillary's supporters.

All hail the aristocracy argument!

[Batocchio]

I'm more concerned with Bush and Cheney's monarchial assertions.

With Dems, it's different discussing the dynasty thing. With Republicans, this point really is just Hillary-bashing. Any Republican who actually objected to George W. Bush on the same grounds is excused, but I don't know of any.

There are just so many other reasons to vote for or againt any of the remaining candidates.

[Judith]

I find the term aristocratic hilarious when used to describe any of the families mentioned above. As for dynastic, as far as I know we still hold elections.

I think the Murdochs are an example of a dynasty - they have huge power and we have no say as to who gets to inherit.