Latest contender for world's thinnest book -- The Clinton Campaign Songbook. There's only one song and her followers know it by heart, yet they never tire of singing it.
Lending her voice today to that ongoing choir was top Clinton spokeswoman/MSNBC commentator Karen Finney appearing CNN's At This Hour with John Berman and Kate Bolduan.
It's been a week since the election, a difficult one to be sure, Berman said to Finney, but "now that you've had some time to digest it, what happened?"
Well, "it's complicated," Finney sighed, before citing the "number one" reason -- "There were a number of headwinds that just proved to be too strong. Electing the first woman president was always going to be tough. I think given the level of sexism and misogyny that we saw come to the surface and be very public, I think that supports the fact that in this country we're going to have to have a real conversation about that."
Oh please ... anything but that ... not another "real conversation." What Finney means by this, as does every liberal who drags out that threadbare phrase, is let's talk ad nauseam until you eventually come around to my enlightened views. Just as we are in desperate need for even more "real conversations" about race, providing they stay well within the ever-narrowing confines of acceptable progressive discourse.
Finney cited other reasons for Clinton's loss -- the Supreme Court's ruling on the Civil Rights Act lowering black turnout, third-party candidates siphoning away votes, "the Comey letter," and a double standard in media coverage of the Clinton Foundation vs. the Trump Foundation before the conversation circled back to sexism --
BERMAN: At the very beginning you said you thought that sexism and misogyny may have played a role in Hillary Clinton's defeat and I think there's, you know, there's no question that a lot of things were said in this campaign that many people deemed as sexist and misogynist. But what evidence do you have that voters made their decisions based on sexism or misogyny?
FINNEY: Well, look, to some, I think a couple of things, right? Number one, I think, one of the things we never really had a conversation about that, again, I think going forward we should talk about ...
Grabbing your hair as you hear these words is entirely normal. Roll with it --
FINNEY: ... is how this country, how people feel about women in power. There is a reason that it is so hard for women, you know, that we haven't had a female president before and, you know, it's harder for women candidates in executive positions.
Although a major glass ceiling was just shattered with Kellyanne Conway becoming the first woman in American history to manage a successful presidential campaign. I've yet to hear a single liberal congratulate Conway for this. (How fitting that she'll celebrate her next birthday on Jan. 20).
FINNEY: There are a lot of dynamics around that so I guess I would say, I would offer that as some evidence and I think there's a lot of good research on that. I certainly think that there was a, you know, the narrative about Hillary and the sort of very ugly signs that I can't actually repeat the words that were said about Hillary and the sort of sentiment and the chants, I think, contributed to, uhm, a narrative about her as someone who is untrustworthy, even in places where that just wasn't true ...
Granted, there were places it was true, but I digress ...
FINNEY: ... there just wasn't evidence to bear that fact out. And I'll be really honest ...
BOLDUAN (attempting to end filibuster): Karen ...
FINNEY: ... some of my colleagues won't like this, but I think, you know, look, even in the primaries some of what we saw with the Bernie bros had a real chilling effect on a lot of women and young women in particular, we learned about during the primary there were a number of these secret Facebook groups of young progressive women who were supporting Hillary but frankly, they didn't want to deal with the backlash online from some of the Bernie bros. So again, I think, you know, there's a lot of pieces to sort of tease out in this conversation.
Never thought I'd say this, but Finney could be right -- there does need to be a conversation, and a robust one at that, preferably one lasting four if not eight years, that gets to the heart of all this sexism on the left. For example, the term Bernie bros -- a tad pejorative, no? And will Democrats steer clear of future candidates who've penned prose about rape fantasies?
Suffice to say a sizable number of men just voted for president based on not wanting to be accused of sexism every time they criticized President Hillary Clinton. If the Clintonistas really want to dump this huge can of worms over the carpet on their side of the aisle, let me get them a can opener.
