Can conservatives react thoughtfully to Hillary Clinton? Without using the dreaded “m-word” (moderate), Thoughts on Liberty’s Aunt Merryweather issues a “challenge” to conservative media: moderate your rhetoric and react more thoughtfully and keep in mind the impact of words on the image of conserservatives if Hillary Clinton gets the Democratic Presidential nod in 2016.
Here are some parts of the post — which needs to be read in full:
Now, conservative pundits, you may not realize it, but you have an opportunity here. As you no doubt have realized by now, single women 1. represent a growing segment of the US population, and 2. skew towards Democrats. The War On Women campaign has proven to be wildly popular among female voters (its stupefying lack of substance notwithstanding), and has successfully branded Republicans as the party of White Patriarchal Men (Todd Akin didn’t do much to help, either). You might not win those voters over in the next cycle, but you have a chance to re-frame the issue.
To be clear, I’m not saying conservatives are inherently sexist (I’m not not saying it either, though). You’re free to have your opinions about whether physical sex differences trump the sociological environment in determining masculine and feminine behaviors. I personally don’t see much value in enforcing a strict binary gender scheme, but I won’t begrudge you the shorter life expectancy and higher suicide rate if that’s the path you want to take. What I am saying is that a Hillary campaign would be an opportunity for you all to Walk the Walk, and put to rest the idea that mainstream conservatives hate women, or at least the ones who don’t stay in the kitchen making sandwiches. Here’s how:
A few pieces from the libertarian writer’s here’s how:
1. Distance yourself from the true bigots. If it were easy to cast out from the hive every superficial demagogue or fringe wingnut, libertarians would have a much easier time. Don’t think I don’t understand. But what you can do is make it clear that another conservative’s sexist views don’t represent yours. You can, for example, start by moderating your comments sections for words like “bitch” and “whore.”
And, yes it can be done. Comments sections on TMV and some other websites are the focus of efforts to keep them more thoughtful without erasing passion or arguments. Keep in mind that in the ancient days before the Internet newspapers would run a small number of letters to the editor. Their attitude was that no one had right to just instantly have a letter to the editor published in full or even published. Blogs, websites, allow comments in many cases unedited. But simple name calling doesn’t do anything except allow a commenter to act out issues that he/she might best act out privately. Whole blog posts are done on some websites about other partisan websites going haywire and it plays right into your opponent’s hands.
2. Don’t make it about appearances. I don’t expect many of you professional writers to be blatantly insulting toward Mrs. Clinton’s appearance. Rush Limbaugh made waves when he called Michelle Obama fat, but there are lots of little ways to insinuate something about a woman’s appearance without directly focusing on it. Saying she looks “tired,” for example, or that her style is “utilitarian.” If you wouldn’t write a similar sentence about Joe Biden’s or John Kerry’s wrinkled visages and untailored suits, don’t write it about Hillary.
The bigger issue is that sadly this has become the way our politics is trending. The IDEAS and positions become secondary. How someone looks becomes pivotal. To be sure, in using photos of public figures, any legit photo can be used by website. But the issue is: why should the way someone look be an issue in political argument unless it is someone under fire in a big political crisis who looks beaten down by the stress? The most infamous example was on Limbaugh’s failed TV show years ago where he talked about a dog and 12-year-old Chelsea Clinton’s photo went on the screen. A nice, cheap laugh, but it was that — cheap. And it didn’t do anything except turn those who didn’t agree with Limbaugh off to whatever else he said, and discredit Limbaugh among those watching (and there weren’t many) who were not in the political choir. (GO HERE TO SEE THE MOMENT)
3. Utilize the Find + Replace function. Before you hit that publish button, replace all instances of the word “Hillary” with “Henry.”
AND:
However, the Left has successfully branded conservatives as backwards, out-of-touch bigots, and your response has seemingly been to either 1. double-down on that bigotry by exalting offensive, in-your-face personalities like Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter,* or 2. waste your time with efforts to pinpoint the Left’s “hypocrisy” via the oxymoron we call “conservative media” (hint: the Left doesn’t care about George Soros or whether progressive think tanks receive corporate money).
Your own consultants are telling you to cool off on the Culture War messaging. Electoral demographics on the national level don’t appear to be in your favor. I can’t confidently say that treating the first serious female presidential candidate with respect is going to bring all the single ladies over to your side (it certainly won’t be good for running ads against incendiary click-bait). But it will help take away some of the ammo from the state-embiggening Left-progressive machine.
Go to the link and read it in full from top to bottom.
It’s excellent, smart advice.
Which probably means conservatives will totally ignore it.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.