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Colin Powell Dead

I don't care much for Hilary (still voted for her in 2016 and urged others to do the same), but it seems silly to criticize a candidate for president for being "ambitious" without any further explanation.
 
deactherunner said:
I don't care much for Hilary (still voted for her in 2016 and urged others to do the same), but it seems silly to criticize a candidate for president for being "ambitious" without any further explanation.
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That’s an example of sexist criticism.
 
Yeah, I don't get the "unbridled ambition" criticism. Pretty much every presidential candidate has "unbridled" ambition - just look at nearly any POTUS in the last century and their biography is a history of unbridled ambition to be president. There's a few - a Harding or a Coolidge maybe - who don't fit the description, but the great majority do.
 
deactherunner said:
I don't care much for Hilary (still voted for her in 2016 and urged others to do the same), but it seems silly to criticize a candidate for president for being "ambitious" without any further explanation.
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It's no different than questioning her temperament, or idiots like 2&2 always trotting out the "Obama is sooooo arrogant" trope. It's coded language. We all know what it means.
 
It’s very possible to dislike personality traits of public figures separate from sexist or racist bias - perhaps you all are both wrong and lazy to flatten the discourse around polarizing figures into gender and race grievance. Just pulling from recent memory, Elizabeth Warren received different criticism than Hillary Clinton did, just as Cory Booker received different criticism than Obama or Herman Cain.
 
I think the through line for Hillary and Colin Powell and their respective unbridled ambition that's not gendered is their ambition will guide their decisions more than their moral compass, their constituents, party, etc. Where that might be a plus (presidential candidates who want to stand a chance to win), it should also unambiguously be viewed as a minus as human beings.
 
Liquid Karma said:
It's no different than questioning her temperament, or idiots like 2&2 always trotting out the "Obama is sooooo arrogant" trope. It's coded language. We all know what it means.
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respectfully, as Townie points out below, "ambitious" can also be taken to mean that one (of either gender) will care more about one's own goals than the best course of action for constituents, eg:

Liquid Karma said:
Joe cares about one thing. Advancing his career. He doesn't give a shit who gets stepped on or used along the way
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I think where the coding comes in is that sometimes men are rewarded for ambition whereas women are punished. In any case, I think there's more precise language than the throwaway descriptions Colin Powell had bout his friend, HRC, but he wasn't wrong (or in my view sexist) in his assessment.
 
myDeaconmyhand said:
It’s very possible to dislike personality traits of public figures separate from sexist or racist bias - perhaps you all are both wrong and lazy to flatten the discourse around polarizing figures into gender and race grievance. Just pulling from recent memory, Elizabeth Warren received different criticism than Hillary Clinton did, just as Cory Booker received different criticism than Obama or Herman Cain.
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Name a straight white male presidential candidate who was criticized for being "ambitious."

Either way, it's not a good look to keep criticizing people for acknowledging how race and gender shape political discourse.
 
TownieDeac said:
I think where the coding comes in is that sometimes men are rewarded for ambition whereas women are punished.
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Absolutely - both sexes be punished. Naked ambition for authority is *gross* and two wrongs don’t make a right.
 
PhDeac said:
Name a straight white male presidential candidate who was criticized for being "ambitious."

Either way, it's not a good look to keep criticizing people for acknowledging how race and gender shape political discourse.
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here's a whole book about it (which is actually rather even handed and good, but very critical of both clintons)

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PhDeac said:
Name a straight white male presidential candidate who was criticized for being "ambitious."

Either way, it's not a good look to keep criticizing people for acknowledging how race and gender shape political discourse.
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Jon Ossoff, Michael Bloomberg, Pete Buttigieg, and that’s just the most recent examples. “Acknowledge” isn’t a synonym for assume, and what you are referring to is a biased assumption that criticisms that you don’t agree with are racially or gender biased. It’s a cheap way for you to dismiss preferences and opinions that differ from yours.
 
hOrsEsHoE tHEorY

We leftists are notoriously supportive of rich and powerful men striving for political authority, so you know when we criticize a woman for it, it’s because we’re blinded by sexism.
 
myDeaconmyhand said:
Jon Ossoff, Michael Bloomberg, Pete Buttigieg, and that’s just the most recent examples. “Acknowledge” isn’t a synonym for assume, and what you are referring to is a biased assumption that criticisms that you don’t agree with are racially or gender biased. It’s a cheap way for you to dismiss preferences and opinions that differ from yours.
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Which preferences and opinions have I dismissed in this discussion?

You're attacking people for addressing race and gender and doing so in a cheap dismissive way.

And then the latest post seems to suggest that leftists are somehow above sexism.
 
That’s a little melodramatic, I’m not attacking anybody - I said that flattening the discourse to just sexism/racism is lazy. You’re perfectly willing to legitimize Bernies unpopularity for some, it should be just as easy for you to acknowledge Hillary’s unpopularity.
 
Politicians are especially polarizing figures in this era, it would be stupid for us to so offhandedly dismiss all the criticisms we don’t agree with.
 
myDeaconmyhand said:
Politicians are especially polarizing figures in this era, it would be stupid for us to so offhandedly dismiss all the criticisms we don’t agree with.
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Which is what you're doing. You chose to escalate this instead of simply saying, "I don't think Hillary is unpopular strictly because she's a woman, but we obviously can't separate sexism from the narratives about her."
 
PhDeac said:
Which is what you're doing. You chose to escalate this instead of simply saying, "I don't think Hillary is unpopular strictly because she's a woman, but we obviously can't separate sexism from the narratives about her."
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A bad argument on your part because I’m not dismissing criticisms of 1 persons personality, I’m dismissing the extremely broad dismissal of millions of opinions based on assumption of bias. You don’t think Republicans make these same lazy dismissals of liberal opinions. You dislike Ted Cruz because you hate America, is that it?
 
PhDeac said:
we obviously can't separate sexism from the narratives about her."
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*we* certainly can separate those narratives, and very often do. You don't separate them because you seemingly don't take issue with Hillary Clinton's persona, and sexism is an easy defense. A hypocritical opinion isn't necessarily incorrect. Liberals hypocritically criticize Republicans all the damn time, that doesn't make their criticisms incorrect. Striving for power is ugly, we just tend to be more approving of it when we believe it's being done on our behalf.

Hell, just look at the rising stars in the Republican party - nakedly ambitious, bitter, hateful, ignorant women. Wheres the sexism? If we are really going to dig in deep - the "women belong in the kitchen" "Hillary is a cold shrew and her husband fucked around because she wouldn't have sex with him". *Those* criticisms are absolutely sexist garbage. But to say that Hillary deserved an uncritical pass for being unidealogical, manipulative, dishonest, and power hungry *simply because male politicians don't get criticized for those things* is asinine and ridiculous.
 
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