Possibly news has reached you that Hillary Rodham Clinton, former Secretary of State and First Lady, is running for president for a second time. Although not the first woman to run for president (Shirley Chisholm! Victoria Woodhull! Gloria la Riva! Many more!), Clinton is generally considered the first female candidate for president with a solid chance of winning the election.
As a feminist website largely based in the United States, Hillary’s run is very clearly relevant to our interests and her campaign will likely produce a great deal of stuff to talk about for the next 1.5 years and/or millennia. This stuff is gonna be very complicated and also very important, and we’re lucky to have a team diverse enough to represent so many different views on American politics and culture to write about it all.
For the time being, we think that this is the best way to approach this topic and engender open dialogue: let each writer speak for themselves and only themselves. We don’t want our writers to feel inhibited by the possibility that their opinion will be treated as The Opinion of the world’s most popular independently-owned LGBT women’s website. Throughout our coverage, no single writer’s work will represent an official Autostraddle stance on her candidacy or policies; every writer has their own opinion and, unless otherwise stated, none of these opinions should be interpreted as Autostraddle’s or the Senior Editors’. These arguments should be evaluated and discussed on their own merit — we want to have conversations about the issues themselves rather than conversations about having conversations. However, we do have an overall liberal political stance in these parts, so you can expect the range of views expressed to remain primarily on the left wing, from the center-left to the radical left. But even within that spectrum, the opinions of our team are as wildly polarized and disparate as humanly possible. Our editorial standards aren’t changing — we won’t excuse irresponsible or bigoted reporting and this isn’t an absolution of accountability, rather it’s an encouragement of the most open dialogue possible. Cool?
In conclusion, Kate McKinnon is funny, I think we all agree on that.
Love,
Riese, Laneia, Rachel, Heather & Yvonne
I’m in no way excited about her running for President. She’s not much better than any other sociopathic politician, and worse than a few. If I vote for her it will be while holding my nose because as bad a human being as she is, she’s better than whatever serial killer the Republicans nominate.
“In conclusion, Kate McKinnon is funny, I think we all agree on that.”
oh you sweet little angels. the lesbian blogger community cannot agree on anything.
http://mic.com/articles/115474/here-s-why-hillary-clinton-needs-amy-poehler-back-in-her-pantsuits-on-snl
brb, I must go hit the detonate button on the entire internet now. Sorry everyone.
I’ll help.
Please can I beg beg beg that in what I imagine will be extensive coverage, you not publish the phrase ‘leader of the free world’ in serious reference to the office of the President of the USA?
I don’t know if I have to explain how patronising, arrogant, deluded and inaccurate that statement sounds to non us-americans (well, I’m sure even in this corner of the internet at least one person will respond to this and lecture me about how actually the US controls everyone and everything)
In a nutshell the statement contradicts itself. The ‘free world’ is a term that is generally understood to refer to industrialised democracies (Europe, Can, Aust, NZ, Jap, Sth Korea etc) and if the US president is our leader and we didn’t get to participate in democratically electing them, then we aren’t actually free so the POTUS cannot be the leader of the FREE world after all.
If you’re not convinced as to how crass it sounds, Think of it this way – much like the US as a certain degree of influence over it’s industrialied democratic allies, Germany is has a certain degree of influence and power within the EU by virtue of it’s large economy and population. If Germans went around referring to Angela Merkel as the ‘leader of the EU’ it would sound a bit odd… arrogant… deluded… insulting to other EU countries… wouldn’t it? Sure, she is probably one of the most powerful and influential leaders within the EU, but it is a bit jump from acknowledging that to actually saying she ‘leads the EU’. (Germans do not actually say this by the way – this is a hypothetical example)
In the same way, the rest of us find it arrogant, deluded and insulting when Americans continually make the jump from acknowledging that their leader has a fair bit of influence on the world stage to actually outright saying that you control the whole world.
Perhaps I’ve just been watching too much Scandal lately so it’s gotten to me.
I really appreciate the way AS tries generally to have a more global outlook and be a bit more sensitive to international readers than some other US-based lesbian websites I can think of (cough cough afterellen).
Please have some small mercy and compassion on us poor foreigners who are already forced to know a lot more about the domestic politics of the USA than we would prefer by virtue of any small participation we may make in english language media or online communities. Please, spare us that extra cringe and don’t say it!!
I can say with absolute certainty that the only time we ever used that phrase in seriousness was when Brittani said “happy birthday, leader of the free world” to me on a post wishing me happy birthday. Oh and one time Carmen made an election day playlist in which she noted “Today, the United States of America will elect someone cocky enough to call themselves “the leader of the free world.””
So um, we got you covered. Not a problem! We’ve never used it and we have no intention to introduce that phrase into our election coverage vocabulary.
This is why I love AS. :)
Riese, you have my vote for leader of the free world, and I can vote in two countries so it’s a double value deal!
Definitely too much Scandal this week though. I even had a dream I worked for Olivia Pope and had to sleep with a mysterious older woman to help solve a crime.
Kinda sounds like a dream gig tbh
This foreigner thanks you!
KATE MCKINNON FOR PRESIDENT
Yes! And you as vice-president :)
omg, yes for this lesbian processing moment!
I am excited about Hillary’s run! But I think everything should be all women all the time- whether she’s a hero, an anti-hero, or a villain, I’m excited that she’s a candidate.
ilu autostraddle <3 and i look forward to reading your words about HRC's presidential run.
Y’all are cool and I’m excited to take this journey with you.
The new President is likely going to have a real effect on the direction of the Supreme Court in the decades to come. Some of those judges are getting pretty old…Love Hilary or hate her, she’s going to have a better overall effect on women’s rights and LGBTQ+ issues than any Republican counterpart, and that effect could reverberate for many years to come.
I see a lot of people spreading misinformation and scaremongering about the Supreme Court to get people to vote for Hillary. The truth is that there’s only been 4 presidents in history who haven’t made appointments to the Supreme Court. So, yes, it’s likely that the next president will make at least one new appointment, but you know what else is equally likely? That the president after that one will also make at least one appointment.
No single election decides the fate of the Supreme Court for decades to come, that’s not how the system is set up to work. An individual president has the ability to swing the Supreme Court to the left or right for a while, yes, but there’s always new appointments.
Thank you for this!
General note – the Democratic nomination is far from being decided. Who knows who else will run and what will happen in the primaries? I find it amusing that people are talking about this as Hillary vs. the Republicans when no other Democrats (that I know of, anyway) have announced that they’re running.
I think most people assume it’s going to be Hilary because the Democrat and Republican party like to brand themselves by doing what the other party is not doing. So the Dems want to have a definitive frontrunner from the get go rather than 5-10 possible candidates all trying to grab attention for months on end. Also the Democrat party is usually viewed as ‘more emotional’ and ‘weaker’ than the Republican party so looking unified is a huge advantage to the Dems (in terms of strength of image) which they’ll probably milk for all it’s got.
I dunno, we were down to the line in 2008 for the Democratic nomination. Looking at the same time in 2007, most analysts did think the nomination was down to Clinton and Obama for the Democratic nomination, but the Republicans were thought to be a race between Romney and Giuliani!
So, I am just really wary of predictions at this point. Hell, at this point in 2003, we thought Howard Dean had a chance. (Yeeeeaaaargh!)
Eh, in the end, Hillary Clinton is and will most continue to be just like pretty much every other politician.
Thanks for this post and I appreciate the Senior Editors taking this tack.
Call me when we get a socialist candidate.
These people are all the same.
Much appreciated, AS.
Side note: It would be cool to continue the 8 year reprieve we’ve had from there being either a Bush or a Clinton in the Oval Office. I don’t know why it’s been OK for this weird dynasty thing to be a Thing in a supposedly democratic country for so damn long.
I have never understood what is feminist about Hilary Clinton. As far as I know, she’s got a similar insidious record to match her opponents. Hm. Well, I look forward to reading the AS viewpoints..
I am really looking forward to reading an array of intelligent, informed opinions on the election on here. My knowledge of political matters is embarrassingly lacking, and even though my views are to the left (an about-face from my conservative upbringing), I want to vote for someone for reasons other than being not-republican. I’m excited at the prospect of a woman president, and really hope Hilary lives up to expectations.
hillary supports fracking and genetic modification of our food. I hope some other democrat or bernie sanders wins
People kill me with this dynasty BS. I don’t think a second Clinton, who is related by marriage, truly constitutes a dynasty. She’s had a full career and an eligible candidate of her own merit.
Whether you like her or feel like the Democrats are truly different from the Republicans in our two party system is a separate issue, but let’s not be silly. Jumping to hysterics because you see the beginnings of similarities between the Bush’s and Clinton’s isn’t appropriate.