Last week, two GOP representatives announced they were reopening the probe into the FBI’s handling of Hillary Clinton’s emails. This announcement came alongside newly revealed information about Clinton’s involvement in the Russian dossier and an investigation into the Obama-era uranium deal. The probe will address the timing of former FBI director James Comey’s announcement of Clinton’s investigation as well as other decisions regarding the FBI’s management of the numerous allegations against Clinton.
Like always, it is important to analyze the political impact such revelations may have for our country (for more information about the probe, click here), but there is a more sinister issue at play within the minds of the GOP puppeteers. Throughout the constant attacks on “liberal” politicians broadcasted on Fox News and other right-wing media, one question I repeatedly find myself asking as more and more Hillary Clinton articles pop into the limelight is: “Why Hillary?”
During the 2016 election, Clinton was bombarded with incessant accusations from every direction, especially from the GOP and its conservative junkies. First, there was the extensive interrogation about her role in Benghazi. Then came the dreaded emails. When the FBI fully exhausted themselves after multiple trials and no indictments, the main coverage point that Fox and Friends focused on is the scandal with the Clinton Foundation. And now, we are back to her emails.
It seems that no matter what Hillary Clinton does, in spite of having no political aspirations at this point, she can never step outside the circle of blame. Her constant apologies are considered manipulative, and while many anti-Hillary advocates justify their dislike on the basis of her lack of transparency, that does not explain why Hillary, and only Hillary, suffers from such political abuse.
If we look at the Trump Administration, while nowhere next to perfect (by that, I mean the antithesis of perfection), every member of his presidency has at one point or another committed the same “crime” that Clinton has been accused of. Trump blames Clinton for having a conflict of interest with the Clinton Foundation when she was Secretary of State yet refuses to give up ties with his own business from which he profits as President. He hounded her about her ties to Wall Street but incorporated many Wall Street elitists in his administration. And we all know of Trump’s favorite jab at Clinton: the emails. Trump, his senior advisors, and many other officials have all, at one time or another, been caught using unsecured, private email servers to conduct government business. Oops.
So, the question is, why Hillary? Why is it that every other politician is allowed to brush off the scandals thrown at them, yet Clinton faces constant blowback for dead allegations? While this question haunts me every time I see her name flashing on screen, I don’t think there is a solid answer. That said, we can still speculate why.
The GOP uses Clinton as a distraction. Because she has constantly been a target of conservative hate, making her out to be the scapegoat expends hardly any effort at all. This week has been especially bad (or good) for Clinton deflection tactics. After the Special Counsel for the Russian Investigation released the Manafort and Gates indictments, Fox News put their propagandistic expertise to use and, instead of discussing the indictments, focused only on Clinton’s previous scandals, going as far as to create unfounded conspiracy theories with Hillary as the main assailant in Russian collusion and literally everything else. Politically, this is a simple but clever tactic—divert all the attention away from the main issue and place it on the party’s least favorite politician. Her political history and conservatives’ general hatred for her have made Hillary Clinton part of the Fox narrative for over a decade. It is safe to say that much of the blame she receives comes from how easy it is to stir up the anti-Hillary mob mentality to further the GOP agenda.
It is also fair to say that resentment against Clinton stems from the patriarchal society we call America. Sexism is inherent in every part of society, and we saw it at its peak during the 2016 election. While many factors went into the outcome of the election, not wanting or not trusting a woman as president was definitely one of them. For some crazy reason, our society thinks that a person’s gender defines their competency and intelligence. From what Trump has demonstrated in the past year, Clinton is without a doubt a worthier candidate for the most important office in the country.
Hillary is a lot of things (intelligent, clever, and politically apt), but, as much as it breaks my heart to say this, she is not the president. It is time conservative fanatics take their name blaming agenda elsewhere and focus on the real issue: Trump, who if we are using the GOP’s logic against Hillary, should be seen as much more egregious than their hatred for Hillary.