When I was at university and Bill Clinton was running for a second term, there was a huge craze for “Hillary for president” buttonsadges. These were chic, perhaps because HillaryMr Clinton’s wife was not running for president. As a purely abstract idea, young women liked her, but as a reality, two decades later, they like her a whole lot less.
The historic ascent of a woman to the Democratic ticket for president seems to have come and gonelast week without stirring much genuine enthusiasm among women, especially younger women. For some reason they cannot seem to muster any passion for Hillary Clinton; her support, for the most part, is begrudging, dutiful, pro forma . A vast number of women cannot seem unable to love her the way they loved Barack Obama or Bernie Sanders or, for that matter, Bill Mr Clinton.
In spite of being a proverbial old white man, Mr Sanders’ eloquent articulation of an ensconced victim mentality — the system is rigged, the world is against us — is in some sense more appealingand recognizable to this generation’s particular blend brand of identity politics. In spite of Despite being a woman in one of the more an arduous professions for women, Mrs Clinton, on the other hand, does not speak the language of victimisation and a riggerd system the way Mr Sanders does; she does not, in her rhetoric, take all the responsibility off of individuals and put it on the rigged system. This makes her less enthralling to younger voters, less in tune with the voice of their more inspiring professors, their favourite books and their most beloved websites.