I support Hillary Clinton for president.

I support Hillary Clinton for president.

I don’t like to dive into political conversations or debates but I had to get this out because it’s so uncool to say it and I’ve been deluged with so much other information that would lead me to believe that she’s not a candidate worth supporting or that I should hide my support for her.

I’m not a big follower of politics and find politicians in general to be some of the lowest scum on the planet. With eyes open, I fully am including Hillary within this category. (And Bernie.) Trump is his own category and I won’t comment any more on him because the media and even his naysayers have given him way too much press. Please take the mic away from him. Democracy is great but we need to be careful with the good ole fashioned populist hate-mongering.

I get my news mainly from NPR, The Economist, BBC. I’ll read the WSJ and The National Review to balance out my views. I’m not a registered Democrat---though fairly liberal on social issues, I can be a staunch conservative on some fiscal matters. I’d give my ear to a rational Republican candidate, though we were too busy listening to a big blowhard shout for any rational Republican candidates to appear on my stream. I like my news to whisper, to trace out the nuances. If it shouts, if it simplifies, if it looks at one side and makes the other side out to be an imbecile, if it makes the complicated world within which we live a meme, I shut it off. I will not tolerate heavy-handed one-sidedness. I will listen to those with views very different than my own—as long as they don’t shout. Or even worse, simplify without respect for others. We all need to do a better job of not just listening but empathizing with those that are different from us.

The very first reason for which I support Hillary is that she’s a woman. This, I know, is a very superficial reason to support a presidential candidate. But very important.

There is a very positive correlation between women’s rights and economic prosperity and poverty reduction. For the past 200+ years, we’ve lived in a country in which the only thing that could be commented on with regard to a woman and the White House is the color of her dress.

For 39 years, I’ve watched women get silenced, trounced upon for having an opinion, for doing things. We’re an extremely sexist nation. And what we don’t realize is that this sexism hurts men, possibly even more than women. It really hurts us all. Having a woman president won’t solve it, nor is voting for someone because they are a woman a way to solve it.

At first glance, I wished it were someone else, not Hillary. She's a Clinton, she comes off as insincere, she’s so uncool (see the memes comparing her music interests and those of Bernie—come on, Bernie bros, that’s just childish). She is insincere, but I believe that’s because, even more than men politicians (let’s face it, we all have public personas), she has had to have this very fake way of talking to even have a chance of being heard. In her starkly boring pants suit, she has had to play it very safe as a woman, much more safe than a man. She can’t just blurt out her opinions without thinking them through, like a man in a "real" suit. But what she’s got is real experience. She’s been on the big stage, she’s taken big hits. Not even Obama has been as mocked and held to more completely unreasonable standards.

And yet here she is. Totally unflappable. Totally strong. Solid. She’s a horrible campaigner (no wonder people think she's so uncool), but she’s the only one able to speak with any depth about policy. She’s someone who gets the details. Someone who can act like an adult. Who can compromise when necessary, someone who has our financial security in mind, someone who has made mistakes, but has grown, someone who isn’t a demagogue painted as a unicorn.

If you get Bernie off his one issue, he stumbles, he falls back on a self-righteous, blame others attitude. This paint the rich as the enemy really shoots us in the foot. It’s a very crooked and unfair world--I’d like to see campaign finance reform, I’d like to see some reformation of our 2-party system, I recognize income inequality as a very major issue, I wish education were more affordable, but you get rich by working hard and being smart and not whining about people who have more than you. The Rich are not the enemy. It’s the Us versus Them mentality that’s killing us and I hate to see a candidate spend so much time continuing to divide us.

Am I inspired by Hillary? Not really.
Should politicians be inspiring? Not necessarily.
Am I inspired to vote for Hillary? Absolutely.

I have not felt the Bern one iota. He strikes me as a well-meaning person. I find his speeches rather dull—just another old white guy pontificating. And not really in any depth. Or with much regard to reality. I’m also very much over the “savior” mentality. I voted for Obama twice because I thought him to be a very thoughtful, pragmatic candidate, infinitely more talented and more inspiring than Bernie. I really think Obama’s handled the job with a lot of grace and dignity, despite the naysayers. Obama experienced so much opposition in this country, partly because of a latent racism so obviously present, but moreso because the media, the pundits, put so many unreasonable expectations on him that he became painted like a savior. And though I really respect him(despite the fact that he's made lots of mistakes and he's not perfect), he ain’t no savior. Nor is Bernie. And having a savior mentality makes it very difficult to overcome the fact that nobody is a savior. The Bernie bros have already shot Bernie in the foot by painting him as a savior.

There are lots of other quiet, maybe overly pragmatic, Hillary supporters like me. She’s winning the popular vote, too, all voting conspiracies aside. If Bernie overcomes the voting conspiracies, the Super Delegates, and the evil establishment, I will reluctantly support him, too.