Anger

The most prominent emotion coming from yesterday's proceedings at the Rules and Bylaws Committee is anger. Eve Fairbanks wrote up some scenes from the Hillary protest outside the Marriott, and then there's this lady.



This is really disturbing. There's a great deal of anger within the Democratic Party, and I'm trying to figure out whether it's coming from former non-aligned Americans who were attracted by the promise of a woman President or core Democrats. Either way, it's sad. Once we got down to two candidates four months ago things got very personal and identity-based, and this kind of searing anger was inevitable. To an extent, on the outer edges, this is not fixable. There's nothing you can do outside of installing Hillary Clinton as President to satisfy the likes of Harriet Christian. Apparently the crowd at the protests yesterday was somewhat small, but you can't tell me that the thoughts of Harriet Christian represent a piece of the electorate. I don't know how big, but it's a piece.

The crusade for women's rights has merged with electoral politics here and a lot of people feel hurt and slighted. They've poured themselves into the vessel of Hillary as the first woman President and they feel it has been stolen from them. The DNC rules are too meager and thin to hold back the mountains of bullshit on both sides, the moral arguments both can make that they deserved the victory. So there is this sense of betrayal. I honestly don't know how you unify after betrayal.

I think Obama can win the election by increasing participation, and handing an election to Republicans just doesn't seem possible at this point in history, but it would be folly to ignore the very real pain and hurt being felt by Clinton supporters right now, particularly older women.