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Eileen Myles on Hillary Clinton

I’ve gone out of my way to not post much about the presidential election because, well, we’re all pretty much inundated by election talk on our feeds, anyway. I was surprised, however, to read this text by Eileen Myles endorsing Hillary Clinton for none other than Buzzfeed. Myles seems to be in the camp that Clinton is the best political candidate for our current political system. Read the full piece on Buzzfeed, the excerpt below.

So I think part of the reason I believe in Hillary Clinton or the efficacy of putting her in the Oval Office is that I think she might bring it on a little slower, and otherwise all I feel is a toboggan slide with either one of those men, Bernie and Trump. I voted for Hillary last time too. I’m sort of a fan of a limited effect, a small definable margin you can build on and keep going. She makes sense. I think that if Hillary Clinton had been in office for the last eight years we’d have better health care right now because she failed already in that regard and she did not go away and if elected last time she would have tried to do it again knowing what she wanted and how to get it from the abominable creature she’s been a part of: Congress. I remember her talking in the first campaign and she had a very clear plan. She always does. She makes sense. She talked openly and frankly about the mortgage crisis and there too she had specific things she wanted to do. She intended to save people’s homes. Obama didn’t talk about that at all and he pretty much gave it to the banks. I saw that he was economically conservative when he came in (U. of Chicago) despite all the beautiful talk. I find him eloquent and kind of a poet. I think he just had some vision and we needed that and I’m totally grateful for him. But I wanted Hillary last time because she was a experienced congressman, she had been “in” the White House before and knows how it works. The first time I voted I voted for Eugene McCarthy and I knew he wouldn’t win but it felt so great to vote for him, to vote for the right guy, the one who wanted peace. And I voted for Shirley Chisholm next because I loved her and I just thought how amazing it would be if she was the president of the United States. I have the button. I can’t even remember who they were running against. Right away I thought my vote was symbolic. I wanted it to support my system. THAT system didn’t work. And it still doesn’t but today I’m trying to get to the roots of why I think what I am thinking: that I want this woman to win. Lyndon Johnson I know for a fact was a great president. And I don’t mean by that he was a great man. He horrifically escalated the war in Vietnam. And he also got the civil rights bill passed and all the great society programs of the ’60s exist ‘cause of him because he was like a guy who loved to wheel and deal and he had a strong domestic agenda and there’s a romance about who Kennedy was, but Johnson did the thing and I think Hillary Clinton will be like that. I think she’s a leader. Could anyone be named Hillary and not be bossy. Yet she is being tarred for that. Well really for everything.

*Image of Eileen Myles via Jezebel

I don’t think she makes sense at all. She just appeals to the narrow morality of the politically correct, meaning that she is the real populist, not Bernie. Moreover, how can she claim she’s going to change things while being supported by Wall Street money? There’s no sense in that, as Wall Street wants to keep things exactly as they are. I don’t trust her for a second.