Hillary’s Goldman speech (speeches? I don’t even know) is often used as evidence that she is in the pocket of finance. Let’s talk it out.
First, there may be some conclusive proof out there that Hillary is actually in the pocket of big finance. I personally haven’t seen it. Maybe she even is! I don’t know. You don’t either. Who can read the mind of another person?
What I do know is that because she gave some speeches to some bankers and made some money. I know this because it’s basically the only piece of evidence that people ever give that she is in the pockets of big finance. I’m not a complete campaign nerd. I’d give myself a B- when it comes to being a political junkie. I haven’t dug into her entire record. But the chances are neither have you. And the chances are also good that those who very much want the world to believe that Hillary is in the pocket of big business have dug into her record. And I’m fairly confident that if they had found more, better, or more damning evidence that Hillary is in the pocket of big business, we’d have seen that evidence.
I’d have taken their money too. You probably would too.
All of this leads to a simple point: Hillary is accused of being in the pocket of big business because she gave some speeches to some people and got paid for it.
I’ve always been a little stumped on this criticism because if bankers offered me a lot of money to go and talk to them I would fucking jump at the chance in ten seconds and I think most of my friends would too. I don’t like the American banking industry at all. I don’t disagree with a single word of Bernie’s critique of them. But I would still fucking run to fleece them and take their money if they wanted to give it to me.
Now, they don’t do this, of course, because I’m not a particularly powerful person and it would be a waste of their money. I wouldn’t say anything interesting and while I’d *probably* take their calls in the future after they paid me, it wouldn’t really be a very convenient chit for them.
But with Hillary, the fact that she made some speeches was, some rich asshole decided, the best they could come up with on a currently hot topic to damage her.
Just like countless other presidential candidates across time, Hillary took some money to speak to some people at some events. She also represents these people in congress. Those people are quite possibly hoping that those speeches (even though it’s really a drop in the bucket for her) were somehow going to influence her to like them. And that is a legitimate concern.
And you can vote against this legitimate concern. You can vote against it even if you yourself would be fucking psyched to be offered a bunch of money to shoot your mouth off to a bunch of assholes.
You can weave a narrative about how she “should have known.” I’m not sure what she “should have known?” That she’d get a fat check? That the assholes giving it to her (who she has to talk to from time to time anyway, since she represents them in the senate and they are rich and powerful and this is the real word) hoped she’d be nicer because of it? She did know all of that. And she figured “hey, yeah, some people that share my political views but not my operating methods are gonna be annoyed about it. But I can really use this money and I know that I’m not really going to be swayed by them and actually they know that too.” They all knew. And you’d know. And you’d probably take the check, too.
Another important point:
A speech at Goldman is not evidence of Hillary’s thinking, it’s an indicator
Now. Here are some facts. You know a fact about Hillary: that she gave a speech to bankers. Here’s what you don’t know: what that means about how Hillary views the banks.
Pause on that and think about it for a moment: The fact is you don’t fucking know what Hillary secretly, deep down, thinks about the banks.
This is not “just my opinion.” It is fucking scientific fact. You are not a mind reader.
What you are doing is taking one indicator into Hillary’s thinking — and not a particularly huge one — and using it, instead, as a concrete piece of evidence into Hillary’s thinking. That’s on you. You are making that choice.
But I do think you should know that other rational people can look at that one indicator and reasonably draw a different interpretation from it.
This is a hugely important point. When you see information about Hillary’s paid speech and immediately decide it means she’s in the pocket of big banks, you’re making a personal choice to do so. You’re forming an opinion on a topic with a limited view into it. If i disagree with your interpretation, it does not make me in the pocket of Hillary or big banks. It makes me in the pocket of giving people the benefit of the doubt, say, or in the pocket of looking at someone’s larger personality and history.
I may choose to form my opinion on the topic because, for example, I’ve looked at her larger legislative history and personal story. This is just as valid — maybe even moreso! — than making a decision based on one day of someone’s life.
Why did this whole speech thing even come up?
Another point: I may be making a different interpretation than you on the topic of Hillary’s speeches, because I question why we are even talking about this at all. Here we’re in an arena I know something about — given my extensive history researching and practicing manipulation of public opinion. I know for a fact that this topic — Hillary and Goldman — did not come up magically. Nor did it come up because some brilliant, idealistic reporter wrote a story thinking the world needs to know about this.
The topic came up because some people were paid — by other, different vulture capitalists! — to spend hours, days, weeks, months going through Hillary’s entire record on this topic — and others! — to find something that does not sit well with a portion of the American voting public at this time. And this is the thing they found. This is it. Man. If someone went through my history they’re going to find a lot worse. But that’s not the topic at hand. The topic is the fact that people spent shit tons of money digging out this one nugget, and influencing the media and human beings to talk about it. Endlessly.
This is the one and only reason I, you, Bernie, everyone, is talking about Hillary and Goldman speeches.
Now, sure. They’ve done a good job. They’ve done such a good job that even though pretty much every presidential candidate in the history of time (except Bernie!) has done the same thing, right now all of the sudden it’s this hugely important topic, and the most important indictor of how someone really thinks — moreso than their voting record, personal history, etc.
And maybe from here on out, it will be permanently politically toxic to have been paid to make a speech to bankers. Seems a weird thing to me, but hey, maybe that’s the new future we’re going to be in.
But it is absolutely important to remember that this is the case because some rich assholes spent a lot of money to make it the case.
“It’s not just the speeches”
Now, maybe you’re super politically engaged, a student of Hillary’s history, and stupendously anti-capitalist and you’ve just always felt this way and you’ve dug into her record and it’s just indicative of this larger pattern blah blah blah.
First: good for you. I like politically active people. And hey! Maybe you’re right!
Second: Please don’t bother telling me about it just at this moment, because we’re having a conversation about a different topic right now. We’re talking about Goldman speeches.
Third: In my experience most people who claim this aren’t really that way. I mean no offense at this. But whenever I dig, I often find that these people have simply just learned the next level down of talking points from those who are paying for all this, and parrot them. And if these talking points were actually important or relevant, they would have been the main talking point to begin with. In this situation, usually the next batch of evidence has something to do with Glass Steagall. We’re putting that aside for this conversation because there are other points I want to make here but I would caution you, please, to not secretly think the words “Glass Steagall” negate everything I’m about to talk about in this essay.
But anyway, none of this matters! Because even if you’re 100% right, and you’ve done all the research, you’re a rare bird, and for the other 99.9% of the people talking about this topic, they were manipulated into talking about it by some rich assholes by focusing on a speech at Goldman.
And if you know more about it, do me a favor: write a nice, detailed essay with all the information you have about Hillary being in the pocket of banks, and convince me without mentioning speeches to bankers, because in my personal view, that’s bullshit non-evidence.
Personally, when a rich asshole is spending a shit ton of money to make me not like someone, I suddenly like that person a lot more. I like to think this shit doesn’t work on me.
But I am wrong. And so are you. Because:
We are all capable of being manipulated by the media. It works. This is a scientific fact.
I get into this one a lot with people. And for someone who’s read the scientific papers behind this stuff, it’s frustrating. People look into their souls, when talking about this topic, and think “I know that when it matters I am unswayable by advertising and PR on a topic.” They might even be sort of right, occasionally, on some topics. But it doesn’t matter. Because that’s not relevant.
What is relevant that it has been repeatedly, scientifically proven over and over again that when someone spends a shit ton of money trying to convince the population as a whole about something, you will influence the public opinion as a whole.
Now, every individual doesn’t suddenly go “gosh, I used to like Hillary but I heard this ad message and now I like Bernie (or Trump, or O’Malley).” What happens is that this message subtly influences a certain number of people, just a little bit, so that those most easily impressionable are pushed to change their minds, and when you change the minds of even 2–5% of the population, you have shifted the country’s thinking on the topic.
When I talk about this topic, people inevitably, immediately turn inward and look at themselves. It’s a logical enough thing to do. They do a little soul searching and they say “I don’t think this happens to me, and I don’t think this is why I have the opinions I do, but now I will guard against it, and so I don’t believe it. Because if I can guard against it, others can, and there’s probably some study out there saying that it works less well when you are aware of it.”
And you’re right! There are! But those studies find that a) it still works on you, b) it’s very hard for all of us to always be constantly on guard, and c) most people don’t give a fuck about any particular topic, and they are the ones that get swayed to completely change the dynamics and public opinion about that topic.
So it really doesn’t matter whether you think it’s working on you, or whether it is working on you. It is still true that rich assholes are spending tons of money to make this a topic of conversation, and it is effecting people, and it is why you’re even saying “Hillary is in the pockets of banks because she gave a speech at Goldman.”
I reiterate, too, that this is science. I’m not shooting off about this topic. This is decades-old, peer-reviewed, dozens of times in dozens of ways affirmed science.
When you say that you’re not effected by marketing on a topic, it’s about as scientifically valid as someone who says they don’t believe in global warming.
Frustrating sidenote: It’s doubly galling, in this situation, since the people who put this particular bit of marketing into the world are basically the same people who put that particular bit of marketing about global warming into the world.
Moving on.
Is it sexist to criticize Hillary about Goldman?
So. At this point, often in the conversation, someone fed up with Hillary-bashing about the banks will often say something like “Al Gore got paid to speak to banks! Bill Clinton did! John Kerry! It’s sexist that they are only giving Hillary shit about this!”
And someone else will say: “I am not a sexist I just don’t like banks and I don’t like people who are in the thrall of bankers.”
This just happened to me! Exactly 50 minutes ago! It is what inspired me to write this article! Because it’s so, so maddening.
Both are kind of right and both are kind of wrong, but most sadly, these people are basically speaking right over each other’s heads. Let’s break it down:
First: as we’ve said, we’re not mind readers. Scientific fact. I don’t know the actual motivations of the rich assholes trying to bring Hillary down. You don’t either. Does it look like sexism? Sure does to me. But I don’t actually know for sure. Weirdly no evil billionaire has come up to me and said “I am funding the anti Hillary crusade because I am a sexist.” Nor have I seen incriminating documents to that effect. So we just have to guess. Do I secretly think they’re sexist? Yes, yes I do. But no, I don’t actually know.
But you don’t either! And you know what? That is the topic being discussed: the motivations of those funding the conversation on this topic. What’s not being discussed is your personal views on sexism when you receive the information. You can be totally non sexist and still have your opinions influenced by sexists. Just like you can be anti-diet soda and have your opinions influenced by people who are very pro-diet soda. It’s the whole game! It is literally the whole point of marketing!
And again! You might know more about Hillary’s record on this topic or that, and you might have cared about this topic for a decade and you might be totally immune to this anti-Hillary marketing because you’re smart and ON IT.
But that doesn’t mean the marketing doesn’t exist and isn’t having an impact. And that’s what we’re trying to talk about! Who’s doing this and why? Not your reaction to it.
What’s “not being sexist” anyway?
The other thing I see on the “hey this Hillary bashing seems kind of sexist” topic is this argument (and this is a quote from that Facebook thread that irked me into action):
“Where sexism exists, we should fight it with all our strength, but, by labeling things sexist when they are not, you actually weaken the feminist cause.”
And another one: “The contra positive being that she does not get any lighter critique because she aspires to be the first female POTUS.”
My interpretation of this belief system — what I genuinely, assuming positive intent, understand that these people believe — is that any “sexism” in either “direction” is bad, and thus we should criticize and judge people from both genders equally.
This is a totally valid political belief.
It is, however, not the only one out there. And good people can disagree on this topic. Good, liberal idealists have genuine, anguishing, heartbreaking disagreements and discussions on this topic.
You are not more just, more fair, more liberal, or smarter for having this belief. You’ve just come to a decision on a complex topic. Other smart, just, fair and liberal people have come to a different decision.
Some people believe that we should actively work against sexism and racism by giving those who have suffered at their hands a leg up.
What’s a leg up? You know: the benefit of the doubt. A helping hand.
I concede this is only a tangential point to the topic of Hillary and the banks. But do bear in mind when someone says “hillary is being bashed on this bank thing because of sexism” and your answer is something like “doesn’t matter we must bash everyone equally at all times,” you’re doing two things:
- You’re completely changing the topic from a rather interesting conversation about the motivations of those who choose to spend ungodly amounts of money on something like an election and that’s actually a stupendously interesting conversation. and
- You’re espousing a single — and really quite defensible! — view on sexism, but it’s not, like, the be all end all of the sexism conversation for a lot of people and good people disagree on this topic.
That’s it, I’m done. Insert college-level recap wrap up here.
