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POLITICAL POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER. I think this, by Andrew Sullivan, is very insightful, and very important:
Clinton has internalized to her bones the 1990s sense that conservatism is ascendant, that what she really believes is unpopular, that the Republicans have structural, latent power of having a majority of Americans on their side. Hence the fact that she reeks of fear, of calculation, of focus groups, of triangulation. She might once have had ideals keenly felt; she might once have actually relished fighting for them and arguing in their defense. But she has not been like that for a very long time. She has political post-traumatic stress disorder. She saw her view of feminism gutted in the 1992 campaign; she saw her healthcare plan destroyed by what she saw as a VRWC; she remains among the most risk-averse of Democrats on foreign policy and in the culture wars.All of that is perfectly understandable, incidentally. The traumatizing incidences Sullivan points to did, in fact, happen. Hillary was pilloried for a bit of offhand feminism, and eventually forced to apologize. Her health care plan was shredded, and contributed to the worst Democratic losses in a generation. She was forced to largely recede from public life, and assume a more traditional, subordinate, spousal role.You don't live through such experiences without scars, without lessons. Some say those lessons will make her more effective in office. Possibly true. But there's also an argument to be made that those were the wrong lessons, that they are less applicable now, that they will lead her astray, that they have ingrained a reflexive caution during a moment that calls for boldness. Hillary's approach to politics often seems predicated on survival, with accomplishments to be jammed in-between the cracks. Her actions are not those of someone who trusts in her capacity -- or even sees it as her goal -- to change the ideological tenor of the country. There's an argument to be made that she's right. I'm just not convinced.--Ezra Klein
