Why I Don't Want My Daughter to Be Hillary Clinton
If Hillary Clinton becomes president, Karisa Johns Smith says she "will probably cry." Smith, a so-called "Jesus feminist" and doctoral candidate at Wheaton College, views a future President Hillary Clinton as an exemplary model for the next generation of women. "There's finally somebody for my daughters," Smith told Christianity Today managing editor Katelyn Beaty, " — that you grow up believing you can be what you see."
If Hillary becomes president, I may cry too — but not tears of joy. Hillary's far-Left social and economic policies would devastate this nation. I couldn't care less if our next president is a woman; my main concern is whether he or she will govern well.
But, if our next president is going to be a woman, I would want someone who would inspire our daughters to live with integrity and honor. Hillary does the exact opposite. As Helen Wickert, CEO of courageousmotherhood.net, wrote in an open letter to Hillary last week: "(Y)ou have shown not only my daughter but all daughters — and not only in this country but globally — that in order to, in your words, 'shatter the glass ceiling,' you have to lie, cheat, abuse, insult, bully, and ignore. You threaten others along with disrespecting yourself."
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Hillary Clinton is arguably the worst candidate to ever win the presidential nomination of a major U.S. political party (though in fairness, Donald Trump may be a close second). From her lies and inaction surrounding Benghazi to her "extremely careless" mishandling of classified national secrets on her private email server, she should be headed for the political graveyard; instead, she may be headed for the White House.
Her staying power communicates to our daughters that character doesn't matter — only power, manipulation and money do. This is why even some secular, progressive women, especially those under 30, refuse to support Hillary Clinton. In the New Hampshire primary, for example, Bernie Sanders won 53% of the female vote, and an astonishing 80% of the vote among women under 30. As one Bernie supporter, 25-year-old Gemma Soldati, said in an article published in Quartz: "When my mother says she's going to vote for Hillary Clinton because she's a woman, to me that is identity politics at its worst. It's putting the value of a female president over the value of a president with your values."
Of all people, Christians should be the least susceptible to identity politics. When the Prophet Samuel was choosing a king for Israel, God instructed him not to judge based on external markers, because "man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart." We should do likewise.
Ironically, "Jesus feminists" urge Christians to ignore gender differences when it comes to sex roles, and readily quote Paul's words that in Christ, "there is no male or female." Yet, when it comes to voting, some of these same people allow gender to trump everything else. As 26-year-old Ellen Richard, a Bible editor at Tyndale House Publishers, told Beaty: "I vote for Clinton less because she's Hillary Clinton and honestly because she's a woman." She added that she's motivated by a commitment "to seeing women gain greater levels of power," saying that Hillary's presidency would balance "a historical wrong."
This attitude may be prevalent among feminists, Christian and non-Christian, but it has nothing to do with Jesus. Yes, Jesus upheld the dignity of women, but he never encouraged his followers to seek earthly power or to try and even the score. This is not the kind of feminism I want to pass on to my daughter. But, it is definitely the kind of feminism that Hillary Clinton exemplifies — one that seeks personal advancement and will step on anyone, including women, to achieve its goals.
Hillary Clinton is a woman whose husband stands accused of sexually assaulting or raping 14 women. And, though Hillary publicly espoused that "every survivor of sexual assault deserves to be heard, believed, and supported," she has done the exact opposite. Over the years, Hillary has intimidated, berated and led smear campaigns against the victims of her husband Bill.
Juanita Broaddrick, whom Bill allegedly raped in 1978, recently tweeted: "I was 35 years old when Bill Clinton, Ark. Attorney General raped me and Hillary tried to silence me. I am now 73 . . . it never goes away." Similarly, private investigator Ivan Duda told author Edward Klein that Hillary hired him in the early 80s "to get rid of all these b—es (Bill) is seeing . . . . I want you to give me the names and addresses and phone numbers, and we can get them under control."
In the 1990s, when Gennifer Flowers surfaced and alleged a long affair with Bill, Hillary reportedly launched the "aggressive, explicit direction of the campaign to discredit" Flowers. Similarly, when news broke that Bill had engaged in sexual relations with White House intern, Monica Lewinsky, Hillary called Lewinsky a "narcissistic loony toon," and attributed the entire affair to a "vast Right-wing conspiracy."
