Why do they hate Hillary?

By Gina Barreca

The Hartford Courant

Why would folks who like country music vote for a guy who owns country clubs? Why, in other words, is Hillary Clinton doing worse with straight, white working-class men than any other demographic?

According to myriad studies, polls and my friend Beverly Anne, “They watched (Donald Trump) on ‘The Apprentice’ and they think they know him. They loved his condescending ‘You’re fired!’ tag line, because it was generally aimed at unpopular and MBA-educated contestants who, coincidentally, were the same people the viewers hated.”

I suspect she’s right. Initially I thought men’s resistance was rooted in the idea of a female commander in chief. Men have been willing to fight on a woman’s behalf, but rarely have they been expected to fight at a woman’s command.

Then I had a radical idea. I started asking men what they thought.

Former student Dave Hanley, now 32 and working in Boston, is not inspired by Hillary Clinton, although he will vote for her. “She’ll be like the co-worker I don’t ever want to hang out with, but you have to admit is excellent at her job.” Hanley says that “in this election scenario, the choice is between that co-worker and a new hire who burns the whole office down on his first day because he wanted to put tin foil in the microwave despite being told by every single person not to that.”

J. Barrett Wolf, poet and former San Francisco police officer who holds a Bronze Medal of Valor from the SFPD, answered my question by referring to a conversation he had in the small town where he now lives: “A guy said, ‘I’m not voting for the vagina.’ The same guy (in his 50s, at least) says he’s looking for a 27-year-old wife. It is an astonishing level of misogyny built into the culture of rural and small-town America.”

‘Intelligent’ people

Mark Goldblatt, professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology and a conservative, has a different perspective, suggesting that many opponents to Clinton and President Obama are neither sexist nor racist but instead are “intelligent, well-intentioned people who notice that pretty much everything HRC has ever touched in public life has gone to (expletive) and that the only substantial case for her presidency is that she’s running against a historically unfit opponent.”

According to Dave Borland, a self-employed father of twins who lives in Illinois: “Being a woman or a minority has a multiplier effect for many conservatives. Conservatives are happy to have women or blacks join their ranks. They’re more valuable than another white man.” Yet, Dave explains, “If a woman or black are ‘typical liberals,’ then their gender or race becomes a negative two-fer. Worse than a white male spouting the same liberalism.”

It was one of my women friends, author and potter Suzy Staubach, however, who wanted to make sure I guarded against stereotyping all white working-class men. “They are not all Archie Bunker with guns.”

Perhaps it’s not a female commander in chief that worries some men, but simply having a woman making any decisions.

“Many men, perhaps it’s safe to say a majority, have never had a female boss,” argues Paul Bylaska, a college consultant. “When they consider one leading the nation, it resurrects all the cliches and stereotypes. She comes across as more the ‘stern principal’ type ready to call you on the carpet.”

Many disenfranchised men regard Hillary Clinton’s success as a rebuke to their own inability to rise. The Democrats must address this issue ... with respect.

Gina Barreca is a columnist for the Hartford Courant.