If admiring Hillary Clinton for getting paid $675,000 to give three speeches to frat boys at Goldman Sachs makes me a “conservative,” then so be it. Along with peep-toe cork wedge shoes and harem pants, I’m happy to throw the “liberal” mantle in the back of my closet and make room for new labels this season.
The problem is that choker tops and pajamas-for-the-office are now the rage in fashion circles while “progressive” is the new black in Democratic politics, and neither seems to fit me all that well. Who wants to be simultaneously exposed and constricted?
In the good old days, everyone wore jeans and being radical and rich was hip. Look at Dalton Trumbo, for example. He was a communist, for God sakes, as well as a Hollywood screenwriter who made gobs of money. Trumbo and other radical thinkers were black-listed by the House Un-American Activities Committee in the 1940s and ’50s for their unwillingness to testify about political beliefs and imprisoned for contempt of Congress.
Trumbo was a communist and the highest-paid writer of his time. He was wildly successful, winning two Academy Awards and multiple other accolades and recognition for his rich contribution to American culture. In his quest to change things for the better, Trumbo was doggedly determined to flourish in the arena of his present day. His talent and grit and willingness to use the rules of the game to win eventually led directors and Hollywood studios to open their doors once again to people on the blacklist, and more importantly led Congress to recommit to constitutional rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Communist Trumbo was a genius, and that he used the pseudonym “Robert Rich” to write a story called “The Brave One” that earned an Academy Award during a time of crushing artistic oppression is rich with irony, a brilliant joke played on his political opponents.
Trumbo waged a political revolution and won by outsmarting capitalists at their own game, and call me old-fashioned, but I think it’s delightfully funny and richly ironic that the woman who declared to the world in 1995 from Communist China that “women’s rights are human rights once and for all” was paid boatloads of money to give speeches to rooms full of bankers she hopes to regulate when she’s president of the United States.
The progressive establishment has its eyes off the ball. It shouldn’t be asking how on earth could Clinton accept money for her speech on Wall Street, but instead how much does Wall Street pay men of her stature to give speeches? Like Henny Youngman, the king of one-liners from New York famously joked once: “How’s your wife?” “Compared to what?”
Supporters of Bernie Sanders grumble and grouse that Clinton’s dance with Wall Street reflects unprogressive or un-American values, but I disagree – it’s inspirational and gutsy that she’s using power to fight power. Clinton is playing by the rules to win the game, and the GOP knows it. Why else would they be singing Sanders tune during the primary?
“Let us be lovers, we’ll marry our fortunes together,” said Paul Simon and the Republican Party.
While Bernie’s campaign was running lovely ads with bucolic scenes to the tune of Simon’s “America” song, Karl Rove’s Republican super-PAC was busy running ads of their own. “Hillary rewarded Wall Street with a $700 billion bailout, then Wall Street made her a multi-millionaire,” a narrator in the ad said. “Does Iowa really want Wall Street in the White House?”
Clinton was paid more than $2 million in less than seven months to make speeches on Wall Street, and now she’s the best financed candidate running for president who will beef up the Dodd-Frank law that regulates crony capitalism. And I think that’s fantastic.
It sure beats counting cars stuck on the New Jersey Turnpike because Chris Christie is in the White House.
To be a progressive is to make progress, and to be successful and simultaneously strive to better the world is the promise of America no matter what label you put on it during election season.
“Practice a discipline of gratitude,” is what Clinton’s modus operandi is, and so let us all give thanks to Wall Street when she wins the election.
Cynthia Dill is a civil rights lawyer and former state senator. She can be contacted at:
dillesquire@gmail.com
Twitter: dillesquire
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