Rebecca Traister

Writer Rebecca Traister: Obama and Hillary Represent ‘The Death Throes of Exclusive White Male Power In the United States’
By Tom Johnson | December 20, 2015 | 12:16 PM EST

The current election campaign pits the forces of backlash (“the old and angry”) against the forces of frontlash (“the new and different”), and November’s vote will be “a referendum on the existence and civic participation of Americans who are not white men,” contended Traister in a Wednesday piece for New York magazine.

Traister posited that “Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton…represent an altered power structure and changed calculations about who in this country may lead,” but warned, “While the resistance may be symptomatic of death throes, a rage at the dying of the white male light, it nonetheless presents a very real threat…Imagine Ted Cruz or Donald Trump or Marco Rubio in office with a Republican Congress and Supreme Court seats to fill. Voting: restricted. Immigration: halted. Abortion: banned. Equal pay: unprotected. Same-sex marriage: overturned.”

New Republic Writer Cheers Hillary’s ‘Leftward Shifts Toward Sanity’ and ‘Jabs At Trickle-Down Economics’
By Tom Johnson | June 17, 2015 | 10:11 PM EDT

From her years at Yale Law School until early in her Senate career, Hillary Rodham Clinton’s liberal credentials rarely were questioned. Since then, many on the left have come to doubt that Hillary is one of them, for reasons that include her support for the Iraq war and her alleged coziness with Wall Street.

Rebecca Traister believes that it’s been twenty-five, not fifteen, years since Clinton started backing away from liberalism, but in any event Traister’s message to the doubters is that Classic Hillary is back. In a Sunday TNR piece, Traister rejoiced that Hillary the presidential candidate seems to have abandoned “power-appeasing, over-careful politics” in favor of “leftward shifts toward sanity.”

Given that Hillary is “recalibrating to the left,” Traister contended, America is “facing a test: How much more—if at all—tolerant is this nation of difficult, disruptive liberal women, and how willing is Hillary to really commit to being one again? These answers will matter a lot to those American[s] who liked original Hillary—and haven't much cared for the revised versions.”

Olbermann's Production Staff Jumping Ship, JournoListers Hate Him
By Noel Sheppard | July 23, 2010 | 10:39 AM EDT

While on a much-needed vacation, things for Keith Olbermann have gone from bad to worse.

News is coming out almost daily concerning members of his production staff jumping ship to work for Lawrence O'Donnell's new program.

On top of that, the Daily Caller has published e-mail messages of liberal JournoList members expressing their disgust for the "Countdown" host.

As lefties hating on Olbermann is guaranteed to brighten a conservative's day, let's start there:

NPR: Expecting Our Leaders to Be In 'Functional, Heterosexual, Child-Producing Unions Is Totally Archaic'
By Tim Graham | June 3, 2010 | 6:36 AM EDT

On Tuesday night's All Things Considered newscast, Michele Norris sadly relayed news of the Gore separation:  "The Gores had a storybook romance: college sweethearts, four beautiful children. Their playful affection energized the campaign trail. The concession was you don't make that kind of stuff up. The Gores' union became a model of stability in a hard-charging town where partnerships, even romantic ones, are sometimes seen as a matter of convenience."

Norris discussed the matter with Rebecca Traister of the liberal website Salon.com, who said she felt "ashamed" and "sort of silly having an investment in a couple that you don't know," and that's when the inevitable secular-left analysis began: traditional, monogamous, heterosexual, reproducing marriage is an archaic social construct:

TRAISTER: And so it is a little bit like mom and dad breaking up out of the blue, except they're not really our mom and dad - and I am aware of that, I just want to make clear.(Laughter)

NORRIS: In some ways is the presidency and the requirements that presidents have solid marriages, is that a bit out of step with larger society, where almost half of all marriages end in divorce?