MB Civic

I’m Weighing Whether Or Not I Want To Go Through The Hell Of Appealing To You Idiotic, Uninformed Oafs

by Hillary Clinton

As President Obama serves out his second term in office and Washington looks forward to the 2016 presidential election, many friends and colleagues have been asking me what my plans for the future are. It’s an interesting question, and one that I’ve given a lot of personal and professional consideration to. And while I can’t definitively say what my plans are one way or another, I can say that, at this point in my life, I’m strongly weighing whether or not I want to endure the absolute hell of appealing to you mindless, dumb-as-dirt simpletons again.

Because when it comes right down to it, I have two choices: Either I spend the next three years of my life investing an enormous amount of time and energy into appealing to the lowest common denominator, or I preserve my dignity, move on with my life, and continue serving the public without completely degrading myself day in and day out for millions of ignorant slobs.

Do I really want to wake up at 5 a.m. every morning and board a tour bus plastered with some simplistic campaign slogan designed to make you people feel happy and secure? Do I really want to be briefed daily by senior campaign advisers on how best to reduce complex and important policy points into a few easily digestible sound bites that you dum-dums can understand? Do I really want to spend an afternoon in some backwater farm town regurgitating those same sound bites for a couple hundred hayseeds who are just there for the free food and to wave some colorful signs around? And do I really want to do all of this every single day for two years while being dissected on television and the internet by a series of “experts” who are about a fraction as intelligent, capable, and accomplished as I am?

These are the kinds of questions I’ll have to seriously consider before deciding whether or not I want to do another bullshit little song-and-dance routine for you idiots.

Try to put yourself in my shoes for a moment. Imagine you were, like me, a 65-year-old veteran politician with a sterling record of public service and vast legal, governmental, and legislative expertise. (A laughably huge leap of the imagination, but nevertheless, please try to imagine this.) On the one hand, you could put all of that experience to work in the private sector or for an advocacy or nonprofit group whose mission you are passionate about. On the other hand, you could smear makeup all over your face, get your hair done, wear a series of carefully tailored and vetted designer outfits, and try to make millions of fickle imbeciles who don’t know the first thing about how government actually works think you’re likable. What would you do? On second thought, why am I even asking you? You’re an idiot.

My decision is also complicated by the fact that I don’t have the same set of skills that my husband has. You see, Bill has a unique, intuitive sense for appealing to the absolute dumbest segment of uninformed voters in America. What can I say, the man just has a way with complete dumbfucks. Heck, he can spend all day yukking it up with people who have no idea what the president of the United States does, or what the Cabinet is, or how a bill becomes a law, or why their lives are total garbage. And he just loves every minute of it. The dumber the better with ol’ Bill!

I guess I’m just different, though. I guess, for some reason, the idea of getting up onstage and desperately trying to be attractive and charismatic enough for the millions of voters nationwide who pick their political leaders like they’re picking the cast of fucking NCIS is sort of off-putting somehow. One thing I do know is that if I did run again in 2016 I would definitely have to work on my ability to talk in a non-condescending way to human beings who should absolutely, positively be condescended to. That’s a real area of improvement for me.

I guess what it really comes down to is this: How bad do I want it? Do I want it bad enough to waste years of my life—years I’ll never get back—meticulously crafting my public and private image to somehow appear relatable to a populace with 57 percent voter turnout? Do I want it bad enough to spend sleepless night after sleepless night dumbing down my deeply held political convictions into a pile of generic rhetorical slop that even the most dimwitted American can barely comprehend? Do I really want it? (And by “it” I mean four years of trying to coax an intransigent Congress and a deeply distracted, apathetic public into making something, anything, resembling actual progress.)

It’s something I’m going to have to think long and hard about, and right now, there is really no saying whether I will or won’t throw my hat in the ring and undergo my own personal hell for all of America to see.

Oh, who am I kidding, I probably will.

God damn it, Hillary.