Hillary Clinton has converted me.

For a long time I haven't been able to fathom the depths of Hillary-hate. I've never particularly liked her as a politician, but I've always viewed her as merely typical of politicians, a banal and venal sinner rather than a figure of evil. All the way back to 1992, the fervor of the opposition to her has struck me as pathological and frequently misogynistic. I couldn't grasp why people not only didn't care for her or her politics, but despised her.

But, as I said, Hillary Clinton has converted me. After this primary campaign, I'm forced to admit that I just can't stand her.

It was the gas tax holiday that pushed me over the edge. The tax holiday was — and is — straight-up bullshit. It's a pandering gesture without substance. There's a reason that Clinton couldn't name a reputable and credible economist who thought her plan is a good idea — there isn't one. The consensus is (as common sense would dictate) that the plan would just drive up demand, which would drive up prices to eat the 18.5 cents in savings per gallon. Obama was right to call this out as nonsense, and it's disappointing that he's the only one of the three competing candidates who did so.

What really burned me was Clinton's meretricious response to economists' critique. "I’m not going to put my lot in with economists," she said. She went on to broaden that into an attack on "elite opinion." When I heard that, something clicked, and I realized that I just hate this person. The sneering entitlement, the insufferable fuck-you-I'm-getting-away-with-it insincerity, the overpowering stench of a willingness to do or say anything to get what she wants — it rushed over me like a wave of nausea. I realized that I've been suppressing it because I didn't want to be one of the dittoheads, one of the people who makes crass anti-woman jokes. But the enemy of my enemy is not my friend. The fact that a lot of people hate Clinton for reasons I can't respect doesn't mean I should suppress the fact that I've grown to despise her for my own reasons. This most recent display cemented it. In her dismissal of "elites" — part of a theme of the month, a ludicrous attempt to dress this Yale-grad career-politician multi-millionaire up as a working stiff — I heard the echo of everything I hate about politics, every moronic derision of Adlai Stevenson as an "egghead," every scoff of Agnew at "effete intellectual snobs," every talk-radio rant at people who actually fucking read. In it I heard the triumph of the good-enough pander, the I-can-keep-a-straight-face-saying-it-so-here-it-goes school of politics. I realized that I'd been hearing it from her for months, and just ignoring it. And I had to go take a walk, because it made me so angry.

They say there's no fanatic like a convert. And I am a convert. I hate Hillary Clinton.

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