I searched Google on what Hillary wants because she’s favored to get elected and I want to know what to expect if she’s elected. This search produced page after page after page of her policy proposals, an amazing number of them. That’s one level of inquiry about her wants. At this level, which is relatively superficial and external to the person inside her, she is a government-activist. She is heavily government-interventionist in (modern) liberal and progressive ways, both domestically and in foreign policy. If she follows through, what to expect is an unrelenting torrent of activist government along many fronts. Her proposals are primarily anti-libertarian in nature. She is a core anti-libertarian. She doesn’t attack libertarianism by name. Politically she doesn’t have to; but what she stands for is anti-libertarian, with due allowance for some occasional, slight or accidental policy that a libertarian might approve of. Her core anti-libertarian aggressiveness and her goal of power are consistent with her deeper personal wants, explored next.
What Hillary really wants deep down inside herself is a second level of inquiry, one much harder to assess. Hillary’s career shows a thirst for power and money, with power taking priority. Numerous episodes of law-breaking, lies and scandals pepper her career, so much so that her election guarantees a president who is a criminal. Her law-breaking testifies to her drive to possess as much power as possible. Her preference is to rule without brooking interference, a quest that cannot be satisfied but one that drives her nonetheless. Her many proposals are designed to get her elected. Her actual commitment to them is questionable; they are a means to the real personal ends that are buried deeply in her psychology as a person. In office, she will change priorities, delegate some, ignore others and assert others in order to satisfy her deeper ambitions.
What then is she after down deep by gaining power? That question remains open. She might be trying to achieve several gratifications to overcome personal wounds. Revenge and deep hostility or hatreds could be what’s festering in her. She might hate her husband or men more generally, but to attain and hold power she needs to accommodate them and deal with them constantly. This creates a never-ending conflict inside her, constantly keeping her on edge and constantly having to repress and conceal her hostility. She might want to be like a man or show that she’s as strong as a man. She might resent being born a woman. This would account for her thirst for power. She may be competing against her dead father, her husband and other men. One may search Google for psychological profile of Hillary Clinton to find links to the thoughts of others about her. These links include this, this and this. The descriptions in these sources help to understand the personality (ambitious, domineering, not empathetic, angry, explosive, unsentimental) but don’t usually go to the deeper sources. Here’s one quote that does go deeper:
“Millon proposes that the primary psychological precursor of an aggressive, controlling personality orientation is parental hostility. Sheehy describes Hillary’s father, Hugh Rodham, as an ‘authoritarian drillmaster’ who ‘neither offered nor asked for nurturing.’ ‘He was gruff and intolerant and also famously tightfisted: he shut off the heat in the house every night and turned a deaf ear to his children’s complaints that they woke up freezing in the morning. Toughen up was the message.’ Sheehy writes that Hillary ‘tried hard . . . to please her father.’ In It Takes a Village, Hillary Clinton wrote, ‘When I brought home straight A’s from junior high, my father’s only comment was, “Well Hillary, that must be an easy school you go to.”‘ Sheehy suggests that Hillary’s ‘drive toward perfection, her severe self-discipline and overwhelming need for control’ are rooted in the tyranny of her father’s ‘demand for perfection and his readiness to demean his daughter.'”
As President, Hillary is going to be hemmed in and constrained. She will push the boundaries of presidential activism further than any prior president has, taking advantage of Congressional unwillingness to commit. She is going to be continually frustrated, however, because she cannot push everyone’s buttons and control them. She will get her way some of the time, but is sure to run into obstacles that block her. Criticism of her will upset her. Her list of enemies will grow. She will meddle even more than Obama has, and Americans will tire of hearing her bossiness and preaching. Attempting to create wholeness and wellness in one’s life through the exercise of power is ultimately a losing game, and Hillary will lose at it. The danger is that she’ll make a great many other people lose too.
8:42 am on July 25, 2016
