Hillary the Monster

[Content Note: Misogyny; dehumanization. DoNotLink used on links to conservative pieces.]

Here are two actual quotes that I actually read this morning from two actual articles about Hillary Clinton in two actual conservative journals:

1. From Kurt Schlichter's "Hillary Will Be President of Nothing" at Townhall:

Hillary is a Lovecraftian monster, the Cthulhu of American politics who sleeps dreaming of victory, but she will never be president.

...So we need to stop her - and that shouldn't be too hard. After all, who actually likes Hillary? What's the name of one person who thinks Hilary [sic] has any qualification be President beyond the absence of testicles? What was her greatest achievement as Secretary of State - raising awareness of Burma?

2. From Kevin D. Williamson's "A Monster of Our Own" at National Review:

Hillary Rodham Clinton is a monster for our times.

...She marched into Washington a "co-president" and slithered out an appendage.

There were, of course, plenty of references to the fact that her husband cheated on her and that she wears objectionable pantsuits, too.

This is the most basic, primitive, unapologetic misogyny: Dehumanizing a powerful woman by calling her a monster.

A devil. A witch. A beast. A castrating fiend.

It's not like there aren't substantive policy criticisms that can be made of Hillary Clinton. There are plenty, from both the left and the right. But why bother evaluating her on the issues, when it's so much easier—and more fun—to simply call her a monster?