Probably the most damning thing about Hillary Clinton is her supporters' most cited compliment: “You may not like her in public, but she's great one on one.” Which really says everything about her politics. Because, while Trump may be capitalism's id, Hillary is its ego and super ego, its true avatar (she literally said her job is to save capitalism from itself). Ostensibly progressive. Reserved. Loves cruise missiles. Does not like consorting with the masses. Only interested in what you can do for it. All subsuming. Wants you to believe there is no alternative. Can't understand what everyone's problem is.

Every election cycle is a new lesson. If Bernie Sanders was the indie rock act that toiled for decades in obscurity finally getting its break, Hillary is the Disney-Channel-anointed pop star that sounds great on the record thanks to studio magic but is consistently disappointing live. Now some of you may think that is an unfair gendered comparison, though I actually prefer major label pop to indie rock. Indeed, the biggest lesson in 2016 is what happens when you pair myopic identity politics with corporate hegemony. This year, I've learned how internet losers can be oppressive bros, how socialism is only appealing to middle-class white men, how not voting for a probable war criminal is an act of privilege, how the person who coined the term “superpredator” can become the Head Dismantler of institutional racism. The pure shamelessness of it was rather impressive, reaching its peak when she said in a debate that breaking up the big banks was useless because it wouldn't bring clean water to Flint (which is not even true, since it's the dominance of financial capital that led to the industrialization of Flint in the first place and also caused the set of crises that prompted the austerity that led to that decision).

If the messaging didn't make sense, it's because it wasn't supposed to. The most shocking thing about Hillary's campaign, for all of her putative policy prowess, was just how not issue-oriented it has been. Her campaign is the political equivalent of a giant corporation with all the money and resources one can imagine, but no original ideas, precisely because original ideas are too dangerous for such a behemoth. The multinational fast food chain that has a new item every other week that is just a repackaging of all the same ingredients. She's fighting for us. But is this why people don't like her?

The default to sexism is a popular explanation among the college educated set of the population that either doesn't understand imperialism or just stopped caring about it. Certainly the behavior of the Republican Party has not done much to dispel this narrative, and indeed my girlfriend sometimes has to watch to make sure my Hillary impression doesn't devolve into stereotype, but it's the subtext that interests me. The refrain that “Hillary's done everything she was supposed to but still can't win.”

Another thing I've learned this year is that women have to do politics differently, since they can't shout too loud. Can you imagine what they would say about Hillary if she talked like Bernie? The idea that radical politics must be an exclusively male domain certainly was a strange notion to all the female comrades I've had the privilege of working with over the years. But if there's no right way for Hillary to play the game, it's because the game is fucked up on an ontological level. Yes, capitalism, bourgeois politics, imperialism must all be patriarchal. And yet, somehow Hill-dawg appears to be winning, which is in fact good.

There is a ghost story told around liberal campfires that us radical lefties actually want Trump to win to bring about the revolution faster, but this is not a position seriously argued, even if some may have uttered it in supreme moments of frustration. No, if we're going to destroy this god-forsaken imperial settler colony before they can start boarding ships, we want to do it the right way. Nobody wants to win the championship because the opposing star player got injured. And indeed this is the proper dialectical choice. And Hillary can win without us voting for her (yes liberals, it's true. Zero does not equal negative one. Third party votes were never Hillary's to lose). In fact, a Hillary Clinton whose mandate comes from picked off Republicans is the perfect revolutionary target. So let this corporate machine roll on, pushing the Democratic Party so far to the right that it pushes the GOP off a cliff. So when social security is cut, when we discover how you can suffuse neoliberalism into paid family leave, when she goes on TV to defend law and order after the next race riot, when Venezuela is couped by fascists, and when the ground invasion of Syria comes, literally slay, queen.

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