Star Wars: Episode 8 Speculations

Dear Readers,

Last month, I defended Star Wars: The Force Awakens against the numerous criticisms I have heard over the last couple of months.  I discussed the background, characters, and plot of the story.  Today’s post is going to be building off that information, so I highly recommend checking that out before continuing on.  So, today, I would like to focus on some speculation for episodes 8 and 9.  I think the best way to look at these guesses is from a character perspective, so I am going to take a number of the characters, examine their role in the last film, hazard a few guesses about what might happen to them and how they fit into the grand picture of the trilogy.  Many of these theories have been discussed in other places, so full disclosure, not all these ideas are original to me.

Rey

The biggest questions generated in the last film were in regard to Rey, the young woman from Jakku with a mysterious past and extremely strong force capabilities.  Who is Rey’s family?  How/why does she become so powerful with the force so quickly?  These big questions comprise a series of smaller questions—why does the Skywalker lightsaber call out to her, what does she see in her visions of Kylo Ren, why was she abandoned on Jakku?

Director J.J. Abrams has stated that Rey’s location, on the desert planet of Jakku is a huge hint toward her identity.  There are two, or perhaps three major characters who are intrinsically associated with desert planets.  First, and most obvious are the Skywalkers.  Anakin and Luke both grew up on the desert planet of Tattooine.  Knowing the role family ties have played in Star Wars in the past, it would be no surprise to have Rey be a part of the force dynasty.

This theory then has two possibilities.  First, is that Rey is the child of Han Solo and Princess Leia.  This theory seems a bit unlikely, but can be made to work.  The main problem with this theory is that Han did not recognize Rey as his daughter, nor did Kylo Ren recognize her as his sister.  While there was certainly a bond between them, if Han had known that he had a daughter he would probably have made the connection: the galaxy is a small place with force coincidences bouncing around.  This difficulty can be bypassed slightly by the assertion that Han did not know that he had a daughter.  How this would come to be is a little less clear, but the theory goes like this; Han and Leia have their first child, Kylo Ren, and send him off to train with Luke.  Ten years later, Leia is pregnant again, but a force uses, likely Luke warns her to keep the child’s birth a secret from everyone, even Han.  Later, when Kylo Ren’s betrayal becomes obvious, he hides her on a desert planet (because seriously, where else in the Star Wars universe would you hide a force capable child), and Han never knows he has a daughter.  A bit far fetched, maybe, but possible.  This theory matches with some extended universe scenarios, which often pit the children of Han and Leia against each other as representatives of the dark side and the light, and might provide a bit of fan service for all the disgruntled EU readers.

More likely, however, than Rey being the child of Han and Leia is the possibility that she is the child of Luke himself.  The film itself seems to point toward this possibility, by highlighting the connection between Rey and the Skywalker lightsaber, her abandonment on a desert planet, her instinctive force use (a trademark of both young Anakin and young Luke), and some more subtle hints I will get to in a minute.  The theory isn’t hard to figure out.  Luke had a wife at one point, had a daughter.  He trained her in force use, but when Kylo Ren attacked the new Jedi temple, he wiped her memory and hid her on Jakku to protect her.  This explains the recognition in his eyes at the end of Force Awakens, as well as Kylo Ren’s fascination with Rey and the weird chemistry between them.

Both this theory, and the theory that Rey is the daughter of Han and Leia are predicated upon her spending her youth with Luke, likely at the Jedi temple.  This may seem like a bit of a stretch to some readers, but the film actually gives a lot of evidence for this suggestion.  When Kylo Ren interrogates Rey, attempting to unlock the missing piece of the map to Luke Skywalker, he makes this interesting comment, “I see the island…the rock stairs.”  This statement evokes an immediate reaction from Rey, whose latent force capabilities surge, allowing her to push back into the Ren’s mind.  The description matches the island upon which Rey later finds Luke, indicating that she has been there before, and seen the first Jedi temple.  As Luke is “the only one” who knew of its location, it seems likely that she has been there at some point with him.  The second piece of evidence that Rey has been to the Jedi temple before is found during the vision she has after touching the Skywalker lightsaber.  She sees Kylo Ren, lightsaber drawn, standing in the rain with the knights of Ren arrayed behind him.  We are led to believe that this incident is Ren’s betrayal of Luke and overthrow of the new Jedi order.  Why would Rey see this?  In the Star Wars films (I can’t speak to all the books, video games, or T.V. shows), force users are shown to have precognition at times: “I have forseen it;” but not visions of the past (postcognition?).  While it is not a stretch to say that Rey could have a force vision of a past she had never witnessed, it is also a perfectly reasonable assumption to guess that she had actually witnessed those events, and had the memory inhibited.  Her contact with the force, through Kylo Ren or proximity to the lightsaber, causes the block on her memory to disintegrate, and her recollections of the past to come back.  It is also canonical in the Star Wars universe to use the force to erase or restrain memories.  While I do not personally watch the Clone Wars T.V. show, I have been informed that there has been a precedent where a character was forced (pun intended) to forget information.  If the force can be used to induce a memory wipe, Rey’s actions and reactions make a lot more sense.  The memory of Kylo Ren would have been particularly traumatic, and to have those images associated with her rediscovery of her force capabilities would go a long way toward explaining her initial terror and rejection of the force.  It would also explain her surprisingly quick acquisition of competency with the force; if she trained as a child, she is not just learning force techniques, she is relearning skills she already had.

While this theory has ample evidence to support it, and, given the evidence of the film, seems like the most likely explanation of Rey’s identity, I hope it is not the correct answer.  The fact that there is ssooo much evidence for it seems like a red herring to put viewers off the track for the real answer.  Remember, it was not always obvious that Darth Vader was Luke’s father (yeah, yeah, spoilers, I know) or that Princess Leia was his sister.  Both those pieces of information came as a shock to people in the theaters when they were revealed.  In light of the information in episode 7, a “Rey, I am your father” speech from Luke would be less shocking than a “No, Rey, I am sorry, but I am not your father,” one.  We have become so used to the incestuous Star War’s universe where everyone is related to the other main characters that it would be a shock if Rey wasn’t a Skywalker.  Which is why I tend to lean toward one of the other options for her family history.

The final option in the context of J.J. Abrams’ desert comment is that Rey is the daughter or granddaughter of Obi Wan Kenobi.  The objections to this theory are as follows; “Obi Wan was too good a Jedi to ever consider breaking the code and having a child.”  However, there are suggestions, again in the Clone Wars T.V. show that there was a woman that Obi Wan would have considered leaving the Jedi order for.  He has also, at the time when he is living on Tattooine, not a member of the Jedi order because the Jedi order has been destroyed by the clone troopers and the work of Darth Vader.  It is not, therefore, as unlikely as many have made it seem that Obi Wan Kenobi could have fathered a child at some point after the events of Revenge of the Sith.  And much of the evidence that points to Rey being a Skywalker could also be interpreted from the Kenobi theory.  She was likely still raised at the Jedi temple by Luke, and made to forget her background and training.  The Skywalker lightsaber spent nearly twenty years in the possession of Obi Wan Kenobi, (longer than either of the actual Skywalkers were to wield it), and could have called out to Rey because of that connection.  The voice of Obi Wan is heard during Rey’s visions, saying “These are your first steps,” and Obi Wan is also associated with the desert planet of Tattooine, where he spent many years in hiding as the guardian for Luke Skywalker, so it fits the criteria for the desert planet being important to Rey’s identity.  Finally, Obi Wan was particularly powerful in his ability to use the force to alter people’s minds.  Rey is the only person we have seen in the films be able to use such an ability instinctively, and without prior experience, perhaps a gift from her grandfather.  It would also provide a really interesting dynamic to the relationship that we will see between Rey and Luke in the 8^th film.  If Rey is the granddaughter of Obi Wan Kenobi, then obviously she is a person of great significance to Luke, as he becomes the master of his own master’s descendant.

If Rey is a Skywalker or a Kenobi, her path for the next few films is relatively easy to guess.  She will be repeatedly tempted by the dark side of the force, embodied in Kylo Ren and Supreme Leader Snoke.  This inner darkness will likely take the form of the anger we saw in Rey at the end of her fight with Ren in The Force Awakens, and will be fueled by her grief over the death of Han Solo, and the ongoing tension between her and Ren, and they sight out the now generational struggle between the dark and light sides in the Skywalker family.  As she struggles to overcome her own inner darkness, she will also join the fight to defeat the First Order, after having undergone her force training with Luke at the beginning of the next film.  Her relationship with Finn will continue to develop, with the two of them likely fighting and moving apart in the 8^th film, only to reunite once and for all in the 9^th.  Typical Star Wars stuff.

While the three previous theories about Rey are the most likely, given J.J. Abrams comments about the desert planet and the general history of the Star Wars universe, there are a couple other options for Rey’s parentage that I would like to mention that might be more interesting in the long run.

Child of a Sith.  Yep, that is one of the most interesting possibilities that I could see for Rey’s familial background.  The Sith, unlike the Jedi, are not forbidden from having children, and it stands to reason that at some point, one of them besides Anakin Skywalker probably had kids: force sensitive kids.  If Rey were the descendant of Emperor Palpatine, Count Dooku, or even Darth Vader, it would be a really interesting twist and provide vast swathes of potential character development for both Rey and Kylo Ren.  Just as Ren feels the perpetual call toward the light from his Skywalker blood, Rey would feel the call toward the dark.  It would create an interesting tension between hero and villain to have both characters fighting against their internal natures.  It would also create a great dynamic between Rey and Luke at the beginning of the next film, where the audience can assume she is Luke’s daughter, and fail to understand Luke’s hesitation to train her, only later to find out that she is a descendant of Emperor Palpatine, and Luke is worried about training another pupil who will turn to the dark side, particularly one with Rey’s natural capability.  While there is not a lot of evidence in the text to support the idea that Rey might be the child of a dark force user, there are a couple of small clues that could later turn out to be foreshadowing.  First, is Rey’s ability to see visions.  In the Star War’s films, such an ability has been limited to the most powerful force users.  Luke saw visions once in the films, regarding danger to Leia.  Anakin saw several visions of Padme Amidala’s death.  Yoda is said to have the ability to see the future on occasion, but the one character with access to the most accurate and stable visions of the future has always been Emperor Palpatine.  He speaks with assurance that events will happen because he has “forseen” it.  Such a talent, while not unknown to very powerful users of the force, evidences itself most strongly in those with a connection to the dark side, and particularly to the Emperor.  The second hint comes in Rey’s fight against Kylo Ren, where she seems instinctively to call upon the dark side.  This might come as a bit of a surprise to some, as Rey is our heroine, who is fighting for the good guys, against Ren, the dark force user.  Consider the evidence, however.  In the Star Wars universe, the two sides of the force are associated with opposite values.  The light side is about reason, emptying yourself of emotion, and letting the force flow through you.  In their greatest moments of triumph, a Jedi is calm, collected, unemotional.  Yoda is the ultimate example of what it is to be a Jedi.  Contrast this with the dark side.  The mantra for the dark side is “unleash your anger,” and the Jedi say of them, “fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate.  Hate is the dark side.”  In Rey’s battle with Kylo Ren, however, she channels her anger into her fighting, eyes wide and teeth bared as she casually slices and disarms him.  It is only the convenient opening of the chasm between them that prevents Rey from actually killing Ren in her anger.  Now, I am not saying that anger is unjustified, or that Rey is evil, but I am pointing out that in the moment, her actions were more reminiscent of a Sith than a Jedi.  If you look at Rey’s confrontations with Ren through the whole movie, they bear a startling resemblance to the fear, anger, hate progression.  Rey’s first personal encounter with Kylo Ren leaves her terrified.  She is armed only with a blaster, and spends the entire “fight’ running away from the steadily advancing Ren.  He easily overcomes her, captures her, and takes her to Starkiller base.  The second confrontation between the two characters, Ren is interrogating Rey, attempting to learn the information on the final piece of the map.  He breaks into Rey’s head using the force, and she turns it back on him.  Her response in the moment is both angry and calculated to make Ren respond with the type of fear that she felt earlier.  Her strike, “You are afraid that you will never be as powerful as Darth Vader,” hits home wit Ren, and he is the one forced to retreat from the confrontation.  But consider the way in which Rey makes this statement.  It is not the calm, unemotional response we would expect from a light side practitioner, like Yoda; her voice is angry, and deliberately pitched to wound, both in tone and content.  Anger is the critical component of this confrontation,  Finally, in her duel with Ren, Rey embraces the final step to the dark side; hatred.  She has every reason to hate Ren, he has just killed the man that she viewed as a father figure, a man that he should have respected and loved.  He had also endangered her life, and the life of her best friend (Finn).  Of course it is reasonable that Rey should hate Ren, but the Jedi are notoriously unreasonable in their outlook on fear, anger, and hatred.  Those emotions are the dark side, and controlling them, not unleashing them is the path to the light.  Killing an enemy like Kylo Ren, in cold blood, as Rey would have done, would have been the act of a dark side user, not of a Jedi.  Again, I am not saying that Rey is evil.  Her actions in the final duel, however, seem to indicate a natural proclivity to the dark side that would be explained by her being the descendant of a Sith not a Jedi.

There is a final option for Rey’s parentage that I would like to mention briefly, although of the options, I consider it the least likely.  That is that Rey does not have parents, that she is entirely conceived by medichlorians (I know: gag!), and is the true answer to the prophecy spoken of in The Phantom Menace as the child that would bring balance to the force.  It would explain her startling and instinctive capability with the force, her connection with the Skywalker family (previously assumed to have been the subjects of the prophecy), and her mysterious background.  While I believe this option might open up some interesting ground in the relationship between Kylo Ren and Rey (see my later discussion on Ren and the force), it seems a trite solution to the problem and does not seem to serve the story in any significant way.  That being said, it works with the desert motif (messiahs can only come from the desert after all :P ), so I decided to include it as a possibility.

Kylo Ren

Ren is another interesting character for speculation.  Some critics have posited the first six Star Wars films as the story of the fall and redemption of Anakin Skywalker.  If this is the case, then great attention should be paid to Kylo Ren as the successor of that legacy.  The new series could potentially be viewed as the story of his fall and redemption, or (more interestingly) of the redemption of his fall.  This being said, there are two paths that I forsee for Ren.  He is too interesting a character to simply be left as “the bad guy” like Emperor Palpatine was.  He is going to be given the chance to develop, and that chance will either result in him returning to the light side, or choosing to remain a dark side force user, despite his Skywalker lineage.

The first option allows his path to mimic that of Darth Vader.  A powerful force user manipulated by agents of the dark side, in the final episodes of his story he will make the decision to return to the light.  This decision will probably result in an act of self sacrifice, and Ren will die in the process, mirroring Vader’s decision to return to the light and sacrifice himself for Luke.  Another variation on this possibility ends with Rey sacrificing herself to save him which provides the catalyst for the Ren’s transformation.  This scenario ends with Ren assuming the mantle of Luke Skywalker and becoming the “last Jedi” and the agent of the light side.  This would also set up a sequel trilogy, in which Ren must struggle with his pull to the dark side while taking on his own apprentices and dealing with the hostility of his new comrades in the Resistance, a possibility that provides potential story arcs for episodes 10-12.

The second, and potentially more interesting arc for Ren causes him to remain a dark side force user, but systematically redeems the concept of the dark side.  The foundation for such a premise has already been laid in episode 7, and would go a long way toward explaining Ren’s apparent struggle to embrace the dark side.  The key to this arc would lie in the concept of balance in the force that was introduced in Phantom Menace, and that came up a number of times in The Force Awakens.  The question then becomes, how is the force out of balance in The Phantom Menace, and how is similarly unbalanced in Force Awakens?  In the Phantom Menace,, the Sith return for the first time in centuries to threaten the Jedi council.  It is this occasion, combined with the rise in power from the dark side that leads the Jedi council to assume that Anakin might be the “chosen one.”  Similarly, in Force Awakens the audience assumes the force is unbalanced because Luke is missing, and the First Order has created the Knights of Ren, an order of dark side force users that has unbalanced the force.

What if both these assumptions are wrong?  What if Anakin’s bringing balance to the force was actually accomplished through him becoming Darth Vader?  What if everything we assumed about light side being inherently good and dark side being inherently bad was actually false?  Consider the light side and dark sides respectively; the light side values pure reason, the ability to make decisions without the clouding of emotion.  They forbid love and marriage for their practitioners, and advocate a monastic way of life, separating themselves from the world (hence the Jedi temple).  The dark side, on the other hand, promotes the expression of all emotion, eagerly thrusts itself into politics and social manipulation, and allows for such relational connections as family and children (although not necessarily successfully).  From this perspective, neither side is inherently good, and both have their drawbacks.  What if the lack of balance in the force in Phantom Menace came, not from the dark side, but from the light.  The Jedi had been in control of the republic for years.  In overthrowing the Jedi Order, Anakin Skywalker restored a balance of numbers to the force… two Jedi (Obi Wan Kenobi and Yoda), two Sith (Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine), and two undecided (Luke and Leia).  This balance was maintained in the original trilogy through the death of Obi Wan, and Luke’s subsequent assumption of his Jedi mantle, and then through the death of Yoda and of the Emperor.  With Vader’s death, however, the force again became imbalanced toward the light side.  Luke, unaware of the necessity for balance in the force, and convinced only of the inherent goodness of the light side, begins to train his own apprentices, teaching them only the light side.  The scales become more severely imbalanced toward that side, until eventually, things are forced to snap back the other way.  Kylo Ren, a force user with a natural affinity for the light side (a fact which explains his struggle to embrace the dark side fully), sees the lack of balance in the force, and is convinced that he has to restore the balance by embracing the dark side and destroying Luke’s new Jedi order.

Here, the redemption of Kylo Ren comes, not from denying the dark side, but by finding his own balance within the dark side.  As Rey grows into the powerful light side practitioner, Kylo Ren has to learn how to be a dark side user without allowing it to turn him into a power hungry maniac like Snoke or Emperor Palpatine.  This would also create an interesting dynamic with Rey, should she turn out to be the child of a Sith family.  Then you have a balance created by the two; Rey a light force user with a proclivity toward the dark side, and Ren the child of a great light side family who chooses the dark side for the “greater good.”  Balance is restored, and Ren’s sacrifice is not giving his life to return to the light, but choosing the path he would rather not take in order to ensure the ultimate balance in the force.  Such a stance would radically change everything we know so far about the Star Wars universe, but at the same time, such a view of the force fits with what is already established.  Instead of viewing the force as good and evil in a Western sense, the force becomes much more like the Yin and Yang of the Eastern mythos, energy created by thought and emotion that must be balanced, a power that is both day and night, creation and destruction, that is a part of all life.  Morality then becomes separated from the force, and is placed at the feet of human beings.  The force does not determine whether something is good or evil; the actions taken by those who wield it do.

Sundry other Characters

I realize I have gone on a bit long here, so I will try to keep thing quick with the other characters

Finn

Some speculation has anticipated that Finn might also be force sensitive.  I think that this is highly unlikely for a number of reasons.  First, Finn was a storm trooper for the First Order.  The First Order has a number of force users, including Supreme Leader Snoke, Kylo Ren, and all the knights of Ren.  Force users can generally sense each others' presence, so given the prevalence of force users in The First Order, it seems unlikely that Finn’s abilities would have gone unnoticed.  It also seems likely, given the capabilities of force users, that the First Order would be actively recruiting them, testing recruits for force ability.  Even if Finn could have somehow passed such a testing, and remained unnoticed by other force users in the First Order, the capabilities that force sensitivity produces would have opened different pathways in his basic storm trooper training.  Force sensitivity tends to produce better reflexes, empathy, and greater understanding of technology.  If he was a force user somehow missed by the first order, it stands to reason he would have become a pilot not placed in charge of sanitation.  It is a small detail, but given Finn’s precarious position in the First Order, it seems highly doubtful that he is a force user.  Instead, he becomes the new Han Solo or Princess Leia character, highly capable in his own right, growing into a leadership position instead of that of a warrior.

Supreme Leader Snoke

I have two theories about Supreme Leader Snoke.  They are not necessarily exclusive, but either would provide an interesting twist on the character.  One widely speculated theory I have come across is that Snoke is actually Darth Plageus, the Sith Lord who trained Emperor Palpatine (Palpatine claimed to have killed Plageus, but that can easily be written around).  Speculation springs primarily from questions about physical similarities to the way in which the character has been described in the EU, and claims that the music that plays when Snoke is introduced is similar to that which plays when Palpatine describes the legend of Darth Plageus.  This would be very interesting because the characters would have to deal with an enemy who is extraordinarily old and powerful, an enemy who has survived the worst the Star Wars universe had to throw at him, and who had the wisdom of centuries of experience to back him up.

My second theory about Supreme Leader Snoke is that he is not as powerful as he initially seems.  There is not a lot of speculation in this regard, but after I walked out of episode seven for the first time, my first thought regarding Snoke was that he was probably not a force user.  This might seem strange considering his position at the head of the First Order, and his mastery over Kylo Ren, but hear me out.  Kylo Ren, while an intimidating user of the Dark Side, is not as powerfully intimidating as Darth Vader.  In a context of will against Rey, Kylo Ren ultimately loses, and must confess as much to his master.  The construction of his lightsaber, and the relatively jagged nature of its plasma flow also indicates a lack of experience in its creation.  If Kylo Ren has had training from both Luke Skywalker and a Sith as powerful as Snoke is made out to be, it seems unlikely that either of these facts would occur.  Similarly, we never see, nor does Snoke ever claim to have used the force.  The closest he comes is the statement/ question, “There has been an awakening in the Force…have you felt it?”  While the statement implies that Snoke has felt this awakening, it does not specifically say so.  Furthermore, we have characters in this film, most notably Maz Kanata, who “know,” (can sense the force), but cannot use it.  This theory is also indicated by the constant repetition of the warning to Kylo Ren, “Snoke is only using you for your power.”  Now again, this sentence can be taken two ways; it either means that Snoke is manipulating Kylo Ren because he is a powerful force user (like the Emperor and Darth Vader), or it could mean that Snoke does not actually have access to the power of the force, and is using Kylo Ren as a weapon to wield power he does not inherently have.  While I think that this theory is relatively unlikely, it would provide an interesting path for exploration of the character, and mesh very well with the question of balance I mentioned earlier: when Luke Skywalker gets killed (and I think it very likely that he will in the next couple of movies), having Snoke as a powerless puppet master will allow the question of balance in the force to shift to the new generation in Rey and Kylo Ren.

In an even more concise summary of my speculations about the next film; I think Luke will die (because all mentor figures in the force die in the Star Wars films), I think that Princess Leia will be the only one of the original three to survive to the end of the new trilogy.  I think that General Hux will ultimately become the villain of the story, as Kylo Ren discovers he can be a dark force user and not be evil.  I think commander Phasma will come back (hey, no body, no death), and take on a role similar to that we see in Boba Fett in the original trilogy, as the bad-ass side character with cool gadgets.  She will probably serve as a foil for Finn through the trilogy, much as Fett was for Han Solo, and Kylo Ren will be for Rey.  Someone seriously needs to get a hand or arm chopped off sometime in the next film, because that always happens in Star Wars, and I am guessing it will probably be either Finn or Poe Dameron.  We should have some force ghosts show up, hopefully Ian McGregor as Obi Wan Kenobi.  Also, I am really looking forward to getting backstory for a number of characters, particularly Maz Kanata.  Whatever comes next, I am very excited for episode eight, and I look forward to seeing how the foundation built in episode seven supports the rest of the story.

I apologize for the rambling nature of this piece, particularly the end... I had so much I wanted to cover, I am not sure that I was able to make all of it make sense. Please feel free to leave your own speculations, or any thoughts you have on my ideas in the comments.  Also, if you want to be consistently updated when I post a new blog, please sign up for email updates over in the right toolbar.  I will see you all next month, for more discussion on politics and pop culture.

 Well, back to reality.

Hillary Clinton: Feminism, Discrimination, and the Dissenting Opinion

Dear Readers,
I had planned on this being a post about the purpose of government.  The ongoing conversation about the American presidential race, and particular events of the week have made me change my mind.  Instead, I have decided to address questions of discrimination, particularly gender discrimination as it has come to the forefront in the recent primaries.

Fair warning: as I am a conservative and a Republican, much of this criticism will be of the Democratic party/ candidates.  I am aware of examples of discrimination, particularly in regard to the suspicion toward Muslims in my party.  I am also aware, however, that the Republican party is consistently subject to ongoing criticisms of its lack of diversity, questions that I believe could be more appropriately leveled at the current Democratic establishment.

My personal bias admitted upfront, let's begin.

I first wanted to address the role that gender has played in the Democratic primary.  Hillary Clinton has put herself forward as the candidate for women, consistently playing the gender card in response to questions like "How would you be different as president from Barack Obama," and "Many of your opponents regard you as part of the government 'establishment,' how would you respond to such critics?"  In each case, Mrs. Clinton's response was centered around her gender; her policies would obviously be different from the current president's because she is a woman (and would be the first woman president), and she cannot be regarded as part of the government establishment because her gender automatically makes her an outsider.  As a feminist, I am appalled at both those answers.  They reduce Mrs. Clinton to nothing more than her physiology; she has nothing more to offer in regard to policy than the fact that she is anatomically different from the current people in power?  Is this a healthy model for women, to assert that her only electable characteristic is her gender?

The sexism of the Democratic party continues, however, in the words of those who should be feminism's greatest supporters!  Madeleine Albright's support of Mrs. Clinton has been particularly offensive, "Young women have to support Hillary Clinton. The story is not over!” she said. “They’re going to want to push us back. Appointments to the supreme court make all the difference. It’s not done and you have to help. Hillary Clinton will always be there for you. And just remember, there’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other."  The last line in particular has garnered a fair bit of criticism over the last few days.  I understand it is a trademark line for Ms. Albright, but in the context of the speech, one that is remarkably sexist.  Let's break down the remarks.  First, Ms. Albright asserts that young women HAVE to support Mrs. Clinton.  There is no more fundamentally discriminatory message than to say that a group of people have to behave in a certain way because of their common physical characteristics.  Imagine if Senator Marco Rubio came out and said, "All Hispanics have to support me because I will appoint Hispanic supreme court justices."  There would be public outcry, and the scandal would destroy that campaign.  Yet this is what Ms. Albright would say about Hillary Clinton... that all women have to vote for her because she is a woman.  Now take the comments about the "special place in hell."  Again, I recognize that this quotation is a part of her brand of feminism, but consider what it says.  In the context of the remarks, Ms. Albright is saying that if you are a woman and you do not vote for Mrs. Clinton, you are betraying feminism, you are betraying women.  This is hugely insulting to me.  I will not vote for Mrs. Clinton, not on the basis of her gender, but on the basis of her lack of integrity and her policy record.  The statement assumes that women are one issue voters; that we can and should only care about women's issues.  It is reductive toward the female voter who is told she should be more concerned in the election process with making sure other women are always treated perfectly than with the economy, national security, terrorism, the budget, healthcare, border control, gun rights, religious liberty, welfare, and foreign policy.  Is a woman not allowed to have differing opinions on those critical policy issues because in doing so she is "not helping other women"?!

This is the lie about discrimination that the Democratic party has been telling for years.  Not just about women, but about minorities and young people too.  The Democratic party promotes itself as the party of the future; the party that embraces social justice for the marginalized and promotes the beliefs and opinions that will change the world.  To some extent, this has been true, but it is becoming less and less so because the Democrats are too organized, too institutionalized, too hidebound to effectively represent diversity.  In seeking to create movements for social change (like the feminist movement), the movers and shakers had to codify a set of principles that they stood for, and use those principles as a platform for change.  But in doing so, anyone who does not agree with those principles is automatically relegated to the outside; creating a new disenfranchised group.  The agents for justice become the oppressors as they seek to silence any dissenting voice.  This oppression can be even more dangerous than that which came before, because the members of the institution for change believe, wholeheartedly, in the purity of their own motives and the inherent rightness of their cause.  It effectively becomes an extremist cult seeking to punish dissenting views because it is so convinced of the purity of its own principles. 

A similar situation is evident in regard to the Democratic party's approach to race, where it is assumed that people of a certain ethnic background will always vote in support of a particular group of candidates, and those who advocate a dissenting opinion are branded with racial epitaphs and scourged as traitors to the cause.  Nowhere is this discrimination more ingrained, however, than in the rampant ageism of both parties.  For Democrats, the race will be decided by who gets the vote of young people.  For Republicans, by those who can appeal to "conservatives"  a.k.a.  middle aged, middle class, religious people with families.  As an educated Millennial, as a woman, as a feminist, as a Californian, and as someone who has traveled and studied in Europe, I tick certain boxes that mean I "should" be voting for Hillary Clinton or perhaps Bernie Sanders.  This is the danger of political discrimination; to the candidates, I am nothing more than a race, gender, age bracket, a demographic that they must win in order to be elected.  Such an approach is harmful to those who support liberty and equality.  There can not truly be equality for women if the fact that one is a woman is still relevant to one's electability (either positively or negatively).  There cannot be racial equality if one has to run on a platform of race, nor can there be productive conversations cross-generationally if one's age is a constant qualifier for the conversation.

This is why, if it came down to it, I would support Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton in a general election.  I don't like Trump; I think he is a sexist pig, a loud, overbearing, abrasive personality.  However, I think his sexism is innocuous: he is not going to actively promote policies that are oppressive to women, and I think that he is a capable manager whose force of personality might be useful in uniting the government and achieving policy results.  Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, is going to promote an environment in Washington that is antagonistic toward conservatives, toward the dissenting opinion, and will introduce policies that directly encroach on the freedom of those who disagree with her.  Am I a bad feminist for choosing the one over the other?  I do not think so.  I instead choose to see my decision as acting within those principles feminism supports, to choose, as an independent, educated woman to vote for the candidate who more accurately represents my principles and my beliefs, not my anatomy.

Well, back to reality!