The Mental Gymnastics Required to Support Hillary

It’s not easy to support a candidate who is part of an FBI criminal investigation and calls it a “security review.” It’s not easy to support a candidate that a supermajority of Americans believe is not honest and trustworthy. And, of course, it’s not easy to support a candidate who has been an American scandal-machine for almost a quarter of a century. But it is possible, and if you follow these 7 (not-so) easy steps, you’ll find yourself tweeting #ImWithHer in no time!

STEP ONE: When in doubt, blame the vast, right-wing conspiracy because as we learned in CNN’s February Democratic town hall, it’s alive and well and “it’s gotten even better funded.” Benghazi? Vast, right-wing conspiracy. FBI investigation? Vast, right-wing conspiracy. It’s a political flak jacket.

Unfortunately for Clinton, though, it seems to be a malignant conspiracy that has spread across the middle of the spectrum all the way into the left. In the most recent Fox News poll, 84 percent of Republicans said “corrupt” describes her but so did 68 percent of independents and 29 percent of Democrats. Perhaps vast, entire-political-spectrum conspiracy is more apropos.

STEP TWO: Understand that information is dangerous and the less you have, the easier it is to support Clinton. Avoid indisputable facts like this one: Hillary Clinton only criticizes free trade agreements during presidential campaigns.

President Obama was the first one to point this out when he said in 2008 that Clinton said “great things about NAFTA until she started running for president.”

And he was right. In 2003, she wrote in her one of her autobiographies, “creating a free trade zone in North America — the largest free trade zone in the world — would expand U.S. exports, create jobs, and ensure that our economy was reaping the benefits, not the burdens, of globalization.”

Meanwhile, about a million U.S. manufacturing jobs had already set sail for far-away lands.

Later, Bernie Sanders would call her out on her NAFTA flip-flopping during the CNN Democratic debate in March: “Secretary Clinton discovered religion on this issue. But it’s a little bit too late. Secretary Clinton supported virtually every one of the disastrous trade agreements written by corporate America.”

She called the Trans-Pacific Partnership the “gold standard for trade agreements” in 2014. But, now that she’s Presidential Candidate Clinton, she opposes it.

In 2005, during closed-door remarks to a group of business leaders in India, she said “It is an inevitability. There is no way to legislate against reality, so I think the outsourcing will continue.”

The trick is to listen closely to Clinton’s speeches, and as she changes her views, change your own views accordingly. Embrace her most recent views while shielding your eyes and ears from statistics, graphs, and direct quotes where she clearly contradicts herself.

STEP THREE: Respect the opinions of Hollywood celebrities and rock stars because these people act in our movies and sing the songs that run through our heads all day—they would not lead us astray. Rely on “Family Guy,” “The Daily Show,” and “The View” for all your information and political analysis. When Hillary is interviewed on “Ellen,” assume Ellen Degeneres is asking her the toughest questions available. Declare Stephen Colbert and John Oliver the second comings of Walter Cronkite — because if our comedians don’t know who we should vote for, who does?

STEP FOUR: Never find out what’s in the Bill of Rights. If someone tries to tell you what happened in the first ten amendments, stick your fingers in your ears and scream “Spoiler alert! Spoiler alert!” until they roll their eyes and walk away.

Among Democrats, there is broad hatred of the Citizens United decision. There are some thoughtful, cogent arguments against it — then there’s Hillary’s nonsensical, anti-First Amendment argument against it:

“Citizens United, one of the worst Supreme Court decisions in our country’s history, was actually a case about a right-wing attack on me and my campaign. A right-wing organization took aim at me and ended up damaging our entire democracy. So, yes, you’re not going to find anybody more committed to aggressive campaign finance reform than me.”

The “logic” here is that the Supreme Court should be more worried about protecting Hillary Clinton from criticism than protecting the First Amendment. She also favors an amendment to fix the First Amendment.

As for the Second Amendment, she’s flip-flopped on a lot of issues, but she’s been straight as a gun barrel on having zero tolerance for Second Amendment rights.

She voted for the PATRIOT Act and was an enabler of the NSA’s dragnet, so she hasn’t been a champion for the Fourth Amendment. However, given the current FBI investigation into her private email server, I bet she’s developing a whole new respect for this one.

STEP FIVE: Do NOT read Amazon #1 best-selling book “Crisis of Character” — because the Hillary Clinton you’ll read about in that book does not resemble the carefully calculated public persona that’s been fed to Americans through the media. Gary Byrnes’ chronicle of working in the Clinton White House contains more intrigue than an episode of “Game of Thrones.” If you plan to argue that Donald Trump doesn’t have the temperament to be president, it’s best not to witness Hillary’s temperament through the eyes of former Secret Service Officer Byrne.

STEP SIX: Learn to wield your most powerful weapon — the double standard. Donald Trump’s personality makes him unfit for the presidency, but the same standard must never be applied to Clinton.

Hillary plans to “appoint Supreme Court justices who value the right to vote over the right of billionaires to buy elections.” Meanwhile, her campaign and super PACs have spent $225 million on her 2016 White House odyssey.

In a 2003 press conference, then-Senator Clinton accused the Bush administration of lacking transparency. Her complaint was that the 9/11 commission was “not getting access to all the documents it needs.” Fast forward to 2016, and while Hillary may have found religion on NAFTA, she seems to have lost religion on transparency. She now claims that she’s “been the most transparent public official in modern times.” And it’s true. She has been. But it has more to do with a U.S. district judge ordering her to be transparent than any deep, heart-felt convictions.

STEP SEVEN: Get used to words that end with “gate” because if the past has taught us anything, we’ll be hearing that suffix a lot with Hillary Clinton in the White House.

Follow these steps, fight facts, resist reason, and condone corruption, and you will have what it takes to support Hillary Clinton.

Eddie Zipperer is an assistant professor of political science at Georgia Military College.