Kellyanne Conway’s Bizarre Objection to Hillary

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Kellyanne Conway’s Bizarre Objection to Hillary Clinton’s Debate Performance

By Hrafnkell Haraldsson on Mon, Oct 10th, 2016 at 10:32 am

Conway tweeted her critique of Hillary Clinton’s debate performance:

"@HillaryClinton is back to form: pedantic, lawyerly, technocratic, (woefully untruthful) responses."

Representing a candidate who lies 9 out of every 10 times he opens his mouth, Conway claims Clinton was “woefully untruthful.” A one-word response will suffice: “deplorable.”

Just to be clear, pedantic is a word used to describe somebody as being “too” precise with the facts, even ostentatious with respect to the facts at their command. In other words, representing a candidate whose own grasp of facts is so low as to be not measurable, what Conway is objecting to here is Clinton’s recitation and command of the actual facts.

Because facts conflict with Donald Trump’s imaginary reality. The one he is trying to sell to the American people.

The accusation that Clinton is “lawyerly,” or exhibiting characteristics one would expect of a lawyer, which Clinton is, is also interesting, if redundant.

I make this point given that Trump’s own claim is that grabbing a woman’s genitals is not sexual assault. We can see why Conway might object to points of law on behalf of her client. If reality doesn’t count, the law certainly doesn’t.

Technocratic can refer to the application of technology, but the sense in which Conway seems to mean it is where decisions are made by those who actually know what they’re doing. You know, “experts.” As opposed to just making decisions on the basis of a bunch of stuff you just made up out of thin air.

Personally I would prefer “technocratic” to “theocratic,” not that Trump’s ideology is based on any recognizable theology.

Regardless, it is difficult to see where making decisions based on facts could be objectionable. Conway seems to think the government shouldn’t be making any decisions, which is an interesting objection given that is precisely what governments are designed to do.

For the record, Conway does think somebody should be making decisions. She isn’t calling for a return to the state of nature scenario described by eminent philosopher Thomas Hobbes, who called that state “nasty, brutish, and short” (however well this might describe Donald Trump’s political career).

Conway thinks that it is people like Donald Trump, the 1 Percent, rich corporations you don’t get to vote for, who should be making the decisions for us. Never mind that this isn’t what the Constitution calls for, or that government by unelected board of directors fails to intersect with “We the people.”

Conway’s objection is that, whatever she claims, Hillary Clinton is the better prepared candidate, not only in the sense that she actually bothered to prepare for last night’s debate, but that she is aware of and makes decisions in accordance to actual facts, to the circumstances of our shared reality, rather than to a bunch of things that are manifestly untrue, if more congenial to the Republican Party’s many invented scandals about both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

In other words, Kellyanne Conway objects to facts being part of the debate. Conway’s tweet is just another sign that an already bizarre campaign has become even more nonsensical and out of touch with reality.