Michael Goodwin

Michael Goodwin

US News

Hillary’s henchwomen have a dirty secret

Over years, New Hampshire earned its reputation for upending conventional wisdom, but the 2016 campaign is also leaving another legacy. When Madeleine Albright and Gloria Steinem tried to shame and bully young women into supporting Hillary Clinton, they inadvertently revealed a dirty secret of the left’s fixation on gender, race and ethnicity.

They demonstrated that hiding behind the gauzy appeals to make history is a willingness to use brass knuckles to achieve conformity. In their warped vision, biology trumps individuality, and those who don’t agree are traitors to their gender.

That’s not just unappealing, it’s also un-American. Our democracy is energized and more representative when no vote is taken for granted.

The demands for conformity by Clinton’s henchwomen mirror the anti-free-speech movements on college campuses, but are striking because they came from a former secretary of state and a feminist icon, both of whom struggled against demeaning stereotypes in their own careers. They now ape the sexists they fought.

Albright especially struck a sour note when she declared that “there’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other.” Clinton laughed and clapped at the statement.

Steinem separately accused young women of supporting Sen. Bernie Sanders because “the boys are with Bernie.” She also insulted those who favor Donald Trump, saying they only liked him for his money. If he “lost his wallet, there would be no women in sight,” she told Women’s Health magazine.

The bullying smears are backfiring, but before the incidents give way to new outrages borne of Clinton Entitlement Syndrome, some context is useful.

For one thing, neither Albright nor Steinem was thinking of Carly Fiorina or any female candidate other than Clinton when they insisted on conformity. So their demands amount to a selective use of gender as a partisan club, which ghettoizes female voters.

For another, Hillary’s enforcers are not alone in dipping into the gutter, with smears also leveled at Republican candidates who don’t fit a racial mold.

Some liberals have called Dr. Ben Carson, a distinguished surgeon running for president, an “Uncle Tom” for being a conservative, as if all black Americans must think and vote the same way.

Cuban-American senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz are routinely accused of running from their Latin roots because they are Republicans who oppose illegal immigration. Again, the suffocating implication is that being an authentic Latino means being a liberal Democrat supporting open borders.

The pattern is not new, yet it is new that it no longer works. The 2016 race is turning politics upside down, and Albright and Steinem are among the establishment gatekeepers whose power is ebbing. Acting like bitter reactionaries, they resort to intimidation.

The world is passing them by. Consider that nearly 60 percent of Iowa Republicans caucused for Cruz, Rubio or Carson, a powerful statement about growing diversity in one party.

Consider, too, that the nation’s two Indian-American governors, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Nikki Haley of South Carolina, are both Republicans. One of two African-Americans in the Senate, Tim Scott, is also from South Carolina. (Democrat Cory Booker of New Jersey is the other.)

The demographic scrambling helps explain the decline of Clinton’s support among women. After Sanders beat her by 70 points in Iowa among all people under the age of 30, New Hampshire polls gave him a 64-to-35 percent edge among women under 45.

Part of her problem is generational, with Albright, at age 78, and Steinem, 81, stuck in a time warp while many young women say they are free to support Sanders for the same reason men do: They find him more authentic, and her less honest.

It’s also true that Clinton’s political career is impossible to separate from her husband’s. Her first Senate race was launched on the wave of public pity after the Monica Lewinsky scandal, and she cites her husband’s presidency as a reason why she should have her own. Is that modern feminism?

That awkward history has diminishing benefits for a new generation. Model and actress Emily Ratajkowski captured the moment when she aimed a barb at Steinem by telling a rally, “I’m here because I support Bernie Sanders . . . I’m not here for the boys.”

And in a direct dig at Clinton, Ratajkowski said, “I want my first female president to be more than a symbol.”

We all should.

Bharara also talks the talk

Preet Bharara doesn’t just do something about political corruption, he also talks about it. And that’s almost as important.

By failing to point out the crooks, the New York pols who aren’t corrupt have done little to distinguish themselves from those who are. That was the tough message the Manhattan federal prosecutor delivered on a rare visit to Albany.

“You think no one knew Sheldon Silver was corrupt before he was put in handcuffs?” he said of the convicted former Assembly speaker. “Not a chance,” he answered, adding, “No one made a call, no one blew a whistle, no one sounded an alarm.”

He might have added that a series of private businesses also went along with the scams without complaint, especially real estate giant Glenwood Management.

Bharara has been a one-man gang, convicting a raft of city and state officials, including Democrat Silver and former Republican state Senate leader Dean Skelos. Both await sentencing.

Yet Bharara also distinguishes himself by repeatedly reminding the public of the high cost of corruption. Beyond the actual theft in taxpayer dollars, the resulting cynicism drives a giant wedge between the public and government officials.

Even more distressing, New Yorkers are so numb that they feel there is little they can do about it. A recent poll found that nearly 90 percent believe the state is rife with corruption, but most regard the situation as close to inevitable.

Albany, of course, takes comfort from such findings, as illustrated by the absence of any talk of serious reform from Gov. Andrew Cuomo and legislative leaders. Their attitude seems to be that if the public doesn’t care enough to get mad, why should they?

Bharara still cares, that’s why.

The man without a state

The airwaves and opinion pages are filled with trial balloons for a Michael Bloomberg presidential run, and the former mayor clearly is itching to throw his fat wallet into the ring.

But amid all the heated claims that he can triumph, here’s the obvious question: What states could he win to put together even a plurality of the Electoral College?

If that’s too tough, here’s an easier one: Name a single state he can count on winning.

I’ll wait.

We’re czarry to say

The latest buzzwords coming out of Washington are a tongue twister. Some people demand a “Zika czar.”

Try to say that 10 times in a hurry.