Stanley Fish: Hillary-hate like anti-Semitism and rock 'n' roll

Stanley Fish is a great (and actually fun to read) literary critic and theorist, but his politics are probably hopeless:

[Jason] Horowitz observes that there is an "inexhaustible fertile market of Clinton hostility," but that "the search for a unifying theory of what drives Hillary’s most fanatical opponents is a futile one." The reason is that nothing drives it; it is that most sought-after thing, a self-replenishing, perpetual-energy machine.

The closest analogy is to anti-Semitism. But before you hit the comment button, I don’t mean that the two are alike either in their significance or in the damage they do. It’s just that they both feed on air and flourish independently of anything external to their obsessions. Anti-Semitism doesn’t need Jews and anti-Hillaryism doesn’t need Hillary, except as a figment of its collective imagination. However this campaign turns out, Hillary-hating, like rock ‘n’ roll, is here to stay.

Unlike rock 'n' roll, it will not, I think, outlast Hillary's political career.

Tags: Stanley Fish, Hillary, anti-Semitism