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Sexual politics and the politics of sex

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Clubbing one's political opponent with a sex scandal is a tactic as old as the republic.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is now demonstrating its most up-to-date example.

His cruel tweet on Saturday that he might invite Gennifer Flowers to attend Monday night's debate as his guest could have been lifted from "Hamilton, An American Musical."

Trump's campaign manager even accused Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton of using the tweet about the woman who claimed to have had an affair with Bill Clinton in Arkansas, to distract voters. This echoes Trump's prolonged assertions that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States - also followed by the false claim that Clinton started the malicious rumor instead of him.

Sex scandals have long served as campaign cudgels. During the recent primaries, Trump announced his plan to hammer the former secretary of state for her husband's infidelity, claiming she was "a nasty, mean enabler."

Or, as asserted in the age-old smackdown: If President Bill Clinton looked elsewhere, so should the American people.

Yet there is a more resonate version bringing New York audiences to tears each night in the hit Broadway musical, Hamilton. The story of Alexander Hamilton's eminently capable wife, Eliza, reveals much about the difficulties political wives confront - and how they prevail over marital woes.

The salacious story of the first Treasury secretary's year-long affair with a con artist, replete with blackmail payments to her husband, swept New York City like a trash fire in 1797. Critics attacked Eliza Hamilton as well, harshly condemning the demure, patriotic mother of six.

"Art thou a wife?" an opposition newspaper sneered. "See him, whom thou hast chosen for the partner of this life, lolling in the lap of a harlot!"

A harsh convention of sex scandals is to blame the wife who "fails" to inspire fidelity. The woman is judged inadequate -- especially when political rivals see advantage in attacking the whole family. The public wonders what a wife knew and when, how she reacted, why she didn't kick her faithless husband out.

The conundrum is centuries old: How does a woman hold her head up? Should she forgive or not? Many consider pardon for marital infidelity unfathomable, even immoral.

Eliza Hamilton faced these questions when she was eight-months pregnant in the insufferable heat of a New York July. That was when she read the devastating headlines.

This Founding Mother coped by fashioning a fuller life beyond the marriage that had caused her such pain. She made her personal story bigger than the one of her husband's infidelity. Eliza transcended humiliation by deciding to step into the spotlight.

Six months after the scandal exploded, she joined a society to help widows and orphans. Instead of avoiding society gossips, Eliza cornered them to ask for donations.

She emerged as an ardent defender of the poor. Soon after Vice President Aaron Burr shot her husband in 1804, Eliza founded New York's first private orphanage. She went on to mother another 150 children.

The American party system was still in knee-britches when the Hamilton sex scandal broke. President George Washington had left the White House only four months before. Someone in Thomas Jefferson's Democratic-Republican Party leaked word of the seamy liaison involving one of Washington's closest allies, Alexander Hamilton, to undermine this founding father's future electability.

The damage was catastrophic. Hamilton issued a detailed confession, but it only emboldened opponents. Newspapers taunted him for releasing an apology "to prove that he is AN ADULTERER!" The Federalist leader's licentiousness became a standard prop in politics' morality play. Accusations became wilder and rancor deepened. Hamilton's eldest son was killed four years later in a duel prompted by continuing assaults on his father's character.

The infidelities of U.S. political leaders continued down through the nation's history. Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson all had affairs. But their private misdeeds remained private. The first ladies hewed to patrilineal tradition: his name was literally her name. His identity, hers. Private wounds did not become partisan spectacle, as in 1787.

Until Bill and Hillary Clinton She spent 20 years as a first lady, first in Little Rock, Arkansas, then in Washington -- a role in which her job was literally to stand by her man. When Bill Clinton held office, though, there were whispers of dalliances.

After he won the presidency, Hillary Clinton published her first book, "It Takes a Village," a big step toward a resolutely separate identity from her husband.

She took another big step when she became a U.S. senator in 2000, serving ably for a freshman officeholder. She took many more as a presidential candidate in 2008, and then secretary of state in 2009.

Like Eliza Hamilton, Clinton must have relished politicos dodging her, rather than dodging them.

Both refused to be shamed by the behavior of men whose job was to stand by them, too. They grew past their roles as wives without renouncing their vows to the flawed husbands for whom they still cared. Public service became their redemption - and passion.

The actions of both Hamilton and Clinton testify to the heart's complexity - and capacity for forgiveness.

he 2016 election highlights the persistence of double standards for males and females. Consider how Americans would react if Hillary Clinton had children by three different men. Yet Trump unapologetically flaunts multiple families while attempting to shame a woman married 41 years.

Dirty politics are an old game - dangerous and unfair. Women candidates of both parties need to become game changers. Let Eliza Hamilton be their guide.

© (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2016.

©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.

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This might be an issue for ISIS or the Taliban, but 21st century USA? Really?

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