Some people are dangerously obsessed with Hillary Clinton, a Free Beacon analysis has found.
Hillary supporters in the D.C. area, for example, recently congregated for a Hillary-supporter happy hour in Arlington, Virginia. Fortunately, the New Republic was there to cover the festivities:
Beth Lilly, 29, remembers the first time she felt like the media was doing Hillary Clinton wrong: It was in 1992, when she was just about six years old, and remembers that people weren’t happy about Hillary’s chocolate-chip cookie recipe ...
Nate Maeur, 29, remembers seeing Hillary for the first time on TV when he was young. She was advocating for children’s rights in Africa. "I remember being glued to the TV as a really little kid, watching her, almost being entranced by what she was saying, what she believed in, because it was exactly what my mother was saying," says Maeur, who runs a workforce development organization. "I’m surprised I didn’t confuse my mom for her, and say—‘Oh, there’s Mom right there.’"
For Clinton’s younger supporters—many of whom, like Maeur, were Barack Obama campaign volunteers—their memories of the scandals and pseudo-scandals of the Clinton years are hazy at best, filtered through the soft focus of childhood. In sharper relief for them are the accomplishments that Hillary has racked up since then—U.S. senator, 2008 candidate, secretary of state—which her young Arlington supporters quickly rattled off when asked why they were backing her. "She’s going down in history whether people like it or not," says Renzo Olivari, 19, a political science major at James Madison University who hopes to run for office one day. He was still in middle school during the 2008 campaign but remembers watching her speeches at age 12 and getting "emotionally invested" in the Clinton campaign even then.
You can tell it was a Clinton-affiliated event because a Hillary organizer apparently tried to prevent the TNR reporter from speaking to everyday Hillary supporters. It's unclear whether any of these D.C.-area supporters recently travelled to New Hampshire for a chance to catch a glimpse of their hero candidate. Here's how BuzzFeed described the scene:
Last month, before her first event in New Hampshire, a group of young supporters stood outside the venue in the rain, hoping to catch a glimpse of the candidate. Clinton never materialized. But every now and then, one could be seen at the window, face pressed to the glass, hands cupped on either side for a better view.
Is this normal, well-adjusted behavior? No, it's not. Idolizing politicians and emotionally investing in their careers is a cry for help.