They feel that women have moved past that men-are-pigs, woe-is-me, sisters-must-stick-together, pantsuits-are-powerful era that Hillary’s campaign has lately revived with a vengeance. And they don’t like Gloria Steinem and other old-school feminists trying to impose gender discipline and a call to order on the sisters.
As a woman I know puts it: “Hillary doesn’t make it look like fun to be a woman. And her ‘I-have-been-victimised’ campaign is depressing”. Exit polls have showed that fans of Hillary — who once said they would be happy with Obama if Hillary dropped out — were hardening in their opposition to him (while Obama voters are not so harsh about her).

With Obama saying the hour is upon us to elect a black man and Hillary saying the hour is upon us to elect a woman, the Democratic primary has become the ultimate nightmare of liberal identity politics. All the historical victimisations go tripping over each other and colliding, a competition of historical guilts.

People will have to choose which of America’s sins are greater, and which stain will have to be removed first. Is misogyny worse than racism, or is racism worse than misogyny? As it turns out, making history is actually a way of being imprisoned by history. It’s all about the past. Will America’s racial past be expunged or America’s sexist past be expunged?

As Ali Gallagher, a white Hillary volunteer said: “A friend of mine, a black man, said to me, ‘My ancestors came to this country in chains; I’m voting for Barack.’ I told him, ‘Well, my sisters came here in chains and on their periods; I’m voting for Hillary’.”

And meanwhile, the conventional white man sits on the Republican side and enjoys the spectacle of the Democrats’ identity pileup and victim lock. Just as Michelle Obama urged blacks to support her husband, many old-school feminists are growing more fierce in charging that women who let Obama leapfrog over Hillary are traitors.

“I’m 46,” Julie Acevedo, a fundraiser for politicians, said. “Maybe I missed it by a few years, but I don’t know why these women are so fuelled by such hostility and think other women are misogynists if they don’t vote for Hillary. It’s insulting and disturbing.” She said that if Obama definitively outpaces Hillary, she will work to “heal the wounds” and woo back women who are now angry at him.

Watching Bill Clinton greet but not address the crowd, many held up their camera phones to capture the former president, in his bright orange tie and orange-brown ostrich cowboy boots.

“We love you, Bill!” yelled one boy. “You did a good job, except for Monica.”