In the midst of an election year, it's a little too easy to fall into the demographics trap: to believe blanket statements about political beliefs based on race or class or gender -- to begin thinking of human beings in easy-to-define labels and boxes. "Millennials" are all voting for this one guy, we're told. Latino voters are more likely to do X, Y, and Z. Blatantly racist, and don't care about much else? Step right this way.
All of which makes it that much more interesting to read about a long-ignored demographic, one that's apparently been quietly seething for decades, just waiting, watching X-Files reruns, hungering for a candidate to call its own -- until now. Yes, we're talking about the UFO Enthusiast Vote. And according to the New York Times, Hillary Clinton's got it all sewn up.
To wit:
Mrs. Clinton has vowed that barring any threats to national security, she would open up government files on the subject, a shift from President Obama, who typically dismisses the topic as a joke. Her position has elated U.F.O. enthusiasts, who have declared Mrs. Clinton the first “E.T. candidate.”
“Hillary has embraced this issue with an absolutely unprecedented level of interest in American politics,” said Joseph G. Buchman, who has spent decades calling for government transparency about extraterrestrials.
Mrs. Clinton, a cautious candidate who often bemoans being the subject of Republican conspiracy theories, has shown surprising ease plunging into the discussion of the possibility of extraterrestrial beings.
She has said in recent interviews that as president she would release information about Area 51, the remote Air Force base in Nevada believed by some to be a secret hub where the government stores classified information about aliens and U.F.O.s.
Lest you think this is a recently adopted stance -- an eleventh-hour grab at the notoriously powerful extraterrestrial lobby -- the story goes on to note that Hill's been sympathetic to believers since at least the '90s, when she was photographed carrying a book called Are We Alone? Philosophical Implications of the Discovery of Extraterrestrial Life during a visit with conservationist Laurence Rockefeller.
