It's never been about the "icons"...it's about what they are being asked to do.

[DirkGently]

7. And the substitution of authority for substance.

The argument being made is that everyone should shut up, stop thinking, and accept the opinions of a network of powerful people endorsing each other.

It's the classic Republican vs. Democratic argument -- that a chosen few representatives should decide, and the general population's job is simply to elect them and meekly follow -- except for the fact it's being deployed by Dems against other Dems.

Notice none of these endorsements come with any articulation of substantive judgments in favor of Hillary Clinton. These are political allies doing what political allies do -- backing each other. They say nothing, or when they do, immediately go splat and have to be walked back, whether it's women going to hell or false memories of Bill and Hillary magically fighting for civil rights. It's a tactic from the 90's, before everything was recorded and a facile lie could be caught in a matter of minutes.

I keep wondering if the person handing out all these doomed, toxic talking points to progressive icons still has a job. It was an outdated, losing strategy in 2008, and it hasn't gotten any fresher or more effective since then.