the witching hour is upon us. i<u+2019>m talking not about halloween but about election day <u+2014> which, if you believe a vocal subset of conspiracy theorists, is when we<u+2019>ll all get hexed. hillary clinton<u+2019>s more extreme critics routinely refer to her as a witch <u+2014> earlier this month, joseph farah at world net daily asked , <u+201c>can you even imagine enduring four years of this witch as president?<u+201d> he was presumably speaking figuratively, but a quick scroll through the twitter hashtag #witchhillary reveals that some people believe mrs. clinton actually practices the dark arts. several videos posted to youtube in the last year attempt to make this case. one, titled <u+201c>hillary clinton <u+2013> the antichrist or the illuminati witch?<u+201d> includes testimony by the clinton conspiracy theorist larry nichols, who claims that mrs. clinton routinely left arkansas to worship with a group of women at a <u+201c>witches<u+2019> church<u+201d> in los angeles. portraying powerful women as witches is a time-honored tactic. the writers barbara ehrenreich and deirdre english have argued that the first accusations of witchcraft in europe grew out of male doctors<u+2019> anxieties about competition from female healers. even when such accusations aren<u+2019>t literal, they are attempts to delegitimize women<u+2019>s authority by painting women as devious, corrupt and scheming. the alt-right radio host alex jones, for instance, recently called mrs. clinton an <u+201c>evil wicked witch<u+201d> who wanted to steal the election and who was <u+201c>picked by the globalists to curse this country.<u+201d> in her excellent essay on hillary clinton and victoria woodhull, the first woman to run for president and a practicing spiritualist, jessa crispin argues that we could use more witchcraft in our politics, not less. witches, she writes, have <u+201c>faith in the balance between humans and the natural world, in the power of sexuality, in human equality and dignity, and in community over hierarchical power or authority.<u+201d> these values have been powerfully absent from a campaign season dominated by a man who once boasted that his wealth and status allowed him to grab women<u+2019>s genitals. to find the spirit of witchcraft as ms. crispin explains it, we may have to look to pop culture. <u+201c>blair witch,<u+201d> released last month, is something of a disappointment in this regard. the villain of the film, a sequel to the 1999 classic <u+201c>the blair witch project,<u+201d> is not so much a traditional witch as a mysterious entity with a wide array of seemingly unrelated powers, including the ability to stop the rotation of the earth and to induce foot infections. <u+201c>the witch,<u+201d> released in february, is more interesting. an exploration of age-old anxieties about female sexuality and power, it tells the story of a young woman accused of witchcraft so often that she decides to embrace it. it will also make you afraid of goats. for a fuller examination of what a politics of witchcraft might look like, though, i recommend <u+201c>the craft.<u+201d> this 1996 film, which follows four high school students who form a coven, isn<u+2019>t necessarily a how-to guide for successful witching, since things don<u+2019>t end well for all the characters, but it is a story of women coming together to develop and use their awesome powers to punish their enemies. if you<u+2019>re looking for some relief from the misogyny exhibited by this year<u+2019>s republican nominee, you could do a lot worse. follow the new york times opinion section on facebook and twitter (@nytopinion) , and sign up for the opinion today newsletter . a version of this editorial appears in print on october 23, 2016, on page sr10 of the new york edition with the headline: the witching season. today's paper | subscribe
the witching season
anna north