Putting it mildly, my piece about Hillary Clinton ended up getting a lot more attention than I ever expected. Quite frankly, the level of interest has been a bit shocking. And perhaps the most shocking thing of all, other than the fact that nearly everyone spelled my name correctly, was just how many people wanted other people to read it. Having people read something you write is very satisfying, but having a large number of people try to persuade others to read it is beyond complimentary. So I want to express my gratitude to everyone, including even the people who got mad and called me names.

And yes, there have been more than a few of those. (Yeesh) Most of the insults were what you would expect. But some were much more, shall we say, creative. So far my favorite insults are, “hack jobber”, “nescient poltroon”, “leftist sherpa” and “feminist mangina”. And I would probably be a lot more upset about those if I had any idea what they meant. And also, if they weren’t so awesome.

As far as I can discern (believe me it wasn’t always clear), most of the anger I received was due to my endorsement of Hillary Clinton. Which was not what I was expecting, given that it wasn’t even the main point of the piece. The second most common complaint, but not by much, came from people who were very unhappy that I had the audacity to ascribe any of Clinton’s treatment to sexism. A considerable majority of those complaints, not surprisingly, came from men. And I would insert a joke about irony here if I could bring myself to find that funny.

Most of the remaining complaints were either about things people thought I said that I didn’t actually say, or things they thought I should have said but didn’t say. And also of course, the whole thing was too damn long. All of which leads me to feel like a few clarifications and responses are in order. And I want to also go into a little bit more detail about why I approached everything as I did, why I think that matters, and what I think about the extremism currently infecting our political process. And yes, this piece is also too damn long. In fact if you were thinking of scrolling ahead to see how long it is — I wouldn’t.

Let’s begin with a few quick responses to some of the comments I received:

How much money did you get paid to write that? — To the (ahem) several people who asked me this, the answer is that I got paid as much to write and post the piece as you got paid to ask me that. Also, really? Calm down. Just because I posted a perfectly reasonable piece about Hillary Clinton, that doesn’t mean that black-bag agents are sneaking me envelopes stuffed with cash. Nobody paid me a dime for that, and nobody ever will. That having been said, if anyone from the Democratic National Committee is reading this, it wouldn’t kill you to send me a cheesecake.

Are you a DNC or Hillary campaign plant? — As far as I know, neither the DNC, Hillary Clinton or her campaign staff have the slightest idea who I am. Although again, if anyone from the DNC is reading this, I’m pretty sure there’s nothing in the DNC bylaws that prevents you from sending a stranger a cheesecake. Just putting that out there…

Did it have to be that long? — Yes. If you prefer your political information in memes, bullet points or two-paragraph sound bites, then clearly I am not your guy. Which is fine. There are a lot more people who do what you like than do what I do. So you’re good to go.

But why didn’t you talk about *insert many items here*? — Most of the people who asked this began by pointing out how incredibly long my piece was, and then followed up by wondering why I didn’t address more issues. There are two reasons for this. First, even someone as long-winded as I am has to pull the ripcord at some point. Second, I didn’t address Benghazi or Honduras or the Clinton Foundation or Walmart or a dozen other things because my piece wasn’t about that. My piece was about fairness, sexism, and reasoned discourse. In the future I may write detailed pieces about those other things. Or, if you don’t think that they are getting the proper attention, maybe you could. You read my piece, I’m happy to read yours. Let me know when it’s ready.

What’s with the language? — As you may have noticed, I’m no stranger to the random F-bomb. Mea Culpa. I could tell you that I’m going to stop doing that. But I’m not going to stop doing that.

Why did you compare Clinton to Trump instead of Sanders? — I did this because Hillary Clinton isn’t running against Bernie Sanders anymore. She’s running against Donald Trump now. Which means that the Hillary vs. Bernie comparisons are no longer relevant to this election. And that is not me mocking Bernie or his supporters. Judging from my comments section alone, nobody wants to poke that bear. That is just me acknowledging reality. I have no major beef with Bernie. If he were the nominee I would vote for him in November. But he had his shot, and as Junior Soprano once famously said, “he couldn’t sell it.” There’s no shame. He did incredibly well. But Democrats had a choice to make and we did. Turn the page.

But wait, couldn’t Bernie still win? — No. I’m sorry, but Bernie Sanders is not going to get a surprise win in Philadelphia. He’s just not. At a minimum, this would require his team to flip hundreds of superdelegates, and although they have every right to try, there’s not even a small chance that will actually happen. And really, considering the fact that both Sanders and his supporters spent nearly the entire primary season complaining that the superdelegates were an undemocratic and despicable tool of the party elite who might usurp the will of the people, I find it numbingly hypocritical that some supporters are suggesting that Bernie’s team should convince the superdelegates to usurp the will of the people. The Democratic Party superdelegates have never once voted against the candidate with the most votes and delegates, and they won’t be starting this year.

But what about the suppression, rigged primaries and stolen votes? — Please stop. Really. Just stop. For the small contingent of Sanders’ supporters ringing that bell — I appreciate your passion for your candidate, I really do. And I realize that anger and loss can sometimes drive people to seek answers in odd places when normal channels don’t satisfy. But if a large portion of your worldview relies on conspiracy theories, then you’ve essentially given up on reality anyway. Like Elvis, you’ve left the building. In which case why even worry about elections? Take some time off and enjoy yourself. Those of us still here will take care of things until you get back. Also, we promise to let you know if the lizard people finally tell us how NASA faked the moon landings.

Why so many false equivalencies? — For some people, my insistence that Hillary Clinton was being held to a different standard than her male counterparts somehow morphed into me insisting that, “because they did it it’s ok if Hillary does it too.” I have no idea how anyone connected those dots, because I think it’s pretty clear that this was not the point I was making. And quite frankly, it’s difficult not to see this as either a willful decision to avoid my obvious intent, or a rather transparent attempt to misrepresent my views. Either way, I’d be ok if we all stop doing that now.

Why are you accusing me of being a misogynist just because I don’t support Hillary Clinton? — That’s easy. I’m not.

This last complaint I saw a lot. And while I expected a little pushback, I wasn’t guessing so much of it would be that. So let me address this specific complaint by making two statements:

1) Sexism has been and remains one of the primary engines of anti-Clinton sentiment.

2) You can be opposed to Hillary Clinton without being sexist.

It is entirely possible for both of these statements to be true. Perhaps more importantly, it’s entirely possible for both of them to be true at the same time. We all get that, right? Because either a bunch of people don’t get this, or they are just convinced that I don’t get it. Either way, if you felt like I was pointing my keyboard at you as I was writing my piece, I wasn’t.

Speaking of which, I have been rather amazed at the number of people who assumed that this piece was only about their specific group. Most such complaints of course came from men. (Sigh) And a lot of conservatives assumed that I was just another liberal blowhard accusing them of bigotry. But surprisingly, a fair number of progressives also seemed to assume that the piece was intended just for them. And no small number of Bernie Sanders’ supporters seemed convinced that the entire point of my piece was to paint them all as misogynists.

So I want to make it clear that my piece wasn’t a missile aimed at your specific faction. I made sexism a central theme in my piece because I am convinced that this is a key element informing the way Hillary Clinton is treated. I stand by that. I also stand by my conviction that a double standard applies to HRC and other women in this country who seek positions of power and authority. And if this offends you then you get to be offended, because I am not walking any of that back. And at the risk of seeming snarky, if you read a piece about bigotry and your first instinct is to assume that you are being accused of something, perhaps that says more about you than the author.

Let me be clear — this is not about the specific group you ascribe to. This is about all of us. And yes it’s mostly about men, because most of this problem was created by us, and most of it is perpetuated by us. As men any discussion by us of sexism is easy, because we are exempt from being on the business end of it. We are exempt from the daily indignities. But we are not exempt from the consequences. So gentlemen, if you think you have no skin in the game, think again.

Sexism is not a debate strategy, and it’s not a tool to shut you up. Sexism, like other forms of bigotry, is a societal virus. And to one extent or another, most of us are infected. Our job is not to throw things at people who point this out, and it’s not to pretend that we are fine while we walk around coughing and sneezing on each other. Our job is to get better. If pointing out something as obvious as this is radical or insulting, then I guess that’s me. And if the first thing you want to communicate when faced with societal sexism is denial and self-righteous indignation, then maybe that’s you. But I hope not. Because we need to do better than that.

And now I’m getting dangerously close to mansplaining, and I already have enough people mad at me, so let’s move on…