Women welcome Hillary as 'newest member of our coven'

Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton's harshest critics have described her as a witch. Or worse.

But now a women's group called the Wing has welcomed the twice-failed presidential candidate as the "newest member of our coven," William Briggs writes at The Stream.

He cites a story in the women's publication The Cut headlined "Last Night, The Wing Welcomed Hillary Clinton Into Their Coven."

One of the Wing's founders, Audrey Gelman, said, "We're a coven, not a sorority." Gelman's mother is actress Lena Dunham's therapist, and the younger Gelman was reportedly the inspiration for Dunham's show "Girls."

The New York Times reported the "club" has more than 1,500 members who pay some $3,000 a year for access to the Wing's chapters in Brooklyn and Washington, and soon in Los Angeles, San Francisco and other cities.

The article noted a New York Times Magazine staff editor is also a Wing member.

"Over the course of 18 months, the club raised more than $10 million from investors, most recently from a group led by Tony Florence, a general partner at the venture capital firm NEA," the Times said.

"As a man, he has been allowed to visit the Wing only when members are not present."

Briggs says Clinton's visit to the "club," or "coven" as Gelman describes it, was to receive "an honorary lifetime Wing membership," which comes, "we are told, with free cosmetics."

"It's unclear whether Hillary viewed that as an insult. Most likely not. She tweeted of her time at the coven that she was 'inspired by [their] passion and commitment,'" Briggs writes.

The Cut, which calls itself a "premier destination for women with stylish minds," reported the Wing welcomed Clinton "into their coven" as the "newest member" in front of an audience of 400.

Gelman and "Call Your Girlfriend" host Aminatou Sow discussed Clinton's "legacy," which Gelman described as a woman who demands "to live her life on her own terms."

"That was pretty great," Clinton said.

The Cut noted that shortly after the Wing's creation in 2016, members planned a festive election night party, attended by about 80 women, in anticipation of a Clinton victory.

Since then, The Cut reports, the Wing "has served simultaneously [as] a home base for marches and rallies and political speakers, as well as a beautifully appointed chill-space where you can learn about floral arranging or catch an advance screening of the new Jennifer Lawrence movie."

Clinton spoke about "subjects that will be familiar to anyone who has read her book 'What Happened,' like the various perceived causes of her defeat, including James Comey, Russian meddling, WikiLeaks, and the blight of fake news," The Cut said.

At The Stream, Briggs notes the New York Times reported that coven members hoped that election night would be a "crowning event."

"Warning to the wise: Do not rely on the coven's spells in presidential elections," Briggs writes.

"The Wing operates several covens around the country. At least, they called them covens until news that Hillary attended a meeting came out. Then they switched the names of their meeting places to 'spaces,'" he says.

"They did call them covens, however. The New York Times remembers. The Wayback Machine dating from as late as April 4 still lists the spaces as 'covens' (though because of difficulties displaying the archive, the source code of the page has to be viewed).

"The Wing's web people didn’t do a perfect job of scrubbing mentions of covens, at least not yet. Because the URL of the application to join a once-coven-now-space is 'witches.the-wing.com/apply' ('witches' can also be seen in the archive source code)," Briggs writes.

He also notes that in the shopping section of the site, "you can buy all kinds of coven-branded merchandise."

The site offers a "Wing Coven Longsleeve Tee" and a "Wing Coven Beanie," which has a pentagram design, "long the favorite of witches and Satanists everywhere."

Briggs continues: "If pentagrams aren't your thing, you might consider the Ouija Tee, which is very like the popular Ouija board. And don't forget to pick up the 'Fortune Tell-her Pack', which has an Ouija-like planchette pin. The charming slogan for this product is 'Ask and you shall receive whatever the hell I decide.'"

The Cut also addressed the Wing's "own recent woes," an investigation by the New York City Human Rights Commission into alleged discrimination because the group restricts membership to women.