Hillary sees US at ‘moment of reckoning’
PHILADELPHIA — Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton, who sacrificed personal ambition for her husband’s political career and then rose to be a globally influential figure, became the first woman to accept a major party’s presidential nomination Thursday night, a prize that generations of American women have dreamed about for one of their own.
Declaring that the nation was at “a moment of reckoning,” Clinton, 68, urged voters to reject the divisive policy ideas and combative politics of the Republican nominee, Donald Trump.
She offered herself as a steady and patriotic American who would stand up for citizens of all races and creeds and unite the country to persevere against Islamic terrorists, economic troubles, and the chaos of gun violence.
“Powerful forces are threatening to pull us apart, bonds of trust and respect are fraying,” Clinton said.
“And just as with our founders there are no guarantees. It truly is up to us. We have to decide whether we’re going to work together so we can all rise together.”
To reinforce Clinton’s message, several Republicans and military veterans took the convention stage to warn that Trump would take the United States to “a dark place of discord and fear,” as retired Gen. John Allen put it.
Democrats in the convention hall broke out into a booming, lengthy chant of “USA, USA!” But the most powerful guest speaker was Khizr Khan, a Muslim- American whose son joined the Army after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and was killed during service in Iraq.
Khan, rebuking Trump for frequently demonizing Muslims as threats to the United States, pulled a copy of the Constitution out of his suit jacket and held it in the air.
“Mr. Trump, have you even read the Constitution?” he said. “You have sacrificed nothing.”
His words seemed to send a collective shiver through the convention hall, leaving some Democratic delegates in tears.
Few recent political conventions have had a night gusting with so much history and high emotion. If elected, Clinton would become the 45th president of the United States, as well as the first to be married to a former president, Bill Clinton, the nation’s 42nd.
She would be the latest in a long line of Yale graduates and accomplished lawyers to lead the country — but she would also be the first mother and grandmother to be commander-in-chief, decades after women became heads of state elsewhere.