GasliGhtinG, stalkinG and shivvinG hillary on the campaiGn trail
It’s tempting to tell Hillary Clinton, this long after the 2016 US presidential elections, to put away her grievances and move on. To “go high, when they go low.” To stop appearing on talk shows every day, hawking her book.
Yet if anyone is in a position to stand on the wreckage of American politics at this moment and say, “See? I told you so,” it’s arguably Hillary Clinton, the first woman to be nominated by her party as a presidential candidate.
As we watch the dangerous wedge that President Donald Trump continues to drive between Americans — between whites and minorities, between the insured and the uninsured, between those who “love” the flag and those who don’t, even between members of his own party — it’s arguably important to have another account of that very strange election year, particularly from someone so central to the action.
In the end, What Happened does shed a lot of light on the “whys” and “whats” of 2016, consumed as Clinton is with nursing personal wounds, but not enough on the “What nexts?”
In a nutshell, what happened is that she lost. She makes it clear from the intro that it’s all on her (“I’ve tried to learn from my own mistakes. There are plenty, as you’ll see in this book, and they are mine and mine alone”), yet on the other hand, she goes out of her way to lambaste other troublesome roadblocks to victory like Bernie Sanders, Vladimir Putin and former FBI director James Comey.
Sanders stole away some of her supporters by promising every American “a pony,” as she puts it, but not saying how he planned to pay for it, and making it sound like she didn’t like ponies (#ponygate).
Comey she says “shivved” her close to the election by reopening an investigation into her emails two weeks before balloting. And Putin hated her for supporting protests against his military march into Crimea. (Trump is generally more, uh, indulgent of Putin’s activities. In fact, Clinton says The Donald has “fallen so hard” for Putin, he “dreams of Moscow on the Potomac.”)
Clinton reserves her most cogent venom for Trump, of course. The passage where she itches to tell him, during the second televised debate, to “back up, creep” when he made a show of skulking around in back of her, is priceless. But we wonder: would she have fared better if she had just said it out loud, there and then? If she had been willing to toss out the political rulebook of decorum, as Trump did, and lash back, would it have “humanized” her more, or simply divided more Americans? In truth, what kind of magic goggles would have been necessary for Americans to see things clearly in one of the craziest political races in US history?
Like most of America (and the world), Clinton can’t help spending a lot of time analyzing Trump. She allows that the ego-driven billionaire possesses a certain folksy charisma she herself lacks. (Both suffered low poll ratings.) Writing about watching a tape of their televised debate with the sound turned off, she confesses that her eyes were drawn more to the im- posing, wildly gesticulating male with the red tie than herself on the TV screen. But that’s just optics: her gaze would also be drawn to a chimpanzee riding a tricycle and smoking a cigar.
Another culprit in her defeat, she argues, is sexism. Trump was not only piggish to women, which earned him votes among white Republican men; his offenses (such as admitted groping of random females on the Hollywood Access tape) were forgiven by many women — including, apparently, his wife Melania — as “locker-room talk.” And for some reason, those women didn’t like — or trust — Hillary and voted against her.
Clinton makes a strong case that her being beaten down by the press and tweeters and her opponent is consistent with a long tradition of keeping women in their place — out of politics, and definitely out of higher office. (She could learn a little from the Philippines, which has had two female presidents so far.)
The press, too, takes a drubbing, especially NBC’s Matt Bauer, who devoted half a televised interview to questions about Hillary’s private emails and “judgment” in seeking the presidency. (This is particularly rich, considering it now turns out six people close to President Trump also hold private email accounts, including Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump and others. But this little detail has been downplayed by the White House.)
Chapter after chapter, Clinton cites people who console, condole, and offer an alternative view to the gaslighting she must have felt during that race. One campaigner tweeted, “If Trump had won by 3 million votes, lost electoral college by 80K, and Russia had hacked RNC, Republicans would have shut down
America.” See? her supporters sought to tell her: You’re not crazy. The world is crazy. What you get in What Happened is a lot of the (for lack of a better word) “real” Hillary Clinton. Mastering a tone that is perhaps warmer and more reflective than the TV cameras allowed her to project, she writes about the joy of playing with her grandchildren (a luxury that being president would have seriously curtailed), and the continued support of husband Bill, a flawed partner who has nonetheless been there forever. She does a neat “Bill” trick here too, injecting personal encounters with random supporters on the campaign trail, drawing strength from their strength and encouragement. It humanizes her.
Then she writes about government policy, and you feel your eyes start to roll back in their sockets. But then you realize: this is an essential part of Hillary Clinton as well. She cares about government decisions that affect millions of lives. She doesn’t skip the briefings. She cares in a way that her opponent, who vanquished her, didn’t, still doesn’t, and probably never will.
But recognizing the “whys” and “whats” behind her defeat is only half the job. It’s good that Clinton — after trying alternate nostril breathing and chardonnay — is willing to move forward and think about the future of the US. But identifying what led disgruntled Americans to elect someone like Trump is only half the battle. The other half is addressing those ills.