What I learned about Hillary Clinton from reading her book

Hillary Clinton was back in the news recently for offending half the country because she had the gall to state a fact about the 2016 election in a speech in India. "I won the places that represent two-thirds of America's gross domestic product," she said. "So I won the places that are optimistic, diverse, dynamic, moving forward. And his whole campaign, 'Make America Great Again,' was looking backwards."
Given the media reaction and accompanying backlash, you would have thought it was the "deplorables" comment redux. I'm sure Trump lovers find this infinitely more outrageous than their beloved leader describing the immigrant issue in the context of "shithole" countries. 

Sometimes, the truth hurts (and matters a whole lot more than the never-ending lies that emanate from the mouth of the person who defeated her in the election despite winning 3 million fewer votes). 

Given the latest uproar (or much ado about nothing), I thought this would be a good chance to offer some observations about Clinton and her book, "What Happened," which I read recently.

I don't how much of the book was written by Clinton herself, but whoever was responsible for penning it, it was one of the most insightful, gripping nonfiction narratives I've come across in recent years. Rarely does a book leave me engrossed from start to finish, and I never imagined that a book written by and about Hillary Clinton would rise to that level. While I wholeheartedly supported her candidacy over Trump, I also viewed her as a flawed and less-than-inspiring candidate. I'm not the biggest Clinton (Bill or Hillary) fan in the world for a number of reasons, but I did think she was eminently qualified to be president, and genuinely would have tried to bring the country together and find common-sense solutions to complex problems.

While the book was obviously written from her point of view, with no opportunity for those she criticized to respond, I thought she made a number of compelling arguments about how she was treated unfairly -- even cruelly -- by the media, the public and her opponents. But more than that, the book provided some fascinating insights into her life, her values and her beliefs that I thought I would share here, along with some quotes that particularly stood out.

 Clinton's Christian faith is an important part of her life. 

Unlike the man who overwhelmingly won the evangelical Christian vote, Hillary seems to genuinely be a person whose religious faith plays a central role in her life. She spent much time in the book talking about her Methodist upbringing, the ministers who counseled her and the prayers she recited. She even acknowledged that much of the public would probably be skeptical of this aspect of her life (which also brings up an interesting question about why the role that religion plays in the lives of liberal politicians tends to be ignored, whether by the media, the public or the politicians themselves, while conservatives wear it as a badge of honor, even when it's largely a fake badge).

“I prayed a lot. I can almost see the cynics rolling their eyes. But pray I did, as fervently as I can remember ever doing. … I prayed for help to put the sadness and disappointment of my defeat behind me; to stay hopeful and openhearted rather than becoming cynical and bitter; and to find a new purpose and start a new chapter, so that the rest of my life wouldn’t be spent like Miss Havisham from Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations, rattling around my house obsessing over what might have been.”

And I wonder if Trump -- or most evangelical voters -- could have named this verse from scripture the way she did during this campaign stop.

"In late May 2015, I was campaigning in Columbia, South Carolina. In between events, we squeezed in a quick stop at the Main Street Bakery so I could get a cupcake and shake some hands. There was only one customer in the place, an older African American gentleman sitting alone by the window, engrossed in a book. I was reluctant to disturb him, but we made eye contact. I walked over to say hello and ask what he was reading. The man looked up and said, ‘First Conrinthians 13’ I smiled. ‘Love is patient, love is kind,’ I said, ‘it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.’

His name was Donnie Hunt, and he was a minister at the First Calvary Baptist Church, getting ready for the day’s Bible study. He invited me to sit down.

He told me how rewarding he found it to read these familiar lines again and again. ‘You’ always learn something,’ he said.

‘Well, it’s alive,’ I replied. ‘It’s the living word.’ "

And I found this particularly uplifting and inspiring:

“A few weeks after the election, I picked up a copy of a sermon called ‘You Are Accepted,’ by Paul Tillich, the Christian theologian of the mid-twentieth century. I remembered sitting in my church basement in Park Ridge years ago as our youth minister, Don James, read it to us. 'Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness...Sometimes at that moment, a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying, ‘You are accepted.’ Years later, when my marriage was in crisis, I called Don. Read Tillich, he said. I did. It helped.”

She makes a compelling argument for why the media and public have been unfair to her

Clinton has often been portrayed as unwilling to acknowledge her own faults and flaws. In this book, she admits those mistakes and shortcomings on multiple occasions, but she also argues convincingly that the portrayals of her during her life, particularly by the media, failed to capture the full story of her life and career. As someone who spent his career as a journalist, I have to say she makes a legitimate point here.

“The truth is, everyone’s flawed. That’s the nature of human beings. But our mistakes alone shouldn’t define us. We should be judged by the totality of our work and life. Many problems don’t have either/or answers, and a good decision today may not look as good 10 or 20 years later through the lens of new conditions. When you’re in politics, this gets more complicated. We all want -- and the political press demands -- a ‘story line,’ which tends to cast people as either saints or sinners. You’re either revered or reviled. And there’s no juicier political story than the saint who gets unmasked as a sinner. A two-dimensional cartoon is easier to digest than a fully formed person.”

And she is particularly harsh in her criticism of the New York Times, which is interesting given how the far right often characterizes it as a tool of liberalism.

“Over the years, going all the way back to the baseless Whitewater inquisition, it’s’ seemed as if many of those in charge of political coverage at the New York Times have viewed me with hostility and skepticism. They’e applied what’s sometimes called, ‘The Clinton Rules.’ … As a result, a lot of journalists see their job as exposing the devious machinations of the secretive Clinton machine. The Times has by no means been the only -- or even the worst -- offender, but it’s treatment has stung the most.”

She had some interesting things to say about her marriage

I didn't expect much from her about her marriage with Bill in the book, and she didn't offer much, but what she did offer was insightful -- and inspiriting to anyone who experiences dark days of struggle in their own marriage.

“We’ve certainly had dark days in our marriage. You know all about them -- and please consider for a moment what it would be like for the whole world to know about the worst moments in your relationship. There were times that I was deeply unsure about whether our marriage could or should survive. But on those days, I asked myself the question that matters most to me. ‘Do I still love him?’ And can I still be in this marriage without becoming unrecognizable to myself -- twisted by anger, resentment, or remoteness?’ The answers were always yes. So I kept going.”

She gives some great practical advice for engaging in politics and voting wisely

Conscious of the devastating role that lies, misinformation and echo-chamber thinking played in the 2016 election, Clinton points out that the best way to avoid these pitfalls going forward is to educate ourselves, think critically, keep an open mind, and not get discouraged.

“It’s up to each one of us to stay informed and make good decisions with rigorous reasoning and real deliberation. This is especially important when it comes to voting. Choose wisely and don’t fall for scams. The same way you try to be careful about where you put your money or the car you buy, be careful and informed with your vote. And we all have the ability to break out of our echo chambers and engage with people who don’t agree with us politically. We can keep an open mind and be willing to change our minds from time to time. Even if our outreach is rebuffed, it’s worth it to keep trying. We’re all going to share our American future together -- better to do so with open hearts and outstretched hands than closed minds and clenched fists.”

She also makes a special plea for people to get involved politically in their communities, which particularly hits home with me:

“Local issues are every bit as important as national and global ones. If you see a problem in your community that needs fixing or an injustice that needs correcting, and you think, ‘Someone ought to do something about that,’ guess what? That someone could easily be you. Show up at a city council or school board meeting and suggest a solution. If a problem is affecting your life, it’s probably affecting someone else’s -- and that person might just be willing to join you."

She both apologizes for and defends the "deplorables" comment

Clinton's biggest mistake during the campaign is typically considered the comment she made saying that Trump's supporters could be placed into two baskets, one of which were the deplorables who preach hate, racism, sexism, you name it. While it may not have been politically wise, the fact is that it was accurate based on everything we've seen and know, and this is how she addressed it in the book.

“I know that a lot of well-intentioned people were insulted because they misunderstood me to be criticizing all Trump voters. I’m sorry about that. But too many of Trump’s core supporters do hold views that I find -- there’s no other word for it -- deplorable. And while I’m sure a lot of Trump supporters had fair and legitimate reasons for their choice, it is an uncomfortable and unavoidable fact that everyone who voted for Donald Trump -- all 62,984,825 of them -- made the decision to elect a man who bragged about sexual assault, attacked a federal judge for being Mexican and grieving Gold Star parents who were Muslim, and has a long and well-documented history of racial discrimination in his businesses. That doesn’t mean that every Trump voter approved of those things, but at a minimum they accepted or overlooked them. And they did it without the demanding the basics that Americans used to expect from all presidential candidates, from releasing tax returns to offering substantive policy proposals to upholding common standards of decency.”

She has a great story to share for kids who experience bullying

Clinton talks at length about the role her mother played in her life, and it's clear that Dorothy Rodham was Hillary's greatest inspiration in life.

“There was a time when I was very little, and a neighborhood bully started pushing me around. I ran home to hide, but my mother met me at the door. ‘There’s no room for cowards in this house,’ she said. ‘Go back out there.’ The walk from my front door back to the street was one of the longest of my life. But I went. Mom, was right as usual.”

It's haunting how many vicious lies were spread about her, and how many believed them

Perhaps this is what as most deplorable about the 2016 election.

“Throughout the 2016 campaign, I watched how lies insinuate themselves into people’s brains if hammered often enough. Fact checking is powerless to stop it. Friends of mine who made calls or knocked on doors for me would talk to people who said they couldn’t’ vote for me because I had killed someone, sold drugs, and committed any number of unreported crimes, including how I handled my emails. The attacks were repeated so frequently that many people took it as an article of faith that I must have dome something wrong.”

She dismisses the idea that Democrats need to shift their priorities based on her loss

There's been a lot of debate within the Democratic Party over the past year about whether they need to do more to appeal to white working-class workers, even if it means pulling back from some of the issues around social justice that have become the party's hallmark in recent years. She clearly sees this as a false choice. I agree. The Democrats' problem isn't a failure to advocate policies that would benefit the white working class; it's a failure to explain to the white working class why and how these policies would help them.

“Democrats have to continue championing civil rights, human rights, and other issues that are part of our march toward a more perfect union. We shouldn’t sacrifice our principles to pursue a shrinking pool of voters who look more to the past than to the future.”

She makes an interesting comment about the politics of abortion

This is something many Democrats believe, and will utter in books, but are scared to death to say on the campaign trail for fear of alienating the extreme wing of the pro-choice movement (the same way that Republicans who believe in common-sense gun laws dare not alienate the NRA). I've said before that I think she lost a lot of critical votes in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin because of her unwillingness to adopt the measured position her husband took in 1992 (that abortion should be safe, legal and rare). I think if she would have spoken these words on the campaign trail, she might have won those decisive states.

“And to be clear, I believe there’s room in our party for a wide range of personal views on abortion. I’ve been working with Democrats and Republicans alike to reduce the number of abortions, in part by expanding access to birth control and family planning, and we’ve made progress. And I picked as my running mate Tim Kaine, a Democrat personally opposed to abortion because of his Catholic faith but supportive of women’s rights as a matter of law and policy.”

And finally, she makes a compelling argument about why it will take a "village" to make America great

I've come to believe that the root of many of the problems in this country is the unwillingness and failure of so many people to engage in caring for and helping the larger community, and their fellow humans, succeed. There is a disturbing lack of empathy among so many who seem to only care about their own lives and whether they can get ahead, regardless of what's happening to the world and people around them (never more evident than in the appalling lack of action following mass shootings). Whatever you think of Hillary Clinton as a politician or a leader, after reading this book, I have no doubt that she truly wants America to become the "village" she wrote about 20 years ago where American look after not just themselves, but each other.

“We all need each other, none of us is an island, an autonomous and independent ‘I,’ separated from the other, and we can only build the future of standing together, including everyone.” Tenderness “means to use our eyes to see the other, our ears to hear the other, to listen to the children, the poor, those who are afraid of the future.”