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Why Hillary’s book should not have happened

Hillary Clinton should have refrained. Refrained from running for President. Refrained from trying to restore her image by analysing why…

Why Hillary’s book should not have happened

(Photo: Facebook)

Hillary Clinton should have refrained. Refrained from running for President. Refrained from trying to restore her image by analysing why she lost. Refrained from exposing so much about what’s wrong with US politics.

Refrained from badmouthing Russia and President Putin. Losing gracefully is not just about smiling bravely before cameras or at the investiture ceremony of the next President of the US. Obviously, she couldn’t have said magnanimously that the best man won, especially when that man is Donald Trump. But she could have refrained from taking the world down the campaign trail again, pointing out ad nauseam how well she got on with her supporters, or how much she worries about the state of the nation. Politicians tend to sound the same when expressing their desire to improve the lot of the disadvantaged while becoming richer themselves. Just one of the stories she tells over almost 500 pages stands out. It is so memorable because this is what the American dream is for millions of people across the world — that hard work and tenacity can take you right to the top. And it is not about Hillary, it is about her mother.

The story goes like this. Dorothy Howell was three or four when her parents would leave her in their fifth storey apartment in Chicago to go to work (of course, that’s against the law now). “When she got hungry, she had to bundle herself up, walk down all those stairs, go to a nearby restaurant, produce a meal voucher, eat and then walk all the way home. Alone.” When the Howells decided to divorce, she was eight years old. She and her three-year-old sister were sent on a four-day journey by train to California, unescorted, to live with their grandparents. There, they were subjected to strict Victorian rules.

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“When my mother dared to go trickor-treating one Halloween, the punishment was confinement to her bedroom for one whole year, coming out only to go to school,” writes Clinton. Today, of course, most of these acts have been regarded as child abuse. Dorothy escaped from this hell at 14 by becoming a live-in help for a family, which thankfully treated her with kindness and allowed her to continue her education. Her mother called her back, but the teenager’s heart broke when she realised her mother only wanted a housekeeper.

However, she had no choice but to grit her teeth and bear with this new situation. Once she became an adult, she found an office job, moved into an apartment, and fortunately married a good man, Hugh Rodham, with whom she had three children and built a happy home. Clinton writes, “How did she hold on to that self-respect in the face of all that disregard?

The most important people in her life told her that she was nothing. How did she know that wasn’t true?” Her mother’s story is more about survival skills, upward mobility and the tenacity of the human spirit than Hillary’s own story. It is gratifying to know that Dorothy Rodham did not end up alone in an assisted living facility. She stayed with the Clintons for the last five years of her life. She lived to see her daughter as First Lady and Secretary of State.

One would love to see a filmmaker tackle this story. Hillary Clinton too has many achievements to her credit, but they predate the 2016 Presidential election, and there was no rags-to-riches story to tell. It is astonishing to read that she realised during the Presidential campaign that people hated her. That though it was high time the US elected its first woman President, she was aware of the common feeling that the country was unlikely to give a third term to the Democrats, a phenomenon we in India call “anti-incumbency”.

There seems to be something desperate about her campaign and though ambition is a well-accepted quality in a politician, her actions bring to mind the word “overweening” when we wonder why she did not take the more graceful course of supporting another woman candidate to be that historic achiever, whether in this election or the next. Would not people find it odd that having lived in the White House already — and survived the ignominy of the Oval Office scandal — she could still put herself out there to run for President. Hopefully, the whole fiasco will not cast a long shadow over other women’s bid to run for the highest post in the land.

The most informative chapter, one that is inspirational for aspiring women politicians across the world, could have been “On Being a Woman in Politics”. Unfortunately, this too exposes the dark underbelly of misogynism and sexism that has recently been blown open by the Harvey Weinstein disclosures. We think Asia is in the Dark Ages in these matters, but Clinton tells us that the US in the 21st century is no better, which would explain why no woman has yet become President.

“If we’re too tough, we become unlikeable. If we’re too soft, we’re not cut out for the big leagues. If we work too hard, we’re neglecting our families. If we put family first, we’re not serious about the work.” She quotes Sheryl Sandberg, chief executive officer of Facebook, telling her that the more successful a man is the more people like him, whereas the opposite applies to women. While this kind of social prejudice is real, one hopes that Clinton has overstated the case because the world looks up to the US as a progressive state. Perhaps she lost not because she is a woman or because people didn’t like her, but because the time was not right for her candidature. She brings it down too much to gender and personalities, but there were larger forces at work that brought Trump to power.

His idiosyncracies remind one of Ronald Reagan but Trump is a successful businessman and Reagan was a mere actor. The military industrial complex clearly conspires to put such men at the top. The book is an exercise in self-flagellation that does not endear Clinton to the reader, although the opposite must have been intended. One can understand the publishing industry’s interest in her story, but not the author’s own participation in this excoriation. On top of that, she might end up making the reader in distant lands a bit sceptical about the institutions of democracy. The way she depicts the media as unleashing a torrent of misinformation about her emails, or the Clinton Foundation’s activities, one gets the impression that media is a monster that can devour a candidate if it so wishes.

But then what was the point of all the mass contact programmes she attends, criss-crossing the country to acquaint voters with her priorities, if in the end the media is to carry the message? And if it is true that the Russians were the ones injecting the poison, what does that say for America’s superpower status? She even alleges a collaboration between WikiLeaks and Russian intelligence services.

The book gives only glimpses of the two charismatic men in her life ~ Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. The first black President seems to encourage her, and the husband to stay in the background, a sounding board and a sage advisor. No revelations here. Still, in the book, Clinton continues to make all the right noises, as if she is still on the campaign trail.

Her concluding remarks would strike a chord in India, where the rise of polarising politicians like Modi is a cause for despair. She writes, “We need to get better at explaining to all Americans why a more inclusive society with broadly shared growth will be better and more prosperous for everyone. Democrats must make the case that expanding economic opportunities and expanding the rights and dignity of all people can never be either/or, but always go hand in hand.”

She promises to support future candidates, but perhaps, as in the writing of this book, she should refrain, lest that do more harm than good.

(The reviewer is the author of In Search of Ram Rajya and That’s News to Me)

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