Unraveled Wednesday

Joining Kat and friends for Unraveled Wednesday.

I'm still knitting on my Fading Tardis hitchhiker, wondering when I'll start to see the beginning of the gradient appear (and wondering how long before I bore you to tears with the same knitting project week after week). It's been hot enough recently that my knitting motivation has waned, but it's finally supposed to cool down a bit on Friday, so hopefully my knitting mojo will return along with cooler temperatures.

Several of you have already read my thoughts about What Happened, and I know some of you have read the book yourselves, but it felt like kind of a big deal in my reading last week, so I'm going to also post the review here. I was anxious to read what Hillary Clinton had to say, but also a little apprehensive that reading it would make me angrier, sadder, and more resentful. Readers will have to judge for themselves if it's a book they are interested in, but I was pleasantly surprised. I thought that Secretary Clinton had written as hopeful a book as possible under the circumstances, and at the end, I thought that if Mrs. Clinton could pick herself up and go on, then I certainly needed to do the same. It gave me a much-needed reminder that I could not wallow in hate, anger, and fear, but need to persevere and keep making phone calls and taking action. 

"For of all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these: 'It might have been.'"

I supported Hillary Clinton and voted for her, so of course I wanted to read her take on What Happened. I'm not sure that question will ever really be answered, but in What Happened, she offers her views on the campaign, the election, and her life afterwards. I found the book to be an interesting combination of Secretary Clinton's own recounting of her life, personal and professional, and her take on politics, agendas, policies, and action. 

One of the things I found most surprising was that she blames herself for letting down her supporters. I personally think there is plenty of blame to be laid upon others, but perhaps naively, I do not blame Hillary Clinton for the loss. 

"Every day that I was a candidate for President, I knew that millions of people were counting on me, and I couldn’t bear the idea of letting them down. But I did. I couldn’t get the job done, and I’ll have to live with that for the rest of my life."

Mrs. Clinton does talk about how she misread the climate in the country and campaigning on fact-based policies and well thought out plans on how to fix things may not have been best strategy. Hindsight may be 20/20, but it still saddens me immensely that reason, logic, facts, and truth were not what the electorate wanted.

"Still, in terms of fighting the previous war, I think it’s fair to say that I didn’t realize how quickly the ground was shifting under all our feet. This was the first election where the Supreme Court’s disastrous 2010 Citizens United decision allowing unlimited political donations was in full force but the Voting Rights Act of 1965 wasn’t because of another terrible decision by the court in 2013. I was running a traditional presidential campaign with carefully thought-out policies and painstakingly built coalitions, while Trump was running a reality TV show that expertly and relentlessly stoked Americans’ anger and resentment."

"Usually when I meet people who are frustrated and angry, my instinctive response is to talk about how we can fix things. That’s why I spent so much time and energy coming up with new policies to create jobs and raise wages. But in 2016 a lot of people didn’t really want to hear about plans and policies. They wanted a candidate to be as angry as they were, and they wanted someone to blame."

While reading, I couldn't help but wonder if the Hillary Clinton that wrote this book could have won the election. She writes about the details of her life, walks in the woods with her dogs and Bill, watching HGTV, the books she has read and enjoyed, dinner and time spent with good friends, and most of all, her enjoyment of her grandchildren. She has presented a much softer side than we are used to seeing.

"There are times when all I want to do is scream into a pillow. But slowly, on a personal level, it has gotten better—or at least less terrible. I did quite a bit of thinking and writing, some praying, some stewing, and, in time, a good deal of laughing. I went on a lot of long walks in the woods with my husband and our dogs, Tally and Maisie, who took all this much better than we did. I surrounded myself with friends and caught up on some of the shows that people have been telling me about for years, as well as a lot of HGTV. Best of all, I spent time with my wonderful grandchildren, making up for all the bedtime stories and songs in the bathtub I missed during my long months on the campaign trail. I believe this is what some call “self-care.” It turns out, it’s pretty great."

I voted for her not because she's a woman, but because I thought that she was the most qualified candidate with a lifetime of broad and deeply relevant experience for the job of President of the United States. I'm fairly confident that I would not be worrying about nuclear war every day if Mrs. Clinton was President. I'm not nearly as sure as Secretary Clinton is that the fight was worth it, but only time will tell.

"Will we ever have a woman President? We will. I hope I'll be around to vote for her--assuming I agree with her agenda. She'll have to earn my vote based on her qualifications and ideas, just like anyone else. When that day comes, I believe that my two presidential campaigns will have helped pave the way for her. We did not win, but we made the sight of a woman nominee more familiar. We brought the possibility of a woman president closer. We helped bring into the mainstream the idea of a woman leader for our country. That's a big deal, and everyone who played a role in making that happen should be deeply proud. This was worth it. I will never think otherwise. This fight was worth it."

"I prayed that my worst fears about Donald Trump wouldn’t be realized, and that people’s lives and America’s future would be made better, not worse, during his presidency. I’m still praying on that one, and I can use all the backup you can muster."

What are you making and reading this week?