Chasing Hillary; Dear Madam President review - followers of a lost cause

[Exotica]

Two emotional accounts of Hillary Clinton’s poll defeat – from Jennifer Palmieri and Amy Chozick – veer from lachrymose to wickedly readable

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/apr/29/chasing-hillary-amy-chozick-dear-madam-president-jennifer-palmieri-review

For Amy Chozick and Jennifer Palmieri, the world ended early on 9 November 2016, when Hillary Clinton tersely phoned Donald Trump to concede defeat. Chozick had spent a decade reporting on Hillary for the New York Times; Palmieri served as her “communications director”, although – as Chozick discloses – she balked at communicating the bad news to her boss on election night.

Both Chozick and Palmieri were traumatised by the unexpected result – perhaps more so than Hillary, who in a petulant transference of blame declared: “They were never going to allow me to be president.” “It was on us to save America and we let her blow up,” said Palmieri, apocalyptically. “I don’t know anything,” Chozick decided in numb misery, as she trudged home. Chozick slumped into depressed inertia, while Palmieri resorted to indignant denial, asserting that Hillary actually won the election because the popular vote put her ahead.

Thanks to therapeutic book contracts, both women are currently in recovery, having reacted differently to their psychic trial. Palmieri, awash in tears but trying to be brave, now fantasises about what might have been by composing an open letter to a future female president whose identity is as yet unknown. Aghast at the errors of an overconfident campaign, Chozick revisits the past to analyse what went wrong, or – since rage goads her to fire off a fusillade of spluttering expletives – WTF happened.

Chozick upbraids “motherfucking Michigan” and excoriates “the assholes of Wisconsin”, two states that capitulated to Trump; she accuses Hillary of a “brain fart” that led her to offend gay voters, and chokes on the “shit sandwich” the campaign’s spinners tried to cram down her throat. After all this venting, she more soberly attributes Hillary’s failure to her defensive, impersonal public demeanour. She disguised her rightful ambition as a mealy-mouthed craving to serve others, which is the ancestral female mission; everyone admired her crestfallen speech on the morning after the election because, as Palmieri remarks, surrendering gracefully is what women are meant to do.

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[Mike Nelson]

1. Sounds like they...

...missed the boat. Won't need to read any more...