UNITED STATES (VOP TODAY NEWS, Nils Thorsen) – In fact, she was determined to talk more about politics. But when the correspondent of the newspaper Politiken met her in Amsterdam, we were interested in another thing: how can you force yourself to get up in the morning from bed when the dream of your whole life is broken in the face of the whole world. How to convince yourself that the little that you can achieve now is also worth a lot?
The book Hillary Clinton (What Happened?) Has just been translated into Danish. We met with her author to discuss why she lost to Donald Trump, why so many Americans hate her and what a dilemma she faces every woman with ambition. Yes, and she also likes the Danish TV series “Government” (“Borgen”).
At last this day has come. After years of preparation, humiliation and failure. For a decade, she was ahead of everyone in the unofficial queue of women aspirants for the most powerful post in the world. Triumph was postponed for eight years after Obama’s victory, but now the moment is near when the path seems to be open. This is the day when the Americans will first choose a woman president, the notorious glass ceiling will be broken, and Hillary Clinton will secure a place in history.
Hillary Diana Rhode Clinton
Born October 26, 1947 in Chicago. Father – a textile trader and a convinced conservative. Despite this, the parents felt that their daughter should succeed.
In her youth, Hillary supported the Republicans, but she moved to the Democratic camp in 1968 under the influence of presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy, who opposed the war in Vietnam.
Hillary Clinton holds a degree in political science from Wellesley College in Massachusetts and in the jurisprudence of Yale University, where she met Bill Clinton in 1971. Four years later they were married, after which the daughter of Chelsea was born.
While Clinton was making a successful career as a lawyer, Bill Clinton was twice Governor of Arkansas (1979-1981 and 1983-1992).
From 1993 to 2001, Clinton was the first lady.
From 2001 to 2009 he was a senator from the State of New York.
In 2008, she lost to Barack Obama in the fight for the Democratic presidential candidate’s place.
From 2009 to 2013 – US Secretary of State
It seemed that even this money-bear and a reality TV star with extensive media support can not prevent its triumph. Yes, and Hillary in her victory did not doubt at all, arriving with her husband on the evening of November 8, 2016 in the penthouse hotel “Peninsula” in New York, to the circle of friends and associates to watch how the results from different states gradually evolve into an unconditional victory.
“I had no idea that we could lose,” Hillary says.
Here she sits in front of me in the middle of a large conference room in an Amsterdam hotel behind a small square table with a white tablecloth. She came to our continent to give lectures, and at my disposal only 20 minutes. Obviously, we will talk more about politics than about emotions. Between us the flame of a candle flutters. Nearby is a vase with tulips, and around us here and there are shadows of guards and bodyguards – they are silently watching us.
“According to all our data, and according to all available information, the victory was in our pocket,” she explains.
However, alarming information began to arrive from North Carolina, and Bill Clinton nervously paced the room, chewing an unlit cigar. Hillary also reassured herself that all states do not have to win at all, so she decided to take a nap – and let the elections go on as usual.
While she was sleeping, the business took an unexpected turn. The world seemed to sweep past her. When she woke up, they were still waiting for results from Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. It seems that nothing has been decided. But Michigan caught fire red (color Republicans – prim.perev.) . And when Pennsylvania also left Trump at 1.35, everything was over.
According to Hillary Clinton, it became difficult for her to breathe, as if all the oxygen was pumped from the room.
“I had a real shock. It was very painful”.
Around the buffet table people gathered – family, friends and old colleagues.
“And they were all as discouraged as I was.”
How can I say “I’m sorry, I lost” and “Where the hell did you go?”. Hillary Clinton responded to this with a book of 478 pages, which she co-wrote with two speechwriters. This book is filled with personal, blood-soaked experiences – from grief and fury to feelings of guilt and frank bewilderment.
The other day the book “What happened?” Was published in Danish. And the story of the defeat of Hillary Clinton from her own lips came out much more unadulterated, angry and straightforward than her former autobiographies, observing the limits of decency. But, besides, this is also a sincere attempt to understand what really happened, because as she herself writes: “Until now it seems incredible to me”.
Politiken: They say Americans do not like losers. Why did you decide to write a book anyway?
Hillary Clinton: On the one hand, to make amends for yourself. But I also wanted to draw attention to many issues that continue to be relevant. After all, in our defeat, other forces were involved, which I could not influence. About them we began to guess only recently. Now our intelligence says that Russia constantly intervenes in our elections, and we have just new elections in November. We did not take into account the great perspective, but an ideal storm was set in motion, directed by the laws of the reality show. We need to continue to talk about this, and I’m going to do it. If no one else, so I am.
A strange moment
Hillary Clinton began her election day with a discussion of the future triumphant speech with speechwriters. They decided how to make the nation unite, and how to reach out to those who voted for the loser. That is for Donald Trump.
At the end of the evening, she took the time to open thick folders with a plan for the transition period and the first questions she would take as president. Here is an ambitious program of new infrastructure that will create new jobs. Is everything ready. When the victory is announced officially, she will go to the luxurious stage of the Glass Javits Center in Manhattan, where the floor is made in the form of a map of the United States. That’s where she will stand, in the middle of Texas, in a white suit, the first woman to become president of the United States. White color as a sign of the importance of the historical moment. He and Bill even bought a house next door in the suburbs of New York, so that guests and staff would be more comfortable.
But when she woke up after a short sleep, the world changed irrevocably.
“The questions fell one after another,” Hillary says. “What happened?” How could we do it? What the hell is going on?”.
From the White House reported that Obama fears that the result will be controversial, and that a long trial will come.
“You know, I had to talk to Trump.” A smile runs over your face. “I still have many questions, but the TV channels have already declared him the winner.”
We sit on opposite sides of a white tablecloth and remain silent. According to Hillary, this was the strangest moment in her entire life. Donald Trump for several months foxed her “corrupt Hillary.” During the televised debate, he promised to put her behind bars. And at the rallies he conducted a crowd, chanting: “To her prison!”. And suddenly these antics became decently. And at the same time, Clinton writes, “it was an awfully casual feeling, as if calling a neighbor and saying that you can not come to him on a barbecue.”
Servants for the failed festivities were sent to their homes. And while Bill was sitting and watching Trump’s rejoicing on TV, Hillary went to prepare tomorrow’s appeal. She asked her team to prepare a conciliatory speech. Little by little people left. In the end, he and Bill were left alone. They lay down on the bed, and he took her hand.
“I just lay there and looked at the ceiling, until it was time to speak,” Hillary writes.
Blame others
About the fact that this world is sometimes ridiculous and more like someone’s fiction than a well-trained choreography that we consider a reality, I had to remember in my modest hotel room in Amsterdam, where I saw a CNN report about how the US president declared a world trade war.
An elderly, slightly overweight gentleman with orange hair and sharp gestures on a flat screen looked more like a nightmare than a character from real politics. This is more of an eccentric villain from the films about Batman than a typical representative of the political elite.
And while I walk a few hundred meters to the luxurious hotel Krasnapolsky, where I spend 20 minutes alone with Hillary Clinton, I feel like I’ve been replaced somewhere. A woman who received more votes than any white man gave her time to me, a journalist of a small newspaper from a tiny country. It simply does not fit into the boundaries of what we used to call reality.
When “What happened?” Appeared on the shelves in the autumn, some reviewers found that the book was well written and very witty, and that Hillary was sensitive to the language and spared no one, not even herself. Others seemed to read a completely different book. “A poorly thought-out text that eloquently talks about the causes of the defeat,” the Guardian responded, calling the book “a pathological anatomical study of a failed campaign.” According to the Guardian, the masses did not follow Hillary, because her cold calculation failed, when she mistakenly decided that US policy was still revolving around political programs. But Trump understood perfectly that now this is nothing more than a continuation of show business.
According to the New Yorker, Hillary lost because she “could not find the right language, topics for conversation, or at least an expression to persuade a sufficient number of American proletarians that their true hero is she, but not a caricature rich man. ” And, when you read, you notice how she tries to make herself stand out in the face of history – after all, in this way she creates her own heritage.
As she herself repeatedly stresses, the responsibility for defeat lies with her alone. But it does not hesitate to shift part of the blame to others.
On Bernie Sanders (Bernie Sanders) – for what gave the supply of Trump’s campaign for his accusations that she was supposedly a creature of business people from Wall Street. On the Russians – for throwing fake news. On Trump – for making the presidential race into a clan war. At the former director of the FBI, James Komi (James Comie) – for the fact that eleven days before the election, he promised to reopen the case about her working correspondence, which, in her opinion, was worth her victory.
And, of course, on the media. According to her, they “led to the victory of the most inexperienced, most ignorant and incompetent president in the whole history of our country, making the key topic of the election campaign out of the oversight that I made, using my personal mail as Secretary of State.”
What does Hillary Clinton know, that we would also like to know? In other words, what should she ask about? What happens in the White House, we see for ourselves. And as the democrats quickly come to their senses after its defeat – this is already a task for a new shoot.
To complain that it did not happen to become the head of the world’s greatest superpower is already late, however much it would be desirable. On the other hand, this defeat stunned the whole world. And we began to notice its consequences only recently. Then, maybe, this is what: what do you feel when you lose so that the whole world collapses? And how do you manage to get up in the morning from bed and convince yourself that the little that you can achieve now is also worth a lot?
“Who are you really?”
In a bright conference hall, a young journalist from a Dutch newspaper persistently continues to talk about submarines, while I read my questions for the umpteenth time. Suddenly a stir begins in the corridor, the Dutchman is asked to go out, they nod to me, and a second later she appears on the carpet, a radiant blonde in a golden-yellow kimono. She smiles broadly, and everything written on her face, except defeat.
“Hello, Niels. Nice to meet you. I kept hoping that I could get to Copenhagen, “she says, as we shake hands. “I love your country.”
So we started. She is here and ready to communicate. And although even here, in the corner of the old world, she continues to work on her image, she still seems more sensitive, alive and real than I imagined – she improvises. Her voice for just a few sentences can jump from a happy chirping when it comes to personal, to a gloomy half-whisper when it comes to politics and global issues.
Like many people, I imagined Hillary Clinton as a man whose image was choreographed and whose real face can only be guessed when, like a sunny blonde or rather an aged teletubbies dressed in basic colors, appears in the stands around the world, cheerfully winking and waving the pen like random people in the crowd.
Apparently, all this is not new for her. She herself admits in her book “What Happened?” That she is strange to hear the questions “who are you really?” And “why do you want to become president?”. It is understood that behind this there should be something bad – ambition, vanity, cynicism. It seems strange to her that she and Bill have, in her own words, “some special arrangements”. Then he confesses that they are also ashamed, “but that’s what we call marriage,” she writes.
With the fact that millions of people can not stand her, she is reconciled. “I think that’s partly because I was the first woman presidential candidate. I do not think that my followers will have to withstand the same. Although we’ll see, “she answers my question about the reasons for such a mass dislike. – I was the first woman from the baby boomers generation (1940s – 1960s, approx.) And a working mother who became the first lady. I think people thought: Oh, no, she does not pull something on the president’s wife, but rather part of his staff. Hence their anger. ”
And yet it is Hillary Clinton that most Americans consider a woman worthy of emulation, according to a Gallup poll. “That’s strange. When I do something, people respect me and praise my work. But when I look for a new job, everything changes. So it was when I was first a senator, and then I became Secretary of State. And when I ask people for support, it always causes conflicting feelings, as it always happens with women who have achieved power.”
– Why is this happening?
– I think people think that with women who want to become president, something is not right. Like, what kind of a normal woman would want it? And others will say: yes, I do not know any such. My wife does not want to, she does not want a daughter. And my subordinates also do not want. So, something is wrong here.
Perhaps all this fuss, all the intrigues that had been forged around her during the election campaign, and drove a wedge between her and the voters.
“Various stories were talking about me, we found them to be common nonsense, but, as it turned out, later, it was because of them that many put a tick in front of another name. They told me that I was seriously ill and lying on my deathbed, “laughs Clinton. “It’s like I’m the leader of a gang of pedophiles who keep children in the basement of a pizzeria.” And other wildness, which immediately picked up the Russians, Trump and the right media. Some people thought: maybe she really is dying, and she’s fooling us. ”
Yoga, white wine and anger
The day after the election in New York was cold and rainy. When she drove through the crowd of her supporters, many cried, others showed a fist in solidarity. The very Hillary Clinton seemed as if she had committed treason. “In a sense, it was,” she writes. And adds – I was carrying my fatigue, like armor. ” After a speech in which she admitted defeat, she and Bill went to their old home in a suburb of New York. Only in the car she allowed herself to smile. “The only thing I wanted to do was get home, change into my hometown and never pick up the phone again,” Hillary recalls. Then came the turn of sports pants for yoga and fleece shirts. For the next few weeks. They were supplemented by relaxing breathing exercises, yoga and plentiful portions of white wine. But at times, Clinton admits,
She watched the TV show her husband had written to her. I prayed to God. Mentally moved to a vacation in the “Neapolitan novels” by Elena Ferrante (Elena Ferrante), swabs of detective stories and Henry Nouwen texts (Henri Nouwen) about spirituality and the fight against depression. And she cried when actress Kate McKinnon, dressed “under Hillary,” sat down at the piano and sang the song “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen on one of the TV shows – “Though I did only what I could // And went by mistakes, trials // But I did not lie, I did not become a jester in a plague feast. ”
She almost manically wiped the dust from all the cabinets and went for long walks with Bill, but still, whenever I heard the news, I rolled in the same question, unstoppable, like tears-how could this happen?
For several days, I could not think of anything else, she admits.
And there was also anger. It was difficult for her to hold back when Trump started hiring the same Wall Street bankers, who had recently accused her of colluding with him. And even more difficult, when people came to apologize, who did not vote. “And how could you?” Clinton reflects in the book. “You neglected your civic duty at the most inopportune moment!”
“It was just awful! – she exclaims in response to my question about the first weeks after the election. “I warned our country about the danger coming from Trump.” I clearly saw that it represents a serious threat to our democracy and its institutions. ” She catches my eye: “I was hoping I was wrong, Niels, do you understand?”.
For Americans, this works without fail. Hearing your name, any of them seem to take off half a centimeter above the chair, filling with importance and self-confidence.
“I hoped,” she selects the words, “that he, no matter how he behaved earlier and whatever he said during the election campaign … will feel the duty and responsibility of his post and will behave … fittingly. But weeks passed, and nothing happened. ”
I ask if she has anything to blame for.
“For different particulars,” she replies quickly. “For not clearly explaining our agenda to people.” I think this should mean: failed to change its image of the protégé of the system in the eyes of a frustrated working class. “And,” she adds, “because I could not handle Trump during the televised debate.”
– This is when he went directly to you?
– Yes. He simply followed me through the stage. I immediately guessed what he was trying to achieve, and decided to ignore him. Now I’m not sure that I did the right thing, because he turned TV debates into reality shows.
“I thought people wanted the president to be a modern person, whom you can rely on, who would act in an adult way: he did not lose his temper and did not behave like a child. I constantly scroll through these moments in my head and, I think, would now try to do something different. ”
“I had a world-class team, they helped Obama twice to become president and were real docks for political technologies. We planned a modern campaign, a kind of “Obama 2.0.” And we did it, but Trump and his allies changed the script and the campaign turned into a TV show, unfortunately, they were not ready for this in my camp. ”
“During my meeting with Putin, he reminded me of the type of men who sit on the subway with widely spaced legs, interfering with others. They seem to say: “I will take as much space as I see fit” and “I do not respect you in any way and will behave as if I’m sitting at home in my dressing gown.” This is called “manspreading.” Putin does not respect women and despises anyone who contradicts him, that’s why I’m a double problem for him. ”
Hillary Clinton on Vladimir Putin
“We saw that the Russians were plotting something. But they did not understand their intentions. We understood a lot only now. And then we could not understand where all this dirt comes from, “she says, referring to the subsequent reports about the whole cyberarmy of bloggers and phony profiles in social networks that put Clinton in a bad light.
I ask which of her actions she would most likely “outplay”.
“Well, I would never use personal mail as the head of the State Department,” she laughs and then adds, “even though it’s completely legal, so did my predecessor and my successor.”
Advantage of alpha male
In the book there was a place for other claims to oneself. For the fact that she, unlike Bernie Sanders, did not make grandiose promises, simply because their execution could take many years, although voters would certainly be deceived. In the course of her campaign, Clinton seriously thought about offering the Americans a guaranteed minimum income, a small, fixed income for all ( like the fact that in 2017, for the sake of the experiment was introduced in Finland – prim.perev.) , But abandoned this idea, weighing all the pros and cons.
Now she believes that we should have taken a chance.
Clinton writes that her worst fears about her own “flaws” as a candidate for the presidency were fully justified.
“Some of them are congenital,” she explains in response to my question. “I’m a woman, and I can not change it.” And in our country there are many people who will never dare to support a woman in such a position. This was confirmed by all our research, but it seemed to me that I could still get through my experience. ”
Barack Obama’s mother was very young, and his father returned to Kenya, so the boy was brought up by grandfather and grandmother. He grew up, became a fighter for civil rights and a professor of jurisprudence. A great biography for starting a political career. Bill Clinton’s father died before his birth. The family lived for years on a farm without running water and with a toilet on the street. Besides, Bill had to keep repeating his stepfather, who spread his hands to his mother. And yet he became the first in their family who graduated from the university. Hillary Clinton, by her own admission, can not boast such a dramatic biography. She grew up in a normal white middle-class family in the suburbs of Chicago, and she had a happy childhood. Looking back, she only regrets that she did not sufficiently emphasize that she belongs to the generation of women pioneers who have changed the world.
When she competed with Obama, the first black presidential candidate, she did not accentuate her gender. But this time it was different, she explains.
“Probably, I should have conveyed this idea differently, more effectively. I dont know. But I’m sure that before the next woman in my place the same dilemma will arise. ”
Opinion polls showed that many Republicans and Republicans were against the woman president. Even in the camp of democrats there was skepticism. In addition, there was “an inevitable barrier of humiliating sexist comments.”
– In what way was it expressed?
– Well, for example, they say that women have too shrill voices. Although I knew a lot of men who literally yell their lungs out. In any case, this criticism does not concern them. It is addressed not only to me personally, but to every woman who dares to lean out and say: “So, I’m going to become a governor or a president.” There are a lot of sexist misconceptions, which many, I’m sure, do not even notice.
When her husband lost the gubernatorial elections in Arkansas in 1980, this was partly due to the fact that she performed under her maiden name Rodham. When Bill decided to participate in the presidential race 12 years later, she added his name to her, but then she got it because she was making a lawyer career. And when she answered that she had nothing to “go home, bake pies and arrange tea gatherings,” she was considered a self-satisfied careerist, looking down at American housewives.
When Hillary Clinton already after the election read the “deep analysis” of her TV debates with Trump, she had something to be surprised. “After the elections, I studied everything that they wrote about me,” she smiles. “And so I read: maybe she really looked more convincing and more than once he caught it, but Trump still could not tear his eyes away.”
She looks into my eyes.
“He’s behaving like an alpha male. He wants to be considered this way. Moreover, we in the depth of our DNA also believe that the president should be so. I broke a lot of barriers, but this one, the last one, turned out to be beyond my powers. But I think I managed to clear the space for debate, and next time people will be more attentive. ”
We sit in silence for a moment. Suddenly she declares:
“But I love the TV series” The Government ” (” Borgen “, Danish TV series about the Prime Minister woman) , I just adore it.”
Here she starts up a detailed analysis of the plot, acting and, not least, the tests that fell to the lot of the main character.
“To keep the family and work in balance is just one of the tasks that fall on the shoulders of women,” Hillary says, adding that if the work involves power, then the dilemma can not be avoided.
“On the one hand, no one wants to become a stranger to himself. On the other hand, one must be able to remain oneself in a situation when others think you are a leader. And this is not easy.”
Too many opponents
Hillary Clinton wondered for a long time about whether to participate in the inauguration of Trump – she feared that she would be hooted and will be shouted “to her prison!”. She agreed when she found out that there would be Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush. Little by little, she began to think about how painfully the past loser had when they were in the same situation.
She calls Trump’s inaugural speech “a roar from the abyss of white nationalism.”
“It’s gloomy, dangerous and disgusting,” she says. “I kept thinking:” Yes, we really have hard times ahead of us – and my fears were justified. ”
“Niels!” – one of the shadows, sitting at a few tables away from me, tactfully makes it clear that time is coming to an end.
“Two more minutes,” I ask and translate the conversation into the last questions.
– I was always interested in what people do after they visited the president …
Hillary Clinton laughs in her voice.
– And you have been the first in line for so long, and suddenly everything ended, and you have never become president. How do you adapt to a new life?
– I spent a lot of time walking in the woods with my friends to look into my future. I really was sure that I would become president and do so much for our country. However, it did not work out for me. But I’m not used to giving up. So I began to look for new ways to contribute.
She looks up.
“This is not one comprehensive work, but many different interesting challenges. I support new political organizations and young candidates who challenge the tramp’s manners and republican procedures in order to restore the balance of democratic forces. ”
– What is your goal in life now?
– Fortunately, I have a lot of things that I have been doing for many years. This is medical insurance and all sorts of conflicts in our society. And I also help the struggling side to rise.
“I do what I can to protect and defend our democracy,” she says, apparently unaware that her “defend and protect” involuntarily cited the presidential oath, which she did not have to give (“… in full measure my forces will support, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States … ” a comment of the interpreter).
– And yet, how do you answer the question “what happened”?
– It happened that there were too many opponents in front of me. Trump’s campaign, unlike anything we dealt with before. Sexism. Russian, who constantly influenced the outcome of the election. Information was used as a weapon, and we have only just begun to understand the danger it poses to democracies around the world. I could not overcome all this, and I’m really, really sorry, “she replies.
And adds with a half-smile:
“Because it seems to me that a good president would come out of me.”
