Kyle Labe//Blog Writer
I hesitate to label Hillary Clinton’s What Happened as a political memoir. It’s much more than that. It is part feminist manifesto, part contemplation on loss and moving on, part behind-the-scenes campaign documentary, and even sometimes a meditation on self-care. Usually, political memoirs are weighed down with drawn-out passages on policies, economics, partisan propaganda… the whole shebang. One just has to crack open any release from Barack Obama, Elizabeth Warren, Margaret Thatcher, Jimmy Carter, Bill O’Reilly, or Al Gore—you name any major politician, and there’s probably a book out there—to see the truth in that statement. And, frankly, they’re not ridiculously fun to read. Even some of Clinton’s past memoirs (see Hard Choices) are a slog to get through.
What Happened, though, transcends this trope. Covering such a wild, unpredictable, historical election so recently after its conclusion is a heavy topic to take on. Like many, I was hesitant to relive it. But there’s no better person to do so than Clinton. If I was going to read any recollection on the Hell that was 2016, I was going to read that of the candidate whom I supported, and who, in my opinion, should have won.
What Happened by Hillary Clinton
To be perfectly honest, I’m completely biased towards Clinton. I have begun to look up to her as a politician and human being, and my admiration only grew as the election finished. Her strength, resilience, and ability to keep fighting for what’s right even after losing such a crucial race is something to be inspired by. So having such an intimate peek into the days of and the days subsequent to Election Day was, for a fiery activist like myself, nothing short of exhilarating.
What Happened aims to sort out just that: what the Hell happened? How did such a qualified candidate, who arguably ran the most progressive campaign in history, lose to a man like Donald Trump? It’s a question I’ve been trying to juggle for months now. She discusses her own faults, Russian interference, her “damn emails,” FBI director James Comey, voter suppression, and possibly every factor that was shoved in our nation’s face this past year. But somehow, I was continuously interested in what Clinton had to say.
For one thing, she is brutally honest. Being that she isn’t in public office anymore, that she’s now a private citizen, her guard has been let down. She doesn’t hold back in calling out who she feels needs it, which, following the book’s release, caused quite the storm. Sometimes the book seems one enormous rant about James Comey, Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, The New York Times, and even sometimes Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein. Her frankness surprised me, more or less. It was coming from a politician who’s known for how coolly calculated her words are. Albeit in such unfortunate context, it’s somewhat relieving to see her so free in her speech. It revealed a much more identifiable side to Clinton that I wish was manifested more throughout the campaign.
As she makes clear, she had no choice but to keep deliberate. Every word she said during the campaign was analyzed to its root. She was kept under a spotlight that constantly overheated. Particularly, she uses the example of how conservatives used the soundbite of her proclamation to lessen jobs for coal miners, but taken completely out of context. It’s sad but true how our society treated the first female candidate on a major party ticket. The theme of feminism permeates throughout. Clinton tells the reader she’s devoted her entire life to the movement. There’s an entire portion of the book about women’s liberation and her experiences with sexism on and off the campaign trail.
She gives examples of how she grew past the loss, describing the constant sense of dread, aching, and depression. She goes into her many glasses of wine, TV binges, reliance on friends, family, and faith, and even alternate nostril breathing. Sometimes it seems that she needed to tell this story for herself more than she wanted us to read it. As I said, What Happened reads more like a self-help narrative than a political memoir.
In the end, it’s inspiring and hopeful in a seemingly hopeless time. What Happened could’ve been overwhelmed by rage, envy, resentment, and Clinton would have every right to express that (and sometimes she does). However, the true message that rings through is that of love and kindness. There’s even an entire chapter titled that. It’s a message that we, as a community, need to exercise, one that we were constantly reminded of during the campaign: when they go low, we go high.