Hillary Clinton in 2016 is clearly the best bet for Zion

HILLARY CLINTON MAKES HISTORY

As Hillary Clinton’s strong primary showing essentially clinched the Democratic Presidential nomination for her, she urged Bernie Sanders supporters to remember their shared enemy

Eight years to the day after she delivered a poignant concession speech to Barack Obama, in which she talked of having made “eighteen million cracks” in the glass ceiling, Hillary Clinton walked onto a stage at the Brooklyn Navy Yard last night under very different circumstances. Like most modern campaign events, this one had been carefully choreographed. The Duggal Greenhouse, an upscale event space, had been converted into an elaborate television set, with huge American flags for the cameras to dwell on and much smaller flags for people in the crowd to hold.

For about three minutes, to the strains of Sara Bareilles’s “Brave,” Clinton basked in the cheers of her supporters. She was obviously pleased, but she appeared to be calm and keeping it together. Then, suddenly, she exhaled, lifted her arms to the sky in a victory salute, and beamed with delight—a moment of release aftermonths, years, decades, even, of struggling and striving to get where she now stood: on the cusp of becoming the first woman to be nominated as a Presidential candidate for a big American political party.

To some extent, the Associated Press and the networks had stepped on the story by declaring Clinton the presumptive nominee a day earlier, based on a count of superdelegates. But this was still a huge night for her, for the Democratic Party, and for the country. With New Jersey already called in her favor and the early returns from New Mexico and South Dakota looking promising, she was getting very close to being in the unassailable position of having won a majority of elected delegates, a majority of superdelegates, and the popular vote. “Tonight we go over the top against any measure,” John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman, told CNN shortly before she spoke. (Not long after she took the stage, the networks projected that she would get enough elected delegates to secure a majority of them, and, a bit later, President Obama called her and congratulated her on her victory.)

She began her speech by acknowledging her predecessors in the struggle for gender equality, some of whom were featured in a video that was shown before she took the stage. “Tonight’s victory is not about one person. It belongs to generations of women and men who struggled and sacrificed and made this moment possible,” she said. Before long, she pivoted to her first political mission of the night: appealing to Bernie Sanders supporters, and uniting her party behind her. “I want to congratulate Senator Sanders for the extraordinary campaign he has run,” Clinton declared. “He’s excited millions of voters, especially young people. And let there be no mistake: Senator Sanders, his campaign, and the vigorous debate that we’ve had—about how to raise incomes, reduce inequality, increase upward mobility—have been very good for the Democratic Party and for America.”

It is easy to be gracious in victory, but Clinton was clearly signalling that she was willing to work toward satisfying Sanders’s demand that she and her campaign reach out to the many new voters that he has attracted, and welcome them into the Democratic Party. Robby Mook, Clinton’s campaign manager, talked with Jeff Weaver, his counterpart in the Sanders campaign, on the phone yesterday, and Clinton directly addressed embittered Sanders supporters, reminding them that she has been in their position. “Now, I know it never feels good to put your heart into a cause or a candidate you believe in and to come up short. I know that feeling well,” she said, to laughs and cheers. “But, as we look ahead to the battle that awaits, let’s remember all that unites us.”

The “all that unites us” turned out to include a desire to forge an economy with “more opportunity and less inequality, where Wall Street can never wreck Main Street again,” to get “unaccountable money out of politics,” and to create “a society that is tolerant, inclusive, and fair.” “We believe that coöperation is better than conflict, unity is better than division, empowerment is better than resentment, and bridges are better than walls,” she said.

The phrase “bridges are better than walls,” which Clinton has used before, was her pivot to the factor that she and her campaign are really relying on to bring the Democratic Party and its supporters together: Donald Trump’s position at the top of the Republican ticket. Repeating a charge that she made last week, in a big foreign-policy speech, Clinton declared, “Donald Trump is temperamentally unfit to be President and Commander-in-Chief.” On this occasion, though, Clinton extended her indictment of Trump to the impact that his election would have on America at home, and on the values the country espouses. “He’s not just trying to build a wall between America and Mexico; he’s trying to wall off Americans from each other,” she said. “When he says, ‘Let’s make America great again,’ that is code for ‘Let’s take America backwards.’ Back to a time when opportunity and dignity were reserved for some, not all.”

With her voice and body language indicating horror, she listed some of Trump’s verbal atrocities: claiming that a federal judge couldn’t do his job properly because of his Mexican heritage, mocking a reporter with a disability, and calling women pigs. “It goes against everything we stand for,” Clinton said. “Because we want an America where everyone is treated with respect, and where their work is valued.”

The crowd cheered. And Clinton wasn’t done with her soon-to-be opponent. “It’s clear that Donald Trump doesn’t believe we are stronger together,” she went on. “He has abused his primary opponents and their families, attacked the press for asking tough questions, denigrated Muslims and immigrants.” At this point, Clinton’s voice grew especially disdainful. “He wants to win by stoking fear and rubbing salt in the wounds, and reminding us daily just how great he is.” Then, taking in the crowd’s laughter, she smiled broadly.

If the address that she gave last week suggested that she and her speechwriters are relishing the prospect of taking on an offensive, motor-mouthed New York billionaire, this speech confirmed it. For Clinton, who is often accused of lacking communication skills and an overarching vision, Trump’s presence in the race has provided an edge and a theme: Stop the bully. She didn’t use that exact phrase, but after bringing up her mother, Dorothy Howell Rodham, who died in 2011, she said, “My mother believed that life is about serving others. And she taught me never to back down from a bully, which it turns out was pretty good advice.”

Bully-fighting isn’t the mission that Clinton thought she would be executing when she entered the Presidential race, in the spring of 2015. But it fits the moment, it serves the national interest, and, from America’s first female presumptive nominee, it sends a powerful subliminal message: You think Trump’s tough? Just watch me take him down.