Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

DonViejo

(60,536 posts)
Sun May 27, 2018, 08:42 AM May 2018

Interview - Chelsea Clinton: 'I've had vitriol flung at me for as long as I can remember'

By Decca Aitkenhead

The former first daughter on privilege, female leadership, dealing with critics, and how Trump ‘degrades what it means to be American’

Sat 26 May 2018 03.59 EDT Last modified on Sat 26 May 2018 13.51 EDT

When the American media describe Chelsea Clinton as royalty, they refer not to her popularity but to her ubiquity. Her very first home was the governor’s mansion in Little Rock, Arkansas; the family home she left for university 18 years later was the White House. Ordinarily, it’s only young royals who grow up in lavish official residences and the pitiless media spotlight, a permanent presence in our consciousness. It is a uniquely strange and unenviable version of celebrity that stole Clinton’s anonymity before she was old enough to spell it.

When we meet there is, therefore, a disconcerting sense of deja vu. Everything begins exactly as one might expect. On the previous day there had been the pre-interview call from one of her handlers, who was ostensibly warm and yet conveyed an impression of wary control, leaving me worried about how far I’d be allowed to stray from the subject of Clinton’s new book. The interview takes place at the Clinton Foundation, a vast but discreetly unadvertised expanse of midtown Manhattan office space populated by serious-looking people and elegantly adorned by African-inspired artwork chosen by Clinton’s father. Clinton is waiting in the glass boardroom; the interview starts precisely on schedule, to the second.

The 38-year-old displays impressive fluency in British current affairs, knowing all about the NHS’s missed mammogram test results, and praising David Lammy’s recent Windrush speech in the Commons. Her father once talked about the importance of really seeing people – the person who opens his car door, or pours his coffee – and I’m struck that Clinton notices the medical support sleeve I’m wearing, and asks about the origins of the name Decca. But any impression of intimacy is offset by a facial expression that remains glassily still, and a voice that never modulates. Clinton has inherited her mother’s unnerving composure, and speaks in monotone paragraphs consisting almost entirely of language no human being I know ever uses. “The choices that they made,” for example, “were fundamental to me feeling affirmed in charting my own journey”, which is not how anyone else talks about their mum and dad.

Clinton has just published her third children’s book, and will be appearing at the Hay festival next weekend. She Persisted Around The World is a picture book in which she tells the stories of 13 extraordinary women through the ages, from Marie Curie to Malala Yousafzai, who persevered in the face of prejudice and changed history. It’s the sequel to her New York Times bestseller She Persisted: 13 American Women Who Changed the World, the title inspired by Republican senator Mitch McConnell’s scathing attack on Senator Elizabeth Warren for trying to read aloud a letter from Martin Luther King Jr’s widow in the senate. Warren was famously silenced, under an obscure senate rule that McConnell later defended with: “She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted,” only for his words to be swiftly converted into a feminist rallying cry.

more
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/may/26/chelsea-clinton-vitriol-flung-at-me


3 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Interview - Chelsea Clinton: 'I've had vitriol flung at me for as long as I can remember' (Original Post) DonViejo May 2018 OP
She is a model of composure and dignity. JNelson6563 May 2018 #1
Long and interesting article. nt DURHAM D May 2018 #2
Which American media described Chelsea as royalty? aikoaiko May 2018 #3

JNelson6563

(28,151 posts)
1. She is a model of composure and dignity.
Sun May 27, 2018, 09:21 AM
May 2018

I admire her for it. I can only imagine how very proud her parents must be! Brava, Chelsea!

Latest Discussions»General Discussion»Interview - Chelsea Clint...