Hillary Clinton Can Become the Real Candidate of Change

Hillary Clinton Can Become the Real Candidate of Change

Hillary Clinton Can Become the Real Candidate of Change

Clinton needs to go bold: using her experience and competence as the basis for laying out a big agenda for change that can help build enthusiasm and turnout. 

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Hillary Clinton will accept her party’s presidential nomination on Thursday night, entering and departing the stage as the prohibitive favorite to win the presidency. Forget the polls showing the race neck and neck, the breathless commentators saying that Donald Trump is “moving” on security issues. Americans are not lining up to elect the egregious Trump, the most unpopular candidate in the modern history of presidential politics, to the presidency.

But just because the race is Clinton’s to lose doesn’t mean it can’t be lost. Campaigns may not matter much, but in a deeply divided nation, they matter enough. And, at a time when two-thirds of Americans still think the country is on the wrong track, there is one critical question in this campaign: Who is the credible candidate of change? The challenge for Clinton on Thursday night is to make herself that candidate.

This isn’t exactly conventional wisdom. After Trump’s Republican convention and his rambling, apocalyptic one hour and 15-minute acceptance diatribe, Democrats hoped to “grab the center.” The selection of Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine as vice-presidential nominee followed. The Democratic convention and easy slogans—inclusive, socially liberal, “stronger together,” “building bridges, not walls,” advertising competence and experience—contrast naturally with the Republican gathering.

Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.

We cannot back down

We now confront a second Trump presidency.

There’s not a moment to lose. We must harness our fears, our grief, and yes, our anger, to resist the dangerous policies Donald Trump will unleash on our country. We rededicate ourselves to our role as journalists and writers of principle and conscience.

Today, we also steel ourselves for the fight ahead. It will demand a fearless spirit, an informed mind, wise analysis, and humane resistance. We face the enactment of Project 2025, a far-right supreme court, political authoritarianism, increasing inequality and record homelessness, a looming climate crisis, and conflicts abroad. The Nation will expose and propose, nurture investigative reporting, and stand together as a community to keep hope and possibility alive. The Nation’s work will continue—as it has in good and not-so-good times—to develop alternative ideas and visions, to deepen our mission of truth-telling and deep reporting, and to further solidarity in a nation divided.

Armed with a remarkable 160 years of bold, independent journalism, our mandate today remains the same as when abolitionists first founded The Nation—to uphold the principles of democracy and freedom, serve as a beacon through the darkest days of resistance, and to envision and struggle for a brighter future.

The day is dark, the forces arrayed are tenacious, but as the late Nation editorial board member Toni Morrison wrote “No! This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”

I urge you to stand with The Nation and donate today.

Onwards,

Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Publisher, The Nation

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