The reality that Hillary Clinton is planning, determined and unglamourous, for the future, that Hillary Clinton is ready to hold the media accountable for dismissing women’s rights, that Hillary Clinton is advocating for newborn babies at hurricane-ravaged clinics, that Hillary Clinton is strategizing on the issue of humanitarian-worker burnout—is so confusing. Didn’t Hillary Clinton lose? Doesn’t she have some fancy luncheon to be at? Isn’t she tired of being defeated?
“I believe that it’s never the wrong time to stand up and use your voice on behalf of yourself and other people,” she says. “You may not always be successful but you might move the process a little bit forward. And that will have an impact on people and their lives.” It’s odd to see Hillary Clinton’s life, with its giant moments of achievement and humiliation watched by the world like an Olympic event or a Super Bowl, the way she might see it—as tiny, incremental changes as the result of unending work.
“I think at the very least you have to vote,” she says. “Don’t ever, ever, ever give up on your vote.” Clinton says that since her election loss in 2016, young women have regularly come up to her to tell her they’re sorry they didn’t vote, because they thought she didn’t need their vote to win. Her fundamental refusal to go away after 2016—an insistence that has taken the form of a book, an upcoming Hulu docu-series, and regularly viral comments about the presidential election—inspire fury, even in some of her longtime fans. She seems not bothered by this.
Clinton with client families and workers at Centro MAM
Megan Maher | Clinton Foundation“I know from my long experience in trying to make change and help people that you can never give up, you can never give in,” she says. “Right now we have people in power in our country who want to discourage you, they want to depress you. They want to convince you that it’s not possible to stand up against the combined power of a president and the people who support him and the businesses who are profiting off of him and his policies. And I just don’t believe that.”
Making your way through a world in which some believe fetuses are human even as they ignore the death rates of real, live women is depressing. It is discouraging. Same with living—and bringing life into—a world where the climate is out of control, and the government won’t address it. It would be nice to just lie down. That’s exactly what powerful people want, Clinton says. They want you to feel powerless. That’s how they win.
She has to go—she has a session about preventing violence in the wake of climate catastrophe, she has more meetings with solar energy groups, she has plans to talk more about the intersection of climate change and gender equality.
“You never know what’s going to happen,” she says, which feels like an amazing understatement. “If you’ve got the energy and the time in busy lives like the ones we have, then get involved with groups and organizations that stand for what you believe in. (She recommends Planned Parenthood and the League of Conservation Voters.)
“At the very least,” she says again, sounding hopeful, and not the least bit tired. “Vote.”
Jenny Singer is a staff writer for Glamour. You can follow her on Twitter.
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