Hillary Clinton isn't going anywhere. Why would she? She was right. She tried to warn us. She was treated so unfairly. She deserved it; we betrayed her. We were sexist. We were duped. She was robbed. Putin, Comey, Facebook, Electoral College. The goddamned voters, man. Sorry? She's not sorry. She's still waiting for an apology from you. From all of us.
If you're normal, you probably had no idea Hillary was on tour again after writing an angsty post-career memoir, her second in the category. Nevertheless, she persists. It's called Something Lost, Something Gained: Reflections on Life, Love, and Liberty. Naturally, it was written in collaboration with the Evergreen Strategy Group, a woke consulting firm founded by former Clinton aides that helps clients such as Nike and BlackRock "live their values with confidence and compassion."
We all know what Hillary lost. For crying out loud, she hosted a "victory" party under a giant glass ceiling on Election Night in 2016. Her campaign ordered a bunch of confetti cannons to blast symbolic shards into the air. She made her goon John Podesta go out and tell everyone to go home after she lost. "We're still counting votes," he sobbed.
That was eight years ago. So, what has she gained since then? Ever the politician—ever the Clinton—she knows what she's supposed to say, so that's what she says. Even if it isn't true. Which it's not. Hillary, who turns 77 later this month, would like us to believe she's gained wisdom, perspective, acceptance, humility, all that shit. She's excited about getting older, ready to "fearlessly embrace" physical decline. Could it be that she's lying? That would be more in line with her character. It would also explain why the Annie Leibovitz cover photo is touched up beyond all recognition.
All this time after venting her postelection feelings in What Happened, Hillary is determined to prove she's not done venting her feelings. She is Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite, still harping on about the high school state championship she would have won if coach had put her in the game in the fourth quarter. About the country she alone could have saved. She "flew on Air Force One, dined with kings and queens, and was constantly surrounded by armed guards." She coulda been a contender. As if anyone cares, which they don't, Hillary lauds herself as "the first woman to win a presidential primary, the nomination of a major party, and the national popular vote." Hell, even her MSNBC fans must be getting tired of her by now. (The ones who haven't died yet.)
"These days, I find myself thinking mostly about the future," Hillary bluffs as she relitigates old grievances. "Time and so many battles won and lost have given me a thicker skin and a stiffer spine." How she really feels is revealed in the text. Her "pang of vindication" when Trump was convicted of paying hush money to a porn star. "A fraud was committed against the American people, against all of us," she bristles. "I would have won. ... Even now, just thinking about that moment makes fury well up in my chest." She's owed an apology, dammit, even if we don't deserve her forgiveness just yet.
It's probably made up, but Hillary claims to have been approached by a groveling FBI dude eager to apologize for the bureau's "devastating and unfair" investigation (her words) into her emails. She was not in the mood. "I stared at him for a minute, trying to contain my anger," she fumes. "You're sorry? Now? Finally, I said, 'I would have been a great president,' and walked away." These little nuggets are like porn but for the sick freaks who bought Robert Mueller prayer candles and waited in line to take selfies with Elizabeth Warren. Your weird aunt who went a little too far with the "Anthony Fauci, sex god" stuff.
Bless her heart, Hillary. At one point, she likens herself to Cassandra, a virgin princess from Greek mythology described as having "bulky breasts, small feet" and a "shortish, round-faced, white, mannish figure." Cassandra could see the future, but was cursed to be ignored. By the Trojans, for example, who dismissed her warnings about Greek invaders hiding in a wooden horse. "I take no pleasure in being right. In fact, I hate it," Hillary seethes. "I tried to raise the alarm [about Trump] in every way I could, but the media and many in the political establishment dismissed me as overwrought, even hysterical."
Because the Trojans didn't listen, Cassandra was captured and forced into sex slavery. Because the voters didn't listen to Hillary, a similar fate befell America. It's about to happen again, so don't say she didn't warn you. In the chapter "Remaining Awake Through a Coup," Hillary unveils her deranged fantasy of a second Trump term. She envisions "soldiers patrolling streets" alongside "roving deportation squads." Immigrants rounded up in "massive, sweltering camps." Trump has declared war on Mexico. Putin has conquered Ukraine. Smog blankets the sky. Crops rot in the fields. Trump's enemies rot in prison alongside the women and doctors who ran afoul of his pregnancy monitors. Dumpsters overflow with unwanted babies.
"I wish the imagined future I've sketched out were just a liberal fever dream, some kind of dystopian MSNBC fan fiction," Hillary bemoans. "But it's not." (It is. Overwrought, even hysterical, one could say.) This coming from the same failed politician who wants us to "work together to restitch our unraveling social fabric and to rebuild Americans' trust in one another." Uniquely ill-suited to the task, she is. Completely oblivious, as well, when preaching against "viewing the other party as traitors, criminals, or otherwise illegitimate," having done precisely that throughout the book. "Soon enough, actual blood gets spilled." (Um, it already has.) Bullshit aside, Hillary relays a cute anecdote about "an editor at a major newspaper" who reached out in 2022 to ask if she'd write an op-ed about "how prescient" she was to denounce Trump supporters as "deplorables." The media can be so unfair.
When she's not moping about being right, Hillary tries to convince us she doesn't spend all her time obsessing about politics. That she's fun! You can imagine how persuasive this is. Several chapters recount good times hanging out with old friends who know her as "Big Girl," and her "postmenopausal belly" as "Beulah." (Don't ask.) The girls weekend at the Franklin D. Roosevelt library watching "a film on the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II" sounds like a hoot. Ditto the "fun" story about the time her long-suffering bag servant Huma Abedin struggled to open the "fancy rhinestone-cheetah clasp" on her purse. Even a nice memory about shampooing her hair in the lake with childhood friends is instantly ruined. "I shudder now to think of the environmental implications," she moans.
Hillary says her editorial consultant wanted the book to "feel like sitting with me at a dinner party." (Like hell, apparently.) Considering the intestinal fortitude required to make it to the end, I'd say mission accomplished.
Something Lost, Something Gained: Reflections on Life, Love, and Liberty
by Hillary Rodham Clinton
Simon & Schuster, 336 pp., $29.99