Get Psyched About Hillary Clinton (Again) in Just 6 (OK, 7) Videos
As this dyspeptic campaign year lurches across the finish line, the national mood seems to be one of misery. If you’re a Hillary Clinton supporter (like me), your confidence in her victory remains strong, but your enthusiasm may have been dampened by the inescapable media cacophony about EMAILS!, a.k.a., the nothingest nothingburger in the history of campaign scandals.
Lost amid this sea of trivializing, false-balance, false-equivalence, double-standard campaign coverage that is “vacuous, policy-free, and corrosive to democracy” is one big thing: public policy. It’s a shame the press has paid so little attention to policy in 2016, because whichever person we elect president is going to change the country; the way presidents change this country is largely through policy. And Hillary Clinton and her campaign have put a vast amount of work into thinking through her policy positions, and then detailing them in many dozens of public position papers.
Worse, even less energy has been devoted to reporting on what the candidates’ policies would mean to individual Americans — like those in rural communities, those with small businesses, community college students, freelancers, commuters, seniors on Medicare, military families, families dealing with mental health issues, and on and on.
BUT the campaign has been producing — without me noticing, somehow, until this week — an incredible series of videos and ads that tell the story of Hillary Clinton through the policies she has championed, and how they translate into the lives of real Americans. These videos are incredibly well-done — moving, powerful storytelling.
So: If you’re feeling down about the awfulness of this campaign season, start clicking below. There’s a good chance these videos will not only jump-start your motivation to vote and volunteer for Hillary, they will remind you why she’s actually quite awesome in the ways that matter most as president, and why her public policy agenda is super-important for the future of this country.
- The story of Damián López Rodriguez: A son, a soldier, a dreamer. Born in Mexico, raised in Arizona, killed in action in Iraq. Undocumented immigrant; heroic American.
2. The story of Martha and Sara. An incredibly moving account of a mother whose daughter was born deaf, but gets to hear, thanks to cochlear implants funded by the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) championed by Hillary Clinton in the 1990s.
3. The story of Ryan, a Nebraskan with a rare form of dwarfism who struck up, at age 7, what turned out to be a sustained friendship with Hillary Clinton.
4. The story of Jaylon, a 6-year-old boy who lives in Flint with his mother, Nakiya.
5. The story of Janelle, whose superpower is beating breast cancer.
6. The story of Captain Humayun Khan, and of Khizr and Ghazala Khan.
And as a bonus, a video simply called “Equal”.
