Hillary Clinton first came to my attention when she unintentionally threw shade on American housewives back in 1992. Bill was campaigning for the presidency, and she'd been asked why she continued to work as a lawyer while Bill was governor, since it had opened the couple up to accusations about conflicts of interest (accusations that would later morph into the Whitewater investigation). "Well, I supposed I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas," she said, "but what I decided to do was to fulfill my profession, which I entered before my husband was in public life."
It was clear to me what she meant—she decided to continue down her own path rather than get sidelined into a First Lady role just because she was someone's wife. I found the idea exhilarating, that her goals came first and that she wasn't confined to a ceremonial role. But the nightly news at the time was a cauldron of invective from offended cookie bakers and voters who found her bitchy and overly ambitious.
In the full interview, she'd said specifically that she worked as an advocate for women to "assure that women can make the choices, whether it's full-time career, full-time motherhood, or some combination." But as I would see in future "scandals," nuance never matters.
I was a teenager, poised to cast my first vote in a presidential election. I had grown up in the first wave of girls raised with Title IX, who were told that they could do and be anything they wanted. I had worked hard, graduated in the top of my class, and gotten into a good college. I was opinionated and ambitious—I immediately identified with Hillary. And I was appalled that Americans not only expected her to play her life small, but that they were furious and judgmental that she would not.
Hillary's detractors frequently say that she's never been convicted of any wrongdoing because she's "above the law." But it has always seemed to me that she was under the law—nearly asphyxiated by a phalanx of special prosecutors and, now, rogue FBI agents with political agendas. Of course, the special sauce flavoring every investigation from Whitewater to the emails has been misogyny. I even thought the rapaciousness with which the Monica scandal was prosecuted was spurred by fury at Hillary—they wanted to discredit Bill, but they wanted to humiliate Hillary.
Hillary's "scandalabra," as Donald Trump's campaign manager Kellyanne Conway has dubbed the nonstop suspicion surrounding her, has undoubtedly contributed to her unpopularity. (Sidenote: Can I just say that I love the word "scandalabra"? It exactly conveys the almost-comical inanity of most of the accusations against Hillary.) Hillary's favorability rating has been at 40 percent most of this year, with an unfavorability rating of over 50 percent.
However, it should be noted, there have been times—times as recent as 2013—when as many as two-thirds of Americans have admitted to liking her. Also, we have named her the most admired woman in the world in Gallup polls 20 times—more than any woman living or dead. So let's just say the nation's feelings about her are a little more complicated than pure distaste.
But my feelings about Hillary are not complicated. I have always admired her, and now, at the end of this long, painful, eye-opening election—I just straight up love her. Trump, Paul Ryan, Jason Chaffetz, people with "deplorable" in your Twitter handle who tweet mean things at me when I tweet nice things about Hillary—you made me love her. You have fused my once-passive appreciation for Hillary onto the fierce place in my heart where I protect my children and honor my parents and grandparents and death-til-we-part with my husband and link hands with my girlfriends and fight for my own humanity and the values I was raised with, that the point of our existence is to love one another.
Yes, Rudy Giuliani, Chris Christie, you did this. By making me read all her emails, you made me believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that Hillary's raison d'etre is to read human rights watch reports and study policy and try to improve the lives of Americans. By trotting out her husband's sexual accusers in front of her at a presidential debate, you showed me her unbelievably steady nerves and laser-like focus. By linking the hatred of Hillary to the hatred of immigrants and people of color and religious minorities, you've brought home to me the intersectionality of all these causes. You have made me see how the feminist fight is linked to the battles of Black Lives Matter and DREAMers and Syrian refugees. By knocking Hillary down—over and over and over and over again—you allowed me to see her get up each time. And each time she got up, I cheered a little louder and I felt more deeply that she must make it over the finish line, that the future of our country and the future of my kids depended on us being able to achieve this milestone, the first female leader of the free world.
If you read the nonstop coverage of Trump supporters who want to incarcerate Hillary and disaffected Millennials who are voting for her only as an also-ran to Bernie, you might think I was the only person in America who felt this way. I almost never see coverage of people like me, who support her unreservedly. But I know that I am not alone. My friends love her. My mother and aunts have been moved to tears by her battle. People in my community love her—they stop by my porch to say, "I love your yard sign! Go Hillary!" They are phone-banking and raising money for her.
Hey, her staff loves her! I did a profile of her when she was Secretary of State and interviewed scads of them and they had endless, earnest tales of how Hillary personally intervened in their lives to aide their career and families. (And lest you say, "pblff, of course her staff loves her"—think about the bosses you have had over your lifetime: Did you love them all? Want to devote decades of your career, sacrificing your personal life, to work with them? Go on the record with journalists to talk about the role she played in your birth plan?)
This weekend, Beyoncé gave a Get Out the Vote concert for 10,000 people in Ohio. As she danced and sang in a polka-dotted pantsuit, behind her a giant screen flashed in all caps, that same quote about baking cookies. Finally, I thought, we have come full circle, where the phrase that started off decades of Hillary Hating is being co-opted as a rallying cry for those of us who see in Hillary, rather than an enemy to be defeated, the best parts of ourselves.
