Beaming With Joy And Pride, Hillary Clinton Promises To Bridge What Divides America

The final moments of the Democratic convention all came down to the most crucial speech of Hillary Clinton’s career. After she was officially named the first woman major-party nominee, she busted through a glass ceiling and now follows many tributes in her honor. Perhaps the most illuminating speech arrived from former President Bill Clinton, who introduced us to a Hillary that the public has never known. And after an enormous, heartfelt introduction from their daughter, Chelsea, Hillary arrived onstage and formally accepted the nomination. She looked so full of pride and joy and was thoroughly embracing this moment that’s been decades in the making.

An emotional Bill certainly loved the moment when his wife walked onstage.

About halfway through her speech, Clinton declared, “It is with boundless confidence in America’s promise that I accept your nomination.” By that point, she’d already greeted her family with a nod to Bill’s story about their fateful library conversation in the library 45 years ago. She’d thanked Bernie Sanders for inspiring millions and bringing more progressive viewpoints on economic and social issues to the Democratic party. She vowed, “To all of your supporters, I want you to know I heard you. Your cause is our cause.” Clinton devoted much of her airtime to economic reform and ensuring that the 1% will pay “their fair share” of taxes.” And she freely embraced a common jab from her opponents: “If fighting for affordable childcare and paid family leave is playing the ‘woman card,’ then deal me in.”

Clinton then grew a little more personal than most of her speeches tend to do. She acknowledged how voters know her by profession but don’t really know her personally. Why? “In all my years of public service, the service part has always come easier for me than the public part.” This was because her family — in contrast to the Trump clan — doesn’t erect buildings marked with their name. They’re builders of a different sort, and Clinton stressed how her nomination “clears the way for everyone” because she will work along with America rather than stand above them.

At that point, Clinton zeroed in on her Republican opponent. She stressed how Donald Trump’s temperament is not well suited to the presidency: “Imagine him in the Oval Office facing a real crisis. A man that you can bait with a tweet is not a man you can trust with nuclear weapons.” Clinton acknowledged Trump’s reliance upon public fear, and she quoted Franklin D. Roosevelt in response: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

The most forceful portion of Clinton’s speech arrived with a caution to voters: “Don’t believe anyone who says, ‘I alone can fix it.’ Yes, those were actually Donald Trump’s words in Cleveland, and they should set off alarm bells for all of us … He’s forgetting every last one of us.” She reminded the audience of the Founding Fathers intent: “America would never be a nation where one person had all the power.” To that end, Clinton concluded by urging her audience, “Let’s be stronger together” to “make America greater than ever.”

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