Hillary Clinton Should Pokémon Go...Update Her Playlist
You know how they say famous people get frozen at the age they first became famous? Like how Justin Bieber is permanently, mentally 12 years old? I'm starting to think it's the same case for politicians, except, instead of their minds freezing at the age they first became a public figure, their minds freeze at the age they lost their biggest election. This would explain why Hillary Clinton insisted on bookending her Democratic National Convention speech Monday night with those songs! I'll name them, but I'm sure you already know exactly which ones I'm talking about. She walked out to Sara Bareilles' "Brave" and then walked off the stage to...wait for it..."Fight Song." Despite my frustration, I'm actually of a few different minds here. For starters, you can't really think of #ImWithHer without softly singing "I will scream them loud tonight/Can you hear my voice this time?" to yourself. (Only me? I doubt that.) And political conventions are all about a politician's greatest hits, so it is hard to imagine what other song she might have chosen. But, she lost! If you voted for Hillary in 2016, Rachel Patten's chorus doesn't exactly bring back good memories. Actually, whenever I hear "'Cause I've still got a lot of fight left in me" now, I have violent flashbacks to stress eating an entire block of cheese and feeling terrorized by that fucking New York Times' Needle. Then again, I'm sure her team also knows how the culture feels about that specific flavor of pantsuit feminism at this point...so why take a risk and ruin another song? Better the Devil you know, and all that. oh no “fight song” burst out of the Antarctic vault where we had thought it was safely contained — Alexandra Petri (@petridishes) August 20, 2024 As I continue to sit with these thoughts, I can report that, despite the choice of music, Hillary gave a solid speech. This isn't a surprise, but, Kathy Hochul did such a terrible job that there was a significant possibility that she ruined the vibes for everyone else. Kind of like how one person fell during the women's balance beam finals at the 2024 Paris Olympics, and then literally almost everyone else—including Simone Biles and Suni Lee—fell off the beam, too. "Progress is possible, but not guaranteed," Hillary said. "We have to fight for it and never, ever give up. There is always a choice, do we push forward or pull back? Come together as 'We the People' or split into us versus them, that's the choice we face in this election." That's some very nice speechwriting. She also mentioned Shirley Chisholm and Geraldine Ferraro, received what felt like a two-minute standing ovation, cited Trump's 34 convictions, and then took a very long pause to enjoy the entire convention center chanting, "Lock Him Up." Honestly, I would have preferred that as the walk-off song. Subscribe to Jezebel and follow us on Instagram and Twitter for continued coverage of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.