Donna Brazile is the kind of person who might like a good word, even from me. Why? If you secure enough in your own competence, as Brazile is, then you do not mind mixing it up with opponents, even brutally, and will take any support you can get.
We surely disagree on more than a few important issues, but Brazile has written a must read book: Hacked. My disagreements with her are obvious: she is too libertine on sexuality, has an overly charitable view of big government, but she also seems to believe what she says she believes.
Thank God.
Nothing is more rare. She does not pretend not to like living well and wants power. She does not pretend to neutrality. Brazile is well read, fierce, and ready to fight. I have no sense, however, that hate is mainly what motivates her. She is not always fair, but she is always motivated by what she perceives to be the Greater Good.
That I find her Greater Good (say on abortion) a Terrible Evil must be said, but Brazile at least argues her case.
I am not a fan of the ethics, in fact, I think she makes more than this one major error, but she believes what she says she believes. This is as refreshing and needed as a breath mint right before a major meeting, when surrounded by a culture awash in the rhetorical halitosis, pretending to ideas they do not believe. I think Brazile is pointing us in a very bad direction, but she is sincere in her error.
I am not sure the Clintons are in the same category and this book increased my doubt.
If you wish to know how Trump won, this is not the book to read. Brazile has a weakness: she is incapable of understanding her foes sympathetically. If you want to know why the Democrats lost, start here. The Party should have listened more to this wise woman.
She may not be great for outreach, but she knows her Party and the people who ran Secretary Clinton’s campaign did not. They needed her and did not know they needed her. Why?
First, Brazile plainly likes Clinton, but disliked the Clinton Machine that enclosed the candidate. She saw them telling implausible stories about the candidate’s health (for example) and got tired of the nonsense.
Second, as head of the DNC, Brazile was not willing just to do Secretary Clinton’s bidding. Brazile saw that Saunders and his voters had not always been treated fairly and is willing to say so in print. There is some courage there. She saw the problems coming: motioning the African-American vote or working class voters. Nobody listened.
Third, Brazile deals with the human violation of hacking. I do not like the politics of the DNC, yet these are my fellow Americans. Hacking their data was wrong and we all should be in solidarity with the folks who had the private made public. Privacy is a human right and Brazile was dealing with a foreign power who stripped away that fundamental expectation in an indecent manner.
Finally, Donna Brazile can tell a story. I have no way of knowing if the stories she tells are true, or how much help she may have had from the ubiquitous political ghost writer, but she is not dull. She frames her case for Clinton, despite her disagreements, in a story about America that echoes the story of the Obama campaign. The greatest strength that President Obama had was that he had a new myth for America, not a false story, but a plausible account of why we were worth patriotism despite the problems.
Slavery is real. Our abuse of First Nations is real. President Obama was a patriot without apology, but without hiding past problems. I did not vote for President Obama, twice. I am glad for that. He was wrong in his policies, but he was not wrong to try to tell a better story about America. I do not agree with that story, but it is a great improvement on a David Barton”Christian America” or on the public school “America is the Worst” stuff I got in public school.
Donna Brazile is a must hear voice and a must read writer on the pivotal election of 2016.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In