Night Two of the Democratic Convention and Hillary Clinton as the Cable-TV Wife

It’s hard not to think about the stark difference between night two of the Democratic National Convention and what transpired just last week in Cleveland at the Republican National Convention. Those windows on the political parties felt like they came from two different planets.

Tuesday in Philadelphia, an expansive and relaxed Bill Clinton spoke at length about his wife, offering up a detailed history of her accomplishments and tossing out the kind of specific anecdotes that few speakers last week could supply about Donald Trump. He was just one of a host of speakers at the DNC — from America Ferrera to Sen. Barbara Boxer to Rep. Joe Crowley — who addressed health care, kids, Sept. 11 first responders and women’s rights, who stayed on-message and on brand. That’s something that never happened at the RNC, where speakers talked about whatever they wanted, regardless of the night’s stated theme.

Of course, the most memorable part of the second night of the Republican National Convention last week had a much darker, even distressing feel. Last week, Gov. Chris Christie was energized and animated, but instead of talking up Trump, Christie led delegates through a fire-and-brimstone “trial” of Hillary Clinton, in which he encouraged the crowd to respond “Guilty!” to a litany of her alleged crimes. For a few minutes there, it felt like the Salem Witch Trials were airing live on national television.

Making my way through a second week of conventions wrestling with how to treat a persistent woman who just won’t go away, I suddenly realized why the dynamic felt so familiar. Hillary Clinton, she of the sensible haircut and the steely eye, is the ultimate cable-TV wife.

The RNC spent last week treating Hillary Clinton like Skyler White, like Betty Draper, like so many women in dozens of Prestige TV narratives. According to not just Christie and Trump but the vast majority of RNC speakers, Hillary is a shrew, a killjoy, an inept meddler who gets in the way of tough, ruthless men. If only she wasn’t such a scold and a liar, everything would be fine.

Like message-board shriekers everywhere during the anti-hero obsessed aughts, a host of male speakers during the RNC went on and on about that frustrating female obstacle, the one who just ruins everything for the charismatic men. Like Skyler haters everywhere, the RNC speakers, Trump foremost among them, wanted to put Hillary on trial for everything she knew and mock her for what she didn’t and could never understand.

Perhaps it’s some form of weird karma that Hillary’s actual husband was left with the task of trying to alter the narrative about her. There are two Hillarys, just as there were multiple versions of Skyler and Betty, depending on the depth of the writing for the characters and the evolution of the show in question.

Many wanted to reduce Hillary to a “cartoon,” not the woman he has known since he first spoke to her in a law library 45 years ago. “One is real,” Bill said of the duelling images of his spouse, the candidate. “One is made up.”

There were moments in his speech when Bill meandered or seemed less engaged, and there was a whole lot about him in a speech that was meant to celebrate his wife. But for the most part, the speech was prime Bill Clinton. Michelle Obama has been the best DNC speaker so far, but Bill was in his element, enjoying the spotlight and the trip down memory lane.

So you could be forgiven for not noticing that he introduced a new kind of narrative, one not tied to the old ways of the fear-mongering procedural or the anti-hero tragedy. What his speech brought to mind was, of all things, “Outlander.”

Bill spoke about how much his wife had taught him, and how willingly he’d learned from her and been influenced by her. A lot of shows like “Outlander” — frisky and adventurous programs of all kinds, from “Master of None” to “Transparent” — do the same thing. They reject the tired dynamic of women who exist solely to orbit around complicated, tortured men. They allow men and women to be equally complex, equally terrible, equally admirable and weird. These shows aren’t perfect, but they’re curious, amusing, and reject grimness as the default setting.

All these things came to mind as Bill talked (and talked). He spoke about crying that morning with Hillary about the death of a mutual friend. He lovingly spoke about how much he enjoyed being around his late mother-in-law. He called Hillary his “best friend.” He recalled all the teams, commissions, boards and committees she’d served on. The Hillary he described was part of an ensemble drama, not a diva in search of a star vehicle.

Some people’s minds will never be changed about Hillary, or Bill, for that matter. And Bill, true to his nature, couldn’t stay on script (it’s something he has in common with Trump). Toward the end of the speech, he said some rambling things about law enforcement, citizenship and non-white Americans, but there was far less clarity to his remarks on these topics than on almost anything else he addressed during his speech.

Clinton seemed to want to join the conversation about the Black Lives Matter movement, but he couldn’t quite find his way there. In any case, it had already been addressed with precision and gravity by the “Mothers of the Movement,” whose speeches earlier in the evening were powerful and eloquent.

You could have heard a pin drop in the auditorium during the segment that featured speeches from the mothers of African-American men and women who died in encounters with the police. There is a complicated narrative in America right now about law enforcement and the role it plays in communities of color, and Lucia McBath, the mother of Jordan Davis, said “the majority of police officers are good people doing a good job.” But McBath and the other women used the attention they commanded to tell stories about their children and their grief.

Commentators on cable news channels talked about how the moment was part of an effort to reach out to black voters and reassemble the coalition of voters that got Barack Obama elected president. Yet it’s hard to imagine that anyone could look at that group of women and not feel the power of their presence and the pull of their losses.

They even reclaimed a phrase tossed around a lot in Cleveland the week before. “This isn’t about being politically correct. This is about saving our children,” said Sybrina Fulton, the mother of Trayvon Martin.

To close out the night, Meryl Streep addressed the convention just before a video was shown of Hillary Clinton. But what the candidate — the first woman nominated by a major political party — said was not as memorable as the images that preceded her: a slide show of presidents followed by an image of breaking glass. It wasn’t subtle, but like Michelle Obama’s speech the night before (or certain kinds of cable and streaming shows), it was a hit with a niche audience.

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