Hillary Clinton connects 2024 to 2016 — and history

Originally published by The 19th

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CHICAGO — Hillary Clinton returned to the stage of the Democratic National Convention on Monday, eight years after accepting her party’s presidential nomination, to celebrate Vice President Kamala Harris’ candidacy and draw a direct line from history-making women, through Harris’ and Clinton’s own families, to the current moment.

“We're writing a new chapter in America's story," Clinton said to a crowd that gave an enthusiastic reception to one of the strongest speeches of her political career.

Clinton’s appearance was bookended by two songs heard frequently on the 2016 campaign trail — Sara Bareilles’ “Brave” and Rachel Platten’s “Fight Song” — and for former campaign staffers, the musical cues added just one more layer of feelings on top of a night already heavy with emotion.

While many said they couldn’t help but think of 2016’s loss, they were also processing the impact that Clinton’s historic nomination had on setting the stage for the energy, excitement and, yes, hope they felt Monday, too.

In 2016, Sarah Galvez was the Clinton campaign’s primary manager of digital influencer outreach. This week in Chicago, she’s volunteering with the convention and its influencer and creator program — and said she cried through Clinton’s speech Monday evening.

“It’s pretty emotional to see her on stage. It’s always hard when you see, especially right in front of you, what could have been,” Galvez said. “But it feels really good to be back here again and to be energized about another female candidate potentially breaking the glass ceiling. I know the secretary echoed that in her speech tonight but really — we are so close. I’m just more determined than ever to make that happen.”

Gabrielle Rizza worked for Clinton’s 2016 campaign in South Carolina and Pennsylvania and recalled attending the 2016 convention in Philadelphia where Clinton officially became the party’s nominee.

Monday, Rizza wore one of her old Hillary 2016 shirts to the United Center to watch her former boss speak as a way to “reclaim” what that merch signifies. “What I see is Hillary Clinton trailblazing, setting the stage for tonight and really throwing her support behind a woman nominee that I genuinely believe will win the presidency,” said Rizza, who worked on digital campaigns for Harris’ first presidential run.

During Clinton’s White House run, she often referred to the “highest, hardest glass ceiling.” On Monday, she called on the country to help Harris break that ceiling.

“When a barrier falls for one of us, it clears the way for all of us,” Clinton told the cheering crowd at the United Center.

Having survived 2016’s loss, Rizza acknowledges that the road for a woman candidate — and especially a woman of color — will not be easy. But, she said, Harris is “the right person for this moment.”

“I’m really happy to see so many of my former Hillary folks here tonight, to see that we all continue to fight the good fight, to continue to try to make history. And I really believe that the momentum that Harris now has is a result of many years of organizing and engaging people and meeting them where they’re at,” Rizza said.

Galvez said she was particularly touched by the degree to which Clinton stressed in her speech how many women came before her own run for president and the long legacy of women making things more possible for future generations of women.

Clinton spoke about Democratic New York Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, who ran for president in 1972, and Geraldine Ferraro, the Democratic vice president nominee in 1984, and what their candidacies represented to her personally. She connected these historic women to the examples set by her mother, and to the single mother who raised Harris, too.

“I wish my mother and Kamala's mother could see us,” Clinton said. “They would say: Keep going. Shirley and Gerry would tell us: Keep going."

Galvez said she thinks about the impact that Clinton and Harris will have on future generations, too.

“It makes me feel a sort of way about telling my future kids that that’s still possible in America. For a little while in 2016 it felt like maybe it wasn’t,” Galvez said. “I think about my nieces. I think about my nephews. I think about my future children and the world that just opens up to them, just through being able to see someone like her really take the lead, become this energizing leader — and become the next president of the United States.”

Clinton made many references to the final glass ceiling that her own 2016 run centered around thematically, emphatically stating that “on the other side of that glass ceiling is Kamala Harris taking the oath of office as our 47th president of the United States."

Danielle Butterfield is the executive director of Priorities USA, the largest Democratic Party super PAC. She was the deputy director of digital advertising during Clinton’s 2016 run. “I feel very lucky to be here eight years later, knowing that we are not the same party or even the same country we once were — we are so much stronger and so much more ready to elect Harris,” she said.

In both Clinton and Harris, she sees the ability to model leadership that bucks norms set by men. The two women “lean into empathy and compassion,” she said.

“It’s a style that we typically associate with women, and therefore deprioritize. Women across America lead households, boardrooms, and classrooms — and there is no reason we can’t bring that lens to the White House,” Butterfield said.

Butterfield said that Clinton’s speech — and candidacy eight years ago — were about hope. Clinton herself stressed this in speaking emphatically about abortion in particular: “Women fighting for reproductive health care are saying: Keep going."

And Butterfield is thinking a lot about the famous “66 million cracks in the glass ceiling” made by Clinton, too. “They were not for nothing, and we are going to win this election because of all the energy we harnessed and grew post-2016. Hillary Clinton catalyzed the infrastructure we built up to resist Donald Trump and elect Joe Biden. That’s her permanent legacy — it takes a progressive village.”

It’s why Monday didn’t feel like a monument to the past for the many former Clinton staffers present, but a testament to the future.

Said Galvez: “Hillary Clinton would have been an excellent president, and Kamala Harris will be a phenomenal president.”