In this day and age you don’t actually have to win anything to be considered a winner. People who self-identify as winners can get just as much praise without having to work too hard.
Take Hillary Clinton. The media can’t quite get over the fact that she lost the the 2016 election, so they’ve spent the last year showering her with applause and awards. But none of them compare to the applause and awards she gives herself. Now Clinton has written a letter to her teen self, and Teen Vogue actually published it. In it, Clinton tells herself, “when you find yourself standing on a stage in Philadelphia on a historic night in July 2016, accepting the Democratic Party’s nomination for president of the United States, give yourself a moment to take it all in. Don’t forget to enjoy the balloons.”
She neglected to tell her teen self not to defend rapist Thomas Alfred Taylor in May 1975, (and then laugh about it later in 1980.) Clinton also didn’t warn her teen self to avoid taking bribes while her husband was governor, nor did she say anything about making deals with Russia in her capacity as Secretary of State under President Obama. No. Instead, she told her teen self: “Believe in yourself. You’re going to do great.”
However, ironically, Clinton wrote: “You will have a daughter, and she will have a daughter, and they both will be born into an America more fair and equal than the one you know in 1965.” Maybe she thought the present is better than the past because it’s now legal to have abortions. Maybe the present is “more fair and equal” because Clinton feels she is now getting the worship she thinks she deserves. Hard to say.
Some other gems from the op-ed include: “When you’re facing an uphill battle, be grateful for your persistence. (You’ll have no idea what a gift this particular trait is until you’re dealing with Congress—but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.)”
It’s fitting that Clinton wrote the letter for Teen Vogue, which teaches teens about the importance of anal sex and how to be allies to Islam after terrorist attacks. Perhaps it was the magazine’s stirring defense of partial birth abortions that drew the former Democratic candidate to guest-edit its December issue. After all, Clinton is a fan of no limits on abortion, calling pro-life videos “misleadingly edited.”
And Teen Vogue considers itself to be a key part in the resistance movement, with its rallying cry accusing President Trump of literally anything that sounds bad. Among other denouncements, Teen Vogue tells its readers, who, presumably, are teens, that “Trump Bullies and Disrespects Black Women,” “How Donald Trump Furthered White Supremacy,” “Donald Trump Could Make Schools More Dangerous,” and “Donald Trump is Gaslighting America.”
Fortunately, very few people, teens or otherwise, actually want to read Teen Vogue. Conde Nast, the publisher of the magazine, recently announced that it would no longer publish paper copies of the magazine. Instead, it will be only an online publication.
