It’s a tempting answer—cynical, but in line with the possibility that so many people who fundamentally disagree about the priorities and ambitions of American society have all found themselves here to support Clinton for president. But I think the opposite may be true: Over the past few days in Philadelphia, the Democratic Party attempted to promise everything. It made a four-day bid to offer something to everyone, to give every element of the United States some rationale for buying in.

This is not necessarily a good thing. Over the past few days, and the past few months, and all the years that the Clintons have been in public life, it has not been difficult to tell the story about them that you want to. The evidence is there. If you want to believe, then Hillary Clinton is a champion of women and children, an integral member of Obama’s cabinet who helped find and kill Osama bin Laden, a workhorse and a fighter who was widely admired by her colleagues in the Senate, by almost everyone who has ever met her.



If you do not, then she is the senator who voted for the Iraq War, at the cost of a million Iraqi lives. She is the First Lady who called black teenagers “super-predators,” who opposed marriage equality until the moment 51 percent of Democrats were in favor, whose ties to Wall Street and past as a member of Wal-Mart’s board make her an enemy of working people.

In Philadelphia, this abundance of available narratives wan not merely a consequence of the Democratic message, but its essence.

In Philadelphia, this abundance of available narratives was not merely a consequence of the Democratic message, but its essence: We will give you what you need to tell the story you want about America. It was the central theme of Clinton’s acceptance speech on Thursday night: I am here for all of you, whoever you are, whatever your ambitions—I am fighting for you. Or, as she put it: “Some people don’t know what to make of me. Let me tell you.” What followed was a sentimental autobiography, and a belief in “better futures,” promises to help all Americans rise up.