America needs real solutions, not insincere rhetoric

by Marcy Rothenberg

First posted to Let's Talk Nation, July 2016

In President Barack Obama’s rousing endorsement of Hillary Clinton last week, he offered many words of praise for his 2008 primary competitor and his administration’s first Secretary of State. But one particular line of commentary stuck with me – likely because I’ve heard the same thing from neighbors, friends and family who’ve had the opportunity to meet Hillary in person.

The President’s comment focused on the Hillary he sees “when cameras weren’t on…when no political points were to be had….[when she is] meeting with people who quote, unquote, weren’t important.”

That, he told the enthusiastic crowd, is when you’d see the Hillary he wished we all could know. Because, as he -- and my friends and family have said -- seeing her up close and personal helps you realize that “you can count on her.”

That’s the experience neighbors of ours had back in November 1999, when then-First Lady Hillary Clinton flew to Los Angeles to meet privately with people who had been injured when a neo-Nazi with an arsenal of weapons strode in to the North Valley Jewish Community Center in suburban Granada Hills and began shooting. Everyone who was wounded at the Center survived, but a postal worker in nearby Chatsworth was murdered before the shooter was captured.

The victims included Josh Stepakoff, a then-6-year-old boy who had been hit twice by semiautomatic gunfire. He, his parents, Loren and Alan, and his brother met Hillary that November day. He later told his parents he didn’t know who the woman was who talked with him – he just thought she was “a nice mom.”

Hillary didn’t just do her duty as First Lady that day and then forget about the NVJCC families and the horrific trauma they’d endured. A year later, when one million people attended Million Mom Marches in Washington, D.C., and cities across America, demanding sensible gun laws, Hillary joined them.

She’s been with them ever since – voting against the NRA-sponsored Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which shields gun manufacturers and dealers from lawsuits by gun violence victims; and calling in her presidential campaign platform to strengthen background checks, close gun purchase loopholes, make straw purchasing a federal crime, hold irresponsible gun dealers and manufacturers accountable for their products, take military-style assault weapons off our streets, and keep guns out of the hands of terrorists, domestic abusers, other violent criminals, and the severely mentally ill.

And this June, when Hillary came to Los Angeles for a campaign event, she learned that Loren and other gun violence prevention activists who she’d met in 1999 were in attendance. She zoomed out to see them, greeting each of them by name, hugging them, asking how they were, and asking to see pictures of their now-grown children. It was a reunion of friends – not an obligatory campaign stop meet-and-greet.

I’d heard the same thing from a friend of mine, who volunteered for Hillary in the 2008 primaries while I was volunteering for Barack. She kept telling me how the Hillary she’d come to know and love was bright and congenial and caring in person – not at all the guarded and defensive person the press too often describes.

And I heard it from my husband when he came home earlier this year from a Clinton campaign event at East Los Angeles College. He was invited backstage, where Hillary was greeting local elected officials and campaign volunteers, and was immediately struck by her friendliness, her easy smile, and her eager interaction with each person she met – whether elected official or just plain citizen.

This week, two minority men, both in legal possession of firearms (one of whom informed police that he had a firearm and was going to reach into his back pocket for his identification, which the officer had requested) were tragically shot by police officers in Baton Rouge and St. Paul.

Those events were followed by the horrific massacre of police in Dallas – five killed and seven wounded, along with two bystanders, as of this writing – during a peaceful march the evening of July 7 to protest those police shootings.

In light of those events, the position taken by Hillary’s GOP opponent on gun safety – that a “good guy with a gun” is all Americans need to stop “a bad guy with a gun” -- has become even more foolishly illogical than it already was.

America doesn’t need his glib parroting of that NRA talking point. We don’t need his shallow response to the Dallas tragedy – decrying the state of race relations in America after having built his campaign on multiple racist appeals to voters, and delivering knee-jerk jingoism – telling us we need more “law and order” instead of calling for thoughtful, constructive interactions between police and the citizens they are sworn to protect.

What we do need is someone who has thought long and hard about seemingly intractable problems like gun violence, and who has offered thoughtful, rational, workable solutions over the course of her long career in public service.

We need Hillary Rodham Clinton.