New York Magazine couldn’t crack it, despite spending about 7,000 words trying. The most revealing detail is that Chelsea Clinton has a chief of staff. Not a personal assistant, not an organizer, but a chief of staff.
Lack of self-awareness is certainly one trait she shares with her mother.
Perhaps this go-round feels particularly insufferable because Chelsea and her mother continue to act as though Donald Trump won the election despite Hillary, rather than in large part because of Hillary. They expect sympathy from us, rather than the other way around. The cynical subtext of whatever they’re shilling — in this case, “The Book of Gutsy Women,” which has the heft and sizzle of a social studies text — is to re-state the case for a Clinton dynasty.
And when Chelsea deigns to speak, we are rewarded with these scintillating thoughts:
“You know, I think there is this sense, this perception now, that … you know, Is it just too hard? And yet, so many of the same people who are asking that are themselves persisting to ensure that it’s not as hard tomorrow.”
“While I don’t have any plans to run for office, I think it’s something that all of us who care about our communities and our country and our world should be thinking about.”
“I’m so proud of my daughter already asking questions and teaching her brothers. She already looks up to and understands gutsiness.”
Chelsea’s daughter is 5. If you’ve ever raised or known or spent two hours with a 5-year-old, you know how authentic that last statement is.
She seems to have no personality or identity other than as The Daughter Of.
And that brings us to what else is specifically, particularly grating about Chelsea Clinton: There’s no there there. She seems to have no personality or identity other than as The Daughter Of. It’s no accident that, when sitting next to her mother, Chelsea’s demeanor makes her come across as far younger than her age; it’s as if she reverts to becoming a helpful appendage. She is earnest, humorless, entitled and didactic, speaking often in statistics and campaign jargon.
She thinks her tweets at President Trump are brave! Like real, actual activism, and Chelsea takes it seriously when people, often in the liberal media, tell her as much. When “View” co-host Sunny Hostin asked Chelsea if she was “at all concerned about poking that bear” — Trump, virtually, mind you — Chelsea responded with contained, self-righteous smugness.
“No,” she said. “No … I’m going to do everything I can to ensure that [Trump’s] America is not the America that [kids] grow up in.”
In 140 characters or less. What a profile in courage.
Lastly, but no less infuriatingly, Chelsea Clinton thanks people all too often, as the noblesse oblige do. She does not realize that, among the rest of us down here, thanking someone usually comes from a place of humility rather than superiority.
In the New York Magazine piece, when a fan who identifies herself as a podcaster approaches, Chelsea says, “Thank you for being a woman in the business-podcaster space.”
To “View” host Joy Behar, a former teacher: “Thank you for being a teacher.”
On that same broadcast, to Bernie Sanders, who went to the doctor while having a heart attack: “Thank you for being a good example.”
Really: Who is Chelsea Clinton to be thanking the rest of the working world for doing what we must? She has never had a real job. She and her husband and their three children live in a $10 million Union Square apartment bought by her parents. She just hangs around, looking for approbation she hasn’t earned.
As recently as 2017, Page Six reported that Chelsea was being groomed for a congressional run, with a source telling The Post that the Clintons “will not give up.” Nita Lowey, who infamously fell on her sword so Hillary could claim her place in the United States Senate, announced earlier this month that she will not seek re-election. Buzz immediately swirled around Chelsea, who has said, for now, that she’s not running.
We know what it means when pols say that. So here’s a hard truth for Chelsea to consider: Does she really want to follow her mother’s media-enabled, blinders-on trajectory as her party’s next glass-shattering sure thing?
I have a message for Chelsea:
“Chelsea—thank you for being the village idiot!”
If you’ve ever raised or known or spent two hours with a 5-year-old, you know how authentic that last statement is.
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Oh, it likely is the most authentic thing said by the subject of the original article. 5-year-olds have it all figured out and are bossy boots, besides.
So, which corporate boards in countries that are enemies of America is she serving and drawing tens of thousands of dollar a month from?