When Achieving Camelot Fails For The Final Time
We don’t need to see the Clintons anymore.
This was supposed to be the era of the reign of the “New South,” a nouveau American vision embodied by a “progressive” family from Arkansas governing a country not defined by Alabama governor George Wallace saying “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever,” but a country inspired by Georgia preacher Dr. Martin Luther King’s belief in a country where “all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles,” could say that they were free and unified at last. In looking at an era where Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton tried and failed as resurrecting the “Camelot” era of idyllic brilliant excellence that Kennedys from John to John Jr. bitter-sweetly failed at exemplifying, we get a sense of America in decline and a vision of where we’re headed next.
After losing in an arguably most contemptible and illegal manner to Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton literally retreated into the woods of Chappaqua, New York. Recently emerging from her 130 day public hiatus, she noted that she’d “had a hard time watching the news” since November 8, which makes sense. For the better part of 40 years, Hillary, along with her husband Bill and daughter Chelsea attempted to win, and similarly lost in a manner as stultifyingly depressing as the aforementioned Kennedys, at the game of attempting to make America achieve its ideal liberal destination. After 40 years, for this trio there are no more elections, no more bright lights, no more attempts at helping America reach its well-meaning, quasi-aware and textbook-definition liberal best metaphorical country-as-self.
It’d be one thing if there were a curse that surrounded the Clintons akin to what surrounds the Kennedys. If there were some type of mysticism surrounding this family that saw a wild series of murders and accidents involving a motley crew of assassins and a bizarre series of incidents, it’d be understandable. However, that’s not what happened here.
There’s a near comic series of missteps surrounding the Clintons though. For Bill there’s a history of marital infidelity that, as compared to what we now know about John F. Kennedy, seems like a walk in the park. But, his two-term Presidency was overshadowed by the rise of an activist media unconcerned with “protecting the President.” Thus, his reported dalliances with roughly a dozen mistresses, including Oval Office sexcapades with an intern that ultimately led to his impeachment, but not removal, as President of the United States, were reported and lampooned.
As well, for Hillary, she was oftentimes perceived as a power-hungry modern woman who used her access, via marriage to the President, to influence public policy. Of course, First Ladies since the era of Eleanor Roosevelt have been key policy shapers and political public figures. However, none of them had Yale Law degrees and Hillary’s history of successful activism. Add onto this her desire to stand by her husband during his impeachment, subsequent scandals involving her terms in Congress, losing as a Presidential nominee in 2008 and questionable decision-making as the Secretary of State during the Obama administration, and the Clinton’s fate as failures in the pursuit of “Camelot” was sealed.
The fate of any further Clintonian attempts at retaining their grasp on the idyllic liberal American essence is a depressing scene. The Kennedys demise as a power-playing family holding firm to whatever vestiges of Camelot remained in the American pop cultural zeitgeist was defined by the shock and sadness accompanying John F. Kennedy, Jr. tragically dying in an airplane crash in 1999. Comparatively, Chelsea Clinton is a wife and mother of two with a private school education, Stanford undergraduate degree, Columbia masters degree, an Oxford doctorate, and 25 years of her parents hard, yet ultimately underwhelming work at the highest levels of public service being flushed down the drain on a daily basis by Donald Trump.
In an ideal world, Chelsea, like every parent aims for their child to be, was the fix to her parents’ flaws. In an ideal circumstance, the lone Clinton “Camelot” heiress eventually would’ve become the leader of the free world by say, 2024. As America’s second woman President and the third in an improbable line, she would’ve been set to eclipse John Kennedy as our most culturally beloved Commander-in-Chief. Alas, that’s not going to happen.
Here’s something tantamount to all else mentioned here that’s intriguing to consider. It’s Barack Obama, moreso than well, Jack Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Ted Kennedy, John, Jr., Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton , who really got “Camelot” right. Barry had scandals, no impeachment, and yes, governed during eight years in America where America made a valiant attempt at being its best textbook-liberal self. Sadly, America at its “Camelot” best only served to concoct the societal conditions that elected Donald Trump.
In that vein of thought, it’s also intriguing to consider that by the year 2032 (the year that, for the purposes of this article, Chelsea Clinton would finish her second term as America’s President) Malia Obama will be 34 years old. Of course, she was raised by a family that in no way mortgaged themselves into massive amounts of public disapproval nor were ever massively defeated on an American or global stage. Similar to Chelsea Clinton, Malia attended Sidwell Friends School. However, unlike Bill and Hillary’s child, Barack and Michelle’s first-born is taking a year off before starting at Harvard, which if we dreamily extrapolate her life, probably turns into a level of career success that well, doesn’t add up into a path that equals MUST. BE. THE. PRESIDENT. And that’s important to note.
Immediately following John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, his widow Jacqueline told Time that Camelot was one of the President’s favorite musicals, and that his favorite line in the score was, “Don’t let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment, that was known as Camelot.” She then extrapolated that line’s meaning into Presidential terms and famously noted that “there’ll be great Presidents again, but there’ll never be another Camelot again… It will never be that way again.” As we now stare headfirst into what should be the end of the “pursuit of Camelot” by any American political family, it turns out that Jackie Kennedy was absolutely right.
Maybe, just maybe, we have to realize that America is a flawed nation that, in 60 years later still embodying the principles of “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever,” will never quite reach a place where we’re all “free at last.” Historic-uk.com weighs in with an important statement regarding all of this. “Unfortunately it seems likely that we will never know for sure whether Camelot actually existed, and if it did exist, where it was situated. However the legend of King Arthur and his Camelot lives on, as popular as ever.” Yes, this means that for 50 years, America foolishly chased after the achievement of a British-borne myth. Maybe it’s time we start, while as incredibly painful and frightening of a job as it may be, accepting and fixing our terrifying American reality. Unfortunately, something tells me that’s not a job for anyone surnamed Clinton, or any other name, either.
