Hillary Is Listening

I've got a new essay up at BNR about Hillary Clinton and her dedication to listening:

"She's a listener" is a thing I have read again and again, from people who have worked for her and people who have met her, even if it was only the briefest of meetings.

And should they meet her once more, she remembers the details from their previous encounter. Because listening, for her, is not a gimmick or a party trick: It's the way she comes to understand the world, and the people who inhabit it.

Even her most fervent detractors will begrudgingly acknowledge her enviable breadth of knowledge on a vast variety of subjects. That expertise didn't get absorbed from the ether. She is, famously, a voracious learner—and to be a learner is to be a listener.

Her likely opponent in the general election, Donald Trump, seemingly likes to listen to nothing but the sound of his own voice. And it shows. He famously cited himself as his chief foreign policy expert: "I'm speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain and I've said a lot of things. …[M]y primary consultant is myself."

By contrast, I believe if Hillary had the time and opportunity to sit down with every potential voter in the nation to listen to their stories, she would.

...In a Buzzfeed profile of Hillary, she details her preferences for townhall events—and even smaller venues—because they allow her to be physically close to people, to achieve "a level of intimacy that you don't get unless you're somehow in somebody else's space." The sort of intimacy which provides "a sense of being anchored in your life as well as other people's lives."

Click through to read the whole thing.

I feel really fortunate to have the opportunity to support a candidate who truly gives a shit about people, on a very personal level, and proves it routinely by prioritizing the importance of listening.