Hillary Clinton is struggling to convince people she’s in touch with people who’re financially struggling. Her daughter Chelsea isn’t helping. From the Daily News:
Hillary Clinton insists she isn’t “well-off” and now daughter Chelsea, according to a recent interview, claims she couldn’t care less about money.
“I was curious if I could care about (money) on some fundamental level, and I couldn’t,” she told Fast Company in an interview that ran in the magazine’s May edition, explaining why she gave up lucrative gigs to join her family’s philanthropic foundation.
Comparing her experience to the average millennial, the 34-year-old former first daughter defended jumping around to different careers — from consulting to a hedge fund to academia to journalism — before finding her true calling working with her parents.
“It is frustrating, because who wants to grow up and follow their parents? I’ve tried really hard to care about things that were very different from my parents … it’s a funny thing to realize I feel called to this work, both as a daughter and also as someone who believes I have contributions to make,” she continued about her reluctant status as a boomerang kid.
I’m perfectly willing to cut Chelsea some slack here. She clearly thinks she found her calling, and I’ll take her word for it that her work ethic is excellent.
But she’s not a “boomerang kid.” She’s not living in her parents’ basement (in any of their homes). She’s living in a 10.5-million-dollar apartment in Gramercy Park with her ex-banker husband. In other words, she doesn’t care about money because she has all the money she could ever want or need. That’s not her fault, nor is it something people should begrudge her. She seems to be aiming for a more productive life than a lot of kids raised in unimaginable privilege and wealth. Good for her.
But it does cast a pretty harsh light on her mother’s repeated and awkward claims to be in touch with the needs of those who are economically struggling. Hillary Clinton isn’t worried about the problems facing parents of most Millennials. And that’s fine. It would be odd if the former first lady of the United States had such problems. What’s problematic is Hillary’s inability to own up to this obvious fact and talk about it in a sincere or convincing way.