“Relatable” is one of those perfectly awful words that has colonized the American vocabulary over an alarmingly short period of time. Writing in The New Yorker last year, Rebecca Mead described its rapid ascent in art and popular culture, but nowhere is it more perfectly at home than in the vacuous vernacular of campaign politics. It perfectly distills both the futility of the most famous woman in American politics embarking on a project to convince everyone that she can in fact relate to their everyday concerns and routines, and vice versa.
Perhaps even more so, it also reflects the tired constructs that so many political-media types apply to the “challenges” facing politicians as they try to escape the various pigeonholes in which they find themselves (often thanks to the same political-media types). As a presidential candidate in 2004, John Kerry tried to shed an impression of being “aloof”; George H.W. Bush battled a “wimp factor”; Joe Biden fought a “lightweight” perception, especially from early in his career. Now comes “relatable,” which Clinton owns in a big way — as in, she’s not. Too rich, too famous, too calculated. If she did not own this “relatable” stamp before, she does now, thanks largely to McKinnon and “S.N.L.”
So what is Clinton supposed to do? Make herself less familiar? Is she obligated to just go away? Can she help it if voters — or more to the point, the media — might be suffering from “Clinton fatigue”? Of course not. But whether or not it’s her fault, it is her problem.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member