An Open Letter to Hillary Clinton

Dear Mrs. Clinton,

Congratulations on securing the Democratic nomination for president of the United States. It’s historical! It’s liberating to women! You’ve broken the glass ceiling!

But at what cost?

As the mother of a beautiful young daughter, my desire is to teach her every day that she is priceless, valuable and precious beyond anything else in this world. I tell her that God has placed her on this earth for a very specific reason. I make sure that she never doubts her place here.

How exciting it would be for us to celebrate the accomplishments of the first woman ever to receive the presidential nomination of a major political party! Wouldn’t it be amazing if I were able to point my daughter to someone she could look up to and admire? Unfortunately for myself, my daughter and millions of other women in this nation, I can’t.

Sadly, Mrs. Clinton, you have shown not only my daughter but all daughters—and not only in this country but globally—that in order to, in your words, “shatter the glass ceiling” you have to lie, cheat, abuse, insult, bully and ignore. You threaten others along with disrespecting yourself.

Mrs. Clinton, how can I possibly tell my daughter to follow you as an example after you allowed your husband to assault and demean multiple women throughout his political career? Were those women not important? Tell me, will you fight for my rights like you fought for those womens’? Ummmm, I hope not. What about the sisterhood, Mrs. Clinton? Did you expose your husband for his abuse? No! Instead, you enabled him as the abuser and tried to silence his victims. How can you live with yourself? Female empowerment? Nice try!

How can you get up and speak about income equality and then pay your own male executives considerably more than your female staff? How can you receive donations from countries that publicly abuse, shame and even execute their own women? Yet you continue to boast about how you stand for women’s rights. Double standard?

You try your best to relate to those of us who work hard every day to achieve the American dream. You, however, know nothing of struggle. That $12,000 Armani jacket? Those $250,000 speaking fees? They speak volumes. Hypocrisy?

How could I possibly ask my daughter to look up to and trust you? Do you honestly think that you are an example to American children? My daughter watches the news. She has heard about the Americans who were attacked and slaughtered in a foreign land while you stood by and did nothing. Then, with their blood on your hands, you did everything you could to cast the blame on others, eventually telling Congress, “What does it matter now?” Dishonesty?

The fact of the matter is, Mrs. Clinton, that you are no champion of women. You are selling the women of this country a false bill of goods. Unfortunately, many are buying in. I don’t want you fighting for me or my daughter. You have the interests of only one woman in mind here: your own. You have done nothing to bring the United States together. Quite the contrary—you have done your best to divide, and you have succeeded. Congratulations. You crave power, and you will do whatever it takes to get it. You have lied, cheated and let down your own country.

My prayer, Mrs. Clinton, is that I would be able to teach my daughter how to be a true woman. A strong woman. A self-respecting woman. A woman who sees herself through the eyes of her Creator. I pray that she would be a woman of compassion, kindness, service, selflessness. One who has integrity and looks out for the needs of others.

In a way, I guess I should thank you, Mrs. Clinton. You have made it easy to teach my daughter who she does not want to aspire to be. Now may I have the courage to stand up and show her the woman she does want to be.

Sincerely,

Helen Wickert

P.S. By the way, I will pray for the next U.S. president, whether it is Donald Trump or you. God tells us to do so, and He can turn any heart toward righteousness and truth.

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