With Hillary

Finally, after a political career spanning more than 25 years, Hillary Clinton has been nominated as the Democratic candidate for the U.S. presidency. If by becoming the first African-American president in 2009 Obama broke a racial taboo, Hillary has before her a different ceiling to break — that of becoming the first woman to make it to the White House.

Her candidacy marks another milestone for U.S. democracy, which gave women the vote in 1920 after a series of harsh political and judicial battles started by the suffragette movement in 1869. However, until this moment in time, no female candidate who has run in the primaries has gone on to win her respective party’s nomination.

Paradoxically, despite both the encouraging profiles of Clinton and Obama, a woman and an African-American, and the longevity of American democracy, the problems of racism and inequality remain present in the country’s politics and will form central pillars of the campaign: first, because the Republican Party has nominated a candidate who is openly xenophobic, racist and misogynistic; and second, because inequality remains one of the issues about which Americans are most concerned, as highlighted, with differing emphases and approaches, by the Trump and Sanders campaigns.

The challenge faced by Hillary Clinton has been expressed by Barack Obama’s natural elegance and inspiration. She is tasked with uniting Americans behind those values that best represent the American dream — that all are equal before the law and that all may benefit from and share in the country’s prosperity. All that is left for us is to wish her well, for everyone’s sake.