America’s historic night

Last night was much more than just a typical acceptance speech from a major party’s nominee.

It was an emotional milestone for our entire country. When Hillary Clinton took the stage in Philadelphia last night, The Cleveland Plain Dealer wrote that her nomination represented “a final if unofficial barrier that has kept 50.8 percent of America’s people—women—from becoming president.” In Virginia, The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported that “The general reaction to Clinton’s nomination on the day she accepted was one of excitement and relief” and that her victory “was a good day for women.” Vox’s Sarah Kliff wrote that this week, many women didn’t “expect to cry during a roll call vote but all of a sudden found tears coming down their faces.”

During a convention in which Democrats celebrated our nation’s guiding principles and defended decency in our politics, Hillary’s nomination represented a victory for American democracy itself. As The New York Times reported, Hillary last night became “the first woman to accept a major party’s presidential nomination…a prize that generations of American women have dreamed about for one of their own.” The Huffington Post’s Amanda Terkel put it a little more bluntly: “It’s about damn time.”