"Don't lose hope," Hillary Clinton says in her concession speech

WASHINGTON: She was widely expected to make history, with her-story; to become the first female President to occupy the White House Oval Office in modern American history. She came up short, well short, and although she will remain part of history, it might well be the end of the political road for her. She will be 72 turning 73 by the next election cycle, and no one realistically expects her to run again given that she was already subjected to immense scrutiny over her health issue.

Btu in a

concession speech

that was graceful, uplifting, and optimistic, Hillary Clinton asked her supporters not to lose hope and keep fighting for what was right, and specifically telling her female supporters and young girls that she might not have broken the glass ceiling this time, but it would happen sooner than anyone thought.

“This is not the outcome we hoped for. This is painful and it will be for a long time,” she said in an emotional address to her supporters, looking more composed than Bill Clinton, who looked like he was about to burst into tears behind her. “But we must accept this result and look forward…We owe him (Donald

Trump

) an open mind and a chance to lead. The American Dream is big enough for everyone,” she added.

Trump too was civil and courteous in referring to her during his victory speech, but it remains to be seen if he will become prisoner of his own rhetoric and the toxic triumphalism of his supporters. Already, even before a Trump win was formally declared, chants of "Lock her up! Lock her up!" erupted at the Trump victory celebrations, voiced by raucous Trump supporters fired up by his repeated descriptions of her as corrupt and treasonous.

Republican hardliners have threatened to impeach her and prosecute her for her purported errors of judgment and misdemeanors, and the more extreme among them have gone so far as to threaten summary justice including putting her before a firing squad.

Whether the threats are hyperbolic or not will become clear in the coming days but for a start, Trump was restrained, respectful, in his victory speech, relating how he got a 2 am, phone call from her congratulating him on his victory and how he congratulated her and her family (after he had called Bill Clinton a rapist) on a hard fought campaign.

It also remains to be seen if the civility will last given the kind of sexism, misogyny, and xenophobia Trump and his supporters have expressed during the intense campaign, towards women, minorities, and immigrants. In fact, much of Hillary’s speech centered on the need to be alert to overturning the American ethos of pluralism and diversity, a task she appeared to leave to the next generation of Democrats.

In any case, Hillary Clinton’s political career appears irredeemable although it is said politicians (particularly in India) never retire or fade away. In the US, losing candidates (Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, John McCain, Mitt Romney) either retire to become elder statesman or lesser weights, with little or no traction in the party itself.

Democrats will certainly take a hard look at where the Clinton campaign blew it. Even in the early hours after the defeat, there is already chatter about how (in hindsight, of course) Bernie Sanders might have been a better candidate given his strong stand against free trade deals that the Clintons were seen as having supported since 1992 when her husband’s administration initiated them.