Book Excerpt: “The Citizen: My Life After the White House” by Bill Clinton

On November 17, 2024By Littum

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In the twenty-three years since he left the White House, former President Bill Clinton has worked to transform a life of politics as a public servant and elected official into that of a private citizen with the goal of advancing the promise of America at a time when there emerged, in his words, “Two Americas … with very different histories.”

In his new book, “The Citizen: My Life After The White House” (to be published Tuesday by Knopf), Clinton considers the post-presidencies of other top executives, from John Quincy Adams to Jimmy Carter, and how he himself is determined to “live in the present and for the future.”

Read an excerpt below, and don’t miss Tracy Smith’s interview with Bill Clinton on “CBS Sunday Morning” on November 17th!

“The Citizen: My Life After The White House” by Bill Clinton

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On January 21, 2001, after twenty-five years in politics and elected office, eight as president, I was a private citizen again. I often joked that for a few weeks I was lost every time I walked into a room because no one played a song to mark my arrival. “Hail to the Chief” was now my successor’s anthem. I had loved being president, but I supported the two-term limit and was determined not to spend a day wishing I still had the job. I wanted to live in the present and for the future. Except for rare occasions, I have kept that promise to myself, although it became much more difficult after the 2016 election, even more difficult after the coronavirus hit, George Floyd’s killing, January 6, 2021, the attack on our Capitol, and the inventive efforts of the right-wing culture warriors to find new ways of inciting grievances without sensible plans to make things better for themselves and for the rest of us.

The post-White House years are different for each former president. In 2001 I was only 54, with a lot of energy, useful experience and contacts from my years in politics that could and should be used to serve the public as a private citizen.

So how is a former president to do it? Several of my predecessors had made a real difference in their time, disproving John Quincy Adams’ famous maxim that “there is nothing more pathetic in life than an ex-president.” Adams himself served sixteen years in Congress, two of them with Abraham Lincoln, leading the fight against slavery on the floor of the House. He also represented the captured African Mende people aboard the Amistad in the Supreme Court, winning their release before they could be sold into slavery. Theodore Roosevelt started a new party and ran for president, finishing second in 1912, the only third-party candidate to do so. William Howard Taft became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Herbert Hoover led an effort to modernize and reorganize the federal civil service under President Harry Truman. And Jimmy Carter built a remarkable record with his foundation, eliminating the scourge of the guinea worm in Africa, overseeing elections in harsh places and, with Rosalynn, becoming the face of Habitat for Humanity.

Although Hillary now served in the Senate, I had always been impressed by the impact she had working with non-governmental organizations, starting with the Children’s Defense Fund. And I had learned a lot in our years in the White House, watching her work with civil society groups in Africa, Northern Ireland, India and elsewhere.

So I decided to create a foundation with a flexible but clear mission: to maximize the benefits and minimize the burdens of our new century in the United States and around the world. I was excited about the possibilities and hoped I could do it.

Meanwhile, I had a more immediate agenda. I would support Hillary, just beginning her service as a senator from New York, and Chelsea, just a few months after graduating from Stanford, so they could stay in public life if they wanted to, and be financially secure, if i did. I don’t live long, which, given my family history, seemed likely. To do that and pay my substantial legal bills incurred during the Whitewater investigations and impeachment process, I had to start making money, something that had never interested me before. As governor of Arkansas, I had made $35,000 until voters raised it to $60,000 a few months before I left office. As president, I made $200,000 and paid most of our family’s expenses out of it, in large part because the job provided excellent public housing!

When I left the office, I had thought a lot about how to increase the opportunities and reduce the problems of our interdependence. We needed to create more equitably shared prosperity, take on more shared responsibilities and build more communities where our differences are respected but our shared humanity matters more.

But the America in which I found myself working had changed in many ways since I entered politics in the 1970s, and even in the short time since I left the White House. Two Americas were emerging with very different histories. It is believed that our diversity makes us stronger and better able to achieve shared prosperity through shared opportunities and responsibilities and equal treatment in our local, state and national communities. The other believes they are in a battle for all that has been lost to our increasing diversity and economic stagnation, mostly in more rural areas. They feel they have lost control of our economy, our social order and our culture. They are determined not to lose control of our politics and use politics to regain control of the other three.

I still believe that we all do better when we work together. In such a polarized environment, that means you have to be willing to work with people who don’t think like you, along with those who do. Cooperation almost always beats conflict, and when you have to stand your ground anyway, it is wise to leave the door open to reconciliation. The ability to do so characterizes great leaders. Think of Nelson Mandela, who put the leaders of parties that had imprisoned him for twenty-seven years in his cabinet, or Yitzhak Rabin, who kept the peace process alive while acts of terrorism claimed the lives of innocent citizens and eventually claimed his.

Following this path is challenging even in less violent times. My family has had a lot of experience with very personal attacks that were not only hurtful to us, but hurt the country by diverting attention from the real debate: how best to face our shared challenges. When the going got tough, I tried to imagine that I was one of the big inflatable toys of the cartoon characters Baby Huey or Casper the Friendly Ghost – they were children’s favorites when I was in elementary school. You could knock them down and they always bounced right back up. To survive in politics, this is what you have to do over and over again. Perhaps we should start producing the leaping figures again, as representatives of joyful warriors reaching across our great divide. People could keep them at home and at work, start and end each workday by knocking them down and smiling when they bounce back. It might clear our heads and help us get back into the construction and collaboration industry.

A life of public service can be deeply rewarding if you accept that in the constant ebb and flow of history there are no permanent victories or defeats, and never forget that every life is a story that, regardless of time and circumstances, deserves to be seen and heard.

As I entered this new chapter of my life, I knew I wanted to keep scoring like I always have: Are people better off when you stop than when you started? Do our children have a brighter future? Are we coming together instead of falling apart?

This book is the story of my more than 23 years since leaving the White House, told mostly through the stories of other people who changed my life as I tried to help change theirs, of those who supported me, including those I loved and lost, and of the mistakes I made along the way.

I am very grateful that with the help of my family, new and old friends, a great staff and the endurance of my curiosity, energy and ability to work, I have been able to have a life full of new experiences and new ways of helping and empowering people as a private citizen and at the same time finding true joy in our small but growing family. I have loved cheering on Hillary as a senator, secretary of state, presidential candidate in both 2008 and 2016, and marveling at the life Chelsea has built through her work in the private sector, in academia, the Clinton Foundation and Clinton Health Access Initiative, with the books she has written and her family life with Marc, whom I love and admire. Chelsea says she and Marc are teaching their children to “be brave and kind.” It shows. I love being their grandfather and I am so happy that Chelsea and Marc welcome Hillary and me to be involved in their lives.

When this book comes out, I will be seventy-eight—the oldest person in my family since my maternal great-grandparents, straight from American Gothic, reached their late seventies. But I still think and dream about how people can live better together, and I still want to help them with that. I can’t sit still and can’t go back. So, like many people do every day, I aim to get caught trying. It’s the real American way.

Excerpt from “Citizen: My Life After the White House” by Bill Clinton, published by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of The Knopf Doubleday Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright © 2024 by Bill Clinton. All rights reserved. No part of this extract may be reproduced or reprinted without written permission from the publisher.

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