Thank you for this post. Hillary Clinton really is terrible, despite her correct stances on a lot of policy issues.
Basically, if her stances were different enough that she had an “R” next to her name, she would be among the worst Republicans ever to run for office.
The fact that I agree with her “stated positions” (rolling my eyes these are things she actually believes in or would fight for) most of the time doesn’t mean I trust her, like her, respect her, or think she really represents my interests, because she doesn’t. She represents H.R.Clinton and whoever else who has paid her way to the top.
I do not believe for one single second that she could make any amount of change happen that matters to me, which is her supposed selling point over Bernie.
I’d rather have a genuine Bernie Sanders in the Oval Office with a veto pen and no other influence over the country besides stopping a Republican congress from getting their way. Even at his weakest, Bernie would still represent me and my interests in that office. And as commander-in-chief, I trust he’s not going to drag us into a war of choice. I have zero confidence Hillary wouldn’t put our people in harm’s way for no damned good reason just to show how tough she is.
Want a female president? Don’t even have to go further than the Democratic party’s own Elizabeth Warren. She’s a thousand times the public servant Hillary pretends to be. Hillary doesn’t belong in politics. She’s good at being a politician, in the sense that she can gain power. That’s all she’s good at, though. Every time she opens her mouth I feel like I’m being lied to. She tries to be all things to all people, in all accents, and avoids tough issues and questions, and her core principle at the moment seems to be “I’m less principled than Bernie Sanders, therefore I can get things done in Washington!”
Great, but why would I *want *her to? She’s not the one currently speaking out in favor of all the things I want, she’s the one standing there saying it’s all a pipe dream. I can’t recall her saying *what *she intends to get done, only that it would be somehow more plausible that whatever will get done will get done with her in charge.
Because the Republicans totally give a **** which Democrat is in the white house. They’ll welcome Hillary with open arms, sure, they’ll roll out the red carpet and work with her all day.
I’m being sarcastic, but sure, they might work with her, when it’s time to talk about how best to give the 1% the first and biggest piece of the pie.
For the first couple paragraphs, I was positive that this was satire/snark demonstrating how silly the extreme Bernhead position is. But as I kept going I started to suspect, and then be sure, that it was intended sincerely. Wow.
It’s not a matter of dragging, but of one little step leading the next one in which our credibility is at stake. Maybe it would be different if Bernie was a pacifist, but he isn’t:
As previously stated, yes, and donate to his campaign and maybe even work a phone bank. The bad would him being elected and having an ineffectual president; the worse would be him not being elected and having an effectual evil president, setting this country back multiple decades for decades to come.
As a liberal, I’d hope so, but I wouldn’t call it a sure thing. I almost feel as if the Democratic party is seeing a split between its liberal constituents and its conservative ones (who really want to be Republicans but don’t have any sane options in the GOP). In effect, this is already a three-party race: Democrat (Sanders), Republican (Clinton), and Batshit Insane (whoever the GOP picks).
That said, I will be voting for Sanders in the general election, even if I have to write his name in. And before anyone accuses me of being moony-eyed millennial idealist living in my parents’ basement dreaming of a socialist paradise between bong hits: I am an engineer in my 30s who voted for Kerry back in '04 and for Obama both times. I already pay more in federal taxes than the median family income, and I’m well aware a Sanders presidency means my taxes will probably go up, even if he doesn’t accomplish all his aims. I’m well aware that he probably won’t accomplish everything he wants to. I have, however, hit a critical point of frustration with the two-party system. I’m galled by Clinton’s “settle for less,” do-nothing conservatism, which I feel betrays progressive values, at a time when the GOP is descending into self-parody and a progressive candidate can actually win.
If he wins the nomination I’ll vote for him twice if I can. Whether you’re for Clinton or Sanders, you are an immature unserious child if you don’t support the ultimate democratic nominee.
So, Stealth Potato, you “would hope” that we who back Clinton will vote for Sanders if he’s the nominee, but you’re not going to extend us the same courtesy. Great.
And it’s this attitude, to greater or lesser extent, that has completely sealed my resolve to not vote for Clinton under any circumstance. It’s bad enough to run a conservative in the Democratic primaries, but then to bully and insult anyone who insists on voting their conscience?
I’m being perfectly honest; by the same token, I would hope to persuade staunch GOP’ers to vote for Sanders as well. Why wouldn’t I? I want Sanders to win. I’m not playing politics. He is the only candidate I am interested in supporting.
Even when it’s a write-in “campaign” that has 0.0% chance of succeeding. That’s called throwing a tantrum and cutting off your nose to spite your face where I come from.
If you wish, call it a protest against a rigged system that makes such a campaign hopeless in the first place. And there’s no tantrum involved, it’s a perfectly calculated decision. I’m not telling you how you should vote, or what risk model you’re allowed to use when deciding which way to cast your ballot, just explaining my own choice.
So apparently when you see Alito, Roberts, Kennedy, Thomas, Kagan, Sotomayor, Breyer, and Ginsberg, that’s just an undifferentiated grab bag? Shuffle those up in any order and they’re all just interchangeable tools of the corrupt system? :dubious:
If you’re asking whether I fear the possible outcomes of a Trump appointment to the Supreme Court, I certainly do. I also fear that two-party lock-in is rapidly making democracy non-viable. When people like me feel that nobody in the federal government actually represents them, can you really blame them for wanting to vote for the first person in a long time who just might – regardless of whether one of the two ruling parties deigns to acknowledge it? Saying, effectively, “shut up and fall in line or the boogeymen in the other party will get you” is emblematic of exactly the kind of political climate I’m most afraid of.
I would suggest that you not let the worst behavior of some Clinton supporters determine your actions. If someone supporting any candidate is behaving poorly, roll your eyes at them and ignore them.
As I said elsewhere, I don’t think the voting booth has ever been an effective place to build a movement. Yes, the system is corrupt; yes, politics has far too much money and cronyism and shitty behavior; yes, we should change it. But the change should happen through organizing prior to, and after, elections. The five minutes in the voting booth is best spent trying to influence that one particular election.
Organizing is like health education. Voting is like surgery. Spend most of your time trying to keep the system from getting sick; but sometimes you got to get your hands bloody if the patient is going to survive.
That’s fair. I’ll admit that that part of my reaction is mainly just righteous indignation, and a cool head should ignore it.
It’s still frustrating to see Clinton running in the wrong party, though. I’d feel much more optimistic about America’s future if the 2016 race was Sanders (D) vs. Clinton (R).
Yes, I can blame them. There really aren’t that many of us who have a set of viewpoints that are perfectly represented by the presidential nominee of one of the two major parties (and, BTW, the structure of our system ensures that it is not stable with more than two).
Take me for instance. A candidate who “actually represented me” would look a lot like Sam Harris. Secular and supportive of progressive Western values like feminism and gay rights, but not willing to overlook the lack of those values in the Islamic world for the sake of political correctness. Strongly opposed to the Dick Cheneys of the world, but also vehemently opposed to the world’s Noam Chomskys. Wishing to see much greater progressive taxation of the rich and funding of a guaranteed minimum income, but not out to demonize “Wall Street” as the source of all the world’s problems. Opposed to the NRA gun nuts, but still strongly supportive of the right to own a gun (with appropriate licensing and training, akin to getting a pilot’s license) unless and until a true nonlethal replacement for a handgun is invented (like a Star Trek phaser with only a “stun” setting).
But where is that candidate? I don’t see him or her out there, and I’m not going to stubbornly write in Sam Harris’s name. The more people who do that sort of thing, the more it just cedes power to those willing to work in a coalition, and it might not be the kind of coalition we can live with. So like Sam Harris himself, I’m going to vote for Hillary Clinton, warts and all.
ETA:
So would I, as it would mean about a hundred million conservatives (who are way, *way *to the right of Hillary Clinton) must have just disappeared or saw the light somehow. I might feel a little queasy if they were all shipped off to gas chambers or something…
