Hillary: "Vote your conscience"

Politics & Elections
181

You raise a legitimate question and grievances about Hillary’s ‘experience’, but here’s the thing: we’re not saying that it’s Hillary’s experience alone. We’re evaluating temperament, judgment, knowledge of the important issues, the ability to build coalitions, the willingness to hire people around you who know about those issues, the willingness to listen to input and advice, and other qualities as well.

Something I’ve noticed about Bernie Sanders supporters is that they seem genuinely shocked when people tell them that they trust Hillary Clinton more in these areas, stunned that someone could possibly not see how ‘right’ their guy is and how ‘horrible’ and ‘evil’ Hillary Clinton is. As I’ve said numerous times before, I appreciate that Bernie Sanders brought attention to issues in ways that even Barack Obama did not, and in ways Hillary Clinton simply could not or would not – I appreciate and respect that about Sanders and the passion of his supporters. And yet I still don’t think he’d make a particularly good president, and I actually believe that he could be a disastrous one. The kinds of changes he has proposed require major buy in from the public, not just rhetoric in a campaign. I never saw any evidence that Bernie Sanders was able to build the kinds of solid majorities he would need to govern an extremely diverse country. And when I say diverse I don’t mean just racially; I’m referring to the rich cultural, regional, and ideological diversity, as well. And his attacks on Wall Street, though heartfelt and resonating with many, including myself, never revealed to me any particularly deep knowledge of economics. “She was on the board of Wal-Mart!!!” – so what? I actually think having intimate knowledge of how a major corporation works qualifies someone to understand the impact of a $15 / hr minimum wage better than someone who just picks and arbitrary number out of thin air and demands that corporations capitulate. In terms of foreign policy, I felt he was better at explaining what we should not do rather that what we ought to do. As Obama has found out, that’s all well and good, but you inherit the situation that exists in real life, not the situation you desire. I know I won’t convince you of any of this so I suppose we’ll have to just agree to disagree. But believe it or not, there really are valid reasons why people decided to choose the ‘evil’ Hillary over Saint Bernard.

With respect to the current general election before us now, the support of Hillary over Trump has so much more to do with all of the other factors. I felt that Hillary was more qualified than Barack Obama in 2008, which is why I supported her in the primaries then. I’d also argue that John McCain had more experience than Barack Obama at that time as well. However, there are some key differences between Barack Obama and other lesser experienced candidates. Whereas John McCain demonstrated that he was more interested in political gimmicks to please his increasingly unstable base of supporters (selecting Sarah Palin), Barack Obama demonstrated that he was ready for the job. He showed a willingness and the ability to build broad-based coalitions, which is why he won comfortably in the electoral college count. Unlike Bernie, Obama demonstrated more than just raw anger at the system. Unlike McCain, he made it obvious that he was going to hire people who knew what the hell they were doing. He combined all of these other qualities with his obvious sense of commitment to building communities from the ground up and his own resume of grassroots organizing activities. Thus, despite lacking experience, Obama impressed. Sanders did not really do that to the same degree, and Trump absolutely, positively, undeniably does not measure up in any possible way – and the real rub is that you and everyone else who had the intellect to support the ideas that Sanders proposed most definitely know that as well. There is no way that you cannot convince me you seriously believe that Donald Trump is in any way comparable to Hillary Clinton, whatever her flaws may be. You’re just angry because the system produced these candidates, who had to compete using this format that you don’t accept, and these were the results, which you also have a hard time accepting. Once again, there is the system you want, and the system you have. I would submit that if you want to change the system to something more progressive, all of the evidence would indicate that Hillary Clinton is much more likely to support judges and policies that fight Citizens United than Donald Trump. You know that. You may not admit that, but you know that.

182

What accomplishments attracted you to Sanders?

183

I actually haven’t mentioned Sanders in this thread. You assume I’m a butt-hurt Sanders supporter, but that’s not the case. I think he was an interesting candidate because I’d like to see what a president who wouldn’t instantly become establishment-friendly would do, what he would tell us. I thought Obama was that, but he settled in pretty quickly to playing ball with the existing powers in government. Sanders is interesting because he’s the only guy who has ever run that I’m 100% convinced would stick to his principles no matter what, and not bow down to pressure to not rock the boat.

But that has nothing to do with this thread. There are thousands of candidates that the democratic party could’ve fielded this election. Sanders was the only one who bothered to run, because everyone else knew it was Hillary’s turn and the party was going to make sure she was selected. So despite all of the “she got the votes, she won!” rhetoric, there’s a reason that only a fringe not-really-democrat candidate ran against her. She was not the popular choice, given that she has extremely high unfavorability ratings and a lot of people who are having trouble swallowing the idea of voting for her even against someone like Trump, she was the party insider’s choice.

184

[QUOTE=SenorBeef]
But that has nothing to do with this thread. There are thousands of candidates that the democratic party could’ve fielded this election. Sanders was the only one who bothered to run, because everyone else knew it was Hillary’s turn and the party was going to make sure she was selected. So despite all of the “she got the votes, she won!” rhetoric, there’s a reason that only a fringe not-really-democrat candidate ran against her.
[/QUOTE]

I want to believe there’s an alternate-timeline America where Martin O’Malley is likably running against John Kasich – and nobody ever mentions Benghazi, or gets referred to as a socialist, or, y’know, acts like Donald Trump.

“Russia has apparently hacked the DNC’s e-mails!”
“Well, both parties must unite against this common threat to democracy.”
“And neither of us will mention Hillary Clinton’s damn e-mails.”
“Right. I mean, why would we?”
“It’d be irrelevant!”

185

This is actually what scared me most about Bernie. That he would stick to HIS principles, even if it was not what was demonstrably good for the country.

It sounded to me that Bernie endorsed Hillary. Unreservedly. Anyone who trusted Bernie to be president should also trust his endorsement.

186

Uhh, yeah, you’re attracted to Sanders, accordibg to the last half of this paragraph. Not sure why you’re chiding me in the first half of the paragraph for assuming you are attracted to Sanders. I’m just asking if you find his experience a positive, but I’m getting the picture that it’s his lack of interest in working with others in Congress that you find a positive, in that he would have sought to neutralize the many other elected officials who represent a non-revolutionary point of view. Feel free to correct me if I’m off on that.

You raised the issue of Clinton’s experience and I asked a question about her major competitor, and you seem aggrieved by the question. Sure, this issue isn’t the heart and soul of the thread, but it is the kidneys and liver.

When you say ther are thousands of candidate that the party could have fielded, you’re glossing over the fact that the party organs aren’t supposed to pick winners and losers. There are thousands of candidates who could have run, but they didn’t - probably mostly for reasons you mention. But you also gloss over another thing: most of her most promising possible competitors know her and have worked with her, and they seem to genuinely respect her. Look at how many superdelegates she racked up early: an awful lot of them are members of Congress or party bigwigs that she has worked with over the years, and they endorsed her quickly. I’ll bet you anything that a good number of them didn’t want to run against her because they genuinely believed that she will do a good job.

And let’s just get this straight: she won the nomination by being the popular candidate. She literally was the popular choice. So was Trump, for that matter. Being the popular choice doesn’t always mean being the right choice, but you should choose your criticism more carefully.

187

Okay, so you’ve concluded that because I said Sanders is “an interesting candidate”, I have pledged my undying allegiance to him and that’s the only reason I could possibly not like Clinton. Additionally, I must find his experience and qualifications attractive, because I just made a post, which you are replying to, in which I indicated that I think experience and qualifications are overrated in terms of a presidential candidate.

No, it isn’t, this thread has nothing to do with Sanders. I’m not hesitating to vote for Clinton because of Sanders, I’m hesitating to vote for her because I don’t think she’ll be a good president, and I dislike that the democrat party put me in this shitty position of “haha, you have to vote for a shitty president because we’ve nominated one against an even shittier president!”

And I “raised the issue of Clinton’s experience” to say that experience and qualifications aren’t as important as principles and judgment. How in the world does that even make logical sense to demand me to praise Sanders’ experience in qualifications? I never mentioned Sanders, never praised his qualifications, and indicated that I don’t hold qualifications like political experience in as high a regard as everyone else.

You’re really stretching to find some sort of gotcha ya here, really just making things up.

Alright, let me ask you this. Given that the superdelegate system exists to increase the influence of party insiders, how would the 2016 democratic primary season looked different if the DNC was not deliberately setting up Clinton to be the nominee? What would be different?

She ran unopposed by anyone else in the party because they knew it was her turn and the party machine would support her. The only guy that ran against her was a fringe candidate that would normally never get even traction at all except that a whole lot of people, including democrats, really don’t like Clinton. He had nothing to lose - he wasn’t even a democrat. The people who were part of the party stayed clear because it was Hillary’s turn.

Which leaves two possibilities: either no one in the democratic party ran because they knew Clinton was going to be the candidate, or that the democratic party is so devoid of talent that Clinton really was their best option, despite the fact that she’s pretty much the only person in the democratic party who is so widely hated that she might actually lose to Trump.

188

If I make a general statement that doesn’t say ‘in all cases’, the reasonable interpretation of that statement is that it applies in some cases, but not all cases. Acting like I’ve changed what I said because a short statement that did not say ‘all’ was referring to ‘some’ is just absurd, and accusing me of moving the goalposts for not tacking ‘some’ onto every statement that does not say ‘all’ is an even more exalted level of absurd.

189

Just for the sake of accuracy, there was Martin O’Malley. He just never got much traction. So not unopposed, so much as not strongly opposed.

190

No, the whole long analogy is broken from start to finish, and utterly fails to explain why the circumstances of the election mean that I am obligated to vote how you direct me to vote, but you have no obligation to show any reason or understanding in your words, and instead get to shout at me while complaining that I’m morally wrong for doing anything but what you want me to do.

If the election is really an emergency like a burning building, and we’re all obliged to stop the damage, then YOU have an obligation not to do anything to encourage voters in swing states to stay home or vote for someone other than Clinton. But you’re not acting as though you have that obligation, and instead are posting snide and insulting material like the other people in this thread. Either you don’t really believe that this election is really like a burning building and are just scaremongering, or you want to see everyone burn and are choosing to do things that you enjoy, like berating people, over doing your best to mitigate the damage.

191

It’s not just the comments in this thread, it’s all of the Hillary supporters in various places berating anyone who feels the least hesitation about voting for that awful candidate. And it’s not just ‘not nearly as persuasive’, it’s persuasive in the other direction - there are a lot of ‘Feel the Bern’ types who might just stay home after they’re being told how they’re now obligated to vote for the Wall Street darling, or people who are usually 3rd party or switch voters who don’t like Clinton but were willing to hold their nose until they get called sexist or racist for having objections to The Annoited One.

I will point out again, that two of the people who are getting piled on by Hillary supporters in this thread have ALREADY STATED that they are going to hold their nose and vote for her, but they disagree with the tone and arguments made in her favor. And still people berate and insult and rant. If you really, truly believe that not voting for Hillary is creating a disaster, you should be putting effort into convincing people to vote for her and convincing other people to be convincing. But instead, people here are ranting and raving at people who are already Hillary voters because it gives them personal satisfaction.

192

Never mind. Trump says you have to vote for him.

193

No one is directing you how to vote. You may vote in any way you like. That’s democracy.

Another part of democracy (freedom of speech), is that we can advocate for our preferred candidate. We can say why we would vote for her, and why we think you should too.

There is also argument. Those who support hillary, and those who support bernie have had some involved and even heated conversations about which candidate was better.

Some of those arguments have turned nasty, sure, on both sides.

Pointing to the arguments that have turned nasty, and saying that that is why you will not support the candidate that is being advocated, is not a reasonable position to take.

If you find some Hillary supports to be in a nasty argument, ignore them. If you find some Hillary supporters to be nasty in general, ignore them.

Vote based on what you truly believe is best for the country. If you think that trump is a better candidate, I would disagree, but I would support entirely your right to vote that way. If you don’t want trump, but don’t want to vote for hillary, I would try to talk you into changing your mind, but it is entirely your vote, and your decision how you use it. You’re only obligation is to your own conscience.

You are absolutely correct that more civil political discourse would be nice, but we haven’t had that for the 200+ years since our founding.

194

Go back over my posts: I’ve asked about your attraction to Sanders, not your undying love and berning desire to have revolution babies with him. Seriously, you’re interpreting my words into hysterics.

Honestly, I feel worse for Republicans whose party put them in a much worse position. And by “party,” in both cases it means “the several million rank and file voters and caucus goers who participated in the primary process.”

Geez, I think it’s a related question. If you think I’m hijacking the thread, go ahead and report my post. My fault for asking you a question that’s only mostly related to the question of experience, ok?

First, let me clarify that I don’t at this point believe that the DNC “set Clinton up to be the nominee.” Yes, many superdelegates pledged to her early, but they are not the DNC. Yes, there are those allegations about the emails, but frankly I don’t find them very convincing of a conspiracy so far. Having an email where someone says Sanders should be attacked for being an atheist as the nomination was almost wrapped up, and having that idea shot down, isn’t really compelling. If more comes out, I might change my mind.

So with that caveat, I’m not sure your question makes sense to me. I’m wondering if you mean, how would things be different if there were no superdelegates? I think it would be the same result. Clinton would get tons of endorsements early, instead of tons of delegates early. I can’t see what would have changed all that much.

Well, a heck of a lot of the leading figures who could have run also like Hillary. Heck, there’s quite a few Senate Republicans on record as having said they liked working with her.

Your option implies that other Dems were in effect muscled out of running, even if they wanted to. I contend that quite a few Dems think she would do a good job, and so they want to support her, not run against her. That isn’t really accounted for in your two options, is it?

195

What among Trump’s numerous faux pas makes you think he’s either smart or wants to do his best to serve the people? What experience dealing with actual governing does he have?

Still promoting the ‘rigged’ thing, huh? This one has been done to death.

Eight years as the most politically activist First Lady ever counts too. How about initiating and carrying on the fight that would eventually lead to the ACA? The fact is that Bubba and Hillary were a political unit, and all indications are that she was the driving force behind it.

196

At least since Eleanor Roosevelt. But that worked out fine too.

197

If you feel insulted by my post, I assure you that I had no intention of trying to make anyone feel badly about themselves. To the extent that spirited statements to the effect o"we have to make sure Trump isn’t elected" come across as personal insults to you, I hope you can agree that such statements aren’t typically intended to be insults directed at you personally.

At the same time, however, I recognize that you are extremely frustrated at your choices in this election. What I was saying in the post you quoted was essentially that I’m not able to sugar-coat my statements that is is really really important for Trump not to be elected (especially by mistake!) to a sufficient degree to come across as kind and polite if someone has such raw nerves over this election.

To say it another way, let’s say someone lost a family member who wasn’t wearing a seatbelt during a car crash. Talking to that person about car safety is probably just going to sound condescending and offensive, and there’s no way to discuss the topic in an inoffensive way, simply because nerves are so raw. But we have to talk about car safety because it is very important.

So, give me an example of someone who has spoken to you respectfully about their views that it is important to vote for Clinton in November. Is there such a person?

198

Maybe try not to take it so personally? At least not on a message board. People are just responding to comments in front of them, so they’re not always going to know 100 percent of your opinions. I respond to the tone and content of a message. I don’t know everything inside someone’s head, just like people don’t know what’s inside mine (maybe they don’t wanna know, lol). Try to hear people out, and ask for the same in return. It’s all good then.

199

Oh for fucks sake! Obama “settled in and played ball” – because it’s better to allow the automobile industry and all of the subcontractor industries to collapse, cut off unemployment benefits for millions, and let millions upon millions suffer real-life consequences in vain attempt to stick to your guns. No, seriously, if that is what you actually believe, then frankly, that is illogical thinking, and you quite honestly deserve to be ridiculed for such logic.

One could be forgiven for assuming that you were a Sanders supporter, but now that you seem to be saying that you’re not, who are you voting for then? I’m not sure what your angle is. What magic candidate are you waiting for? I get that you don’t like Clinton, but who else in this election has a realistic opportunity to stop Trump? Or do you honestly believe that we’re better off taking our chances with a untested blowhard over Hillary Clinton? See, maybe that’s what adds to the frustration that people have with you. You can wish for different outcomes, but why not just vote based on the world you actually live in? Are you planning not to vote at all? Planning to vote Jill Stein? Planning to write in? Planning to vote for Trump? Stop being coy and just put it out on the table, then. Maybe people are being harsh with you because they don’t really know what the fuck you’re banging on about – so inform their opinion then and explain what you actually do want, and preferably provide outcomes that are achievable based on the here and now.

Oh here we go again trying to live in imagination land. I’m done with you. If you want to vote for Trump, Jill Stein, or not at all, that’s fine. But you’re responsible, and if you post back here in a few years into a Trump administration, you’d probably do well to change your user handle 'cause you’ll be hearing it from the rest of us. Your feelings will be hurt, ego bruised, guaranteed.

200

It doesn’t matter what you ‘intended’, it matters what you did. Being bombastic, then trying to cover with ‘but I didn’t MEAN it’ sounds pretty Trumplike, actually.

So on one hand you say that Trump will be a complete and utter disaster for the nation, and that it’s a huge emergency, and that we have to do everything we can to stop it. But on the other hand you’re not going to “sugar-coat” your statements and attempt to come off as kind and polite. So you think that Trump is such a complete and utter disaster that I have a moral imperative to vote for Hillary, but not enough of a disaster for you to swallow your pride and speak politely? That doesn’t exactly seem consistent.

I think the idea of Trump as absolute evil incarnate (rather than just a more awful that usual candidate) is a convenient excuse for a variety of people to pump themselves up and use bombastic rhetoric to make themselves feel better. But it’s also clear that none of you take it to heart, because if you really believed he was such a looming overwhelming evil threat, the lot of you would be willing to swallow your pride and try to make people who don’t like Clinton feel good about voting for her - but you don’t.

“We must stop Trump by any means necessary, unless it requires me to be polite and understanding and reasonable, then forget it I’d rather just be insulting” doesn’t have a great ring, but seems to be the slogan of the day.