I like and respect Hillary and would love a female President, but I just can’t support her in this primary and I have finally come to a realization as to the main reason why:
She completely and catastrophically misjudge the threat of the Sanders campaign in this primary.
Why does that matter?
Because it is indicative of her, and her advisors’, continuing to insist that certain positions, issues and ideas are politically unfeasible.
Even worse, they seem determined to maintain this position even when faced with evidence to the contrary.
Making it worse still, they seem unwilling to learn this lesson and apply it to future actions.
They just completely and totally misjudge the electorate — are these people we want in charge?
Simply put: having this band of stubborn democratic operative in all the positions in the executive for the next 4-8 years will be maddening.
This election is a symptom of the illness that has infected the Democratic party
Time and time again we see democratic operatives at the highest level be painfully tone deaf when it comes to what resonates with people. As a result they seem completely unwilling to rally people in any way to important causes and issues.
I’ll give some examples below, but for readers at this site I don’t feel like I should have to. The democratic party at the highest level seems steadfast in its unwillingness to lead people on progressive issues.
Why do I say ‘they' when talking about Hillary Clinton?
Because I really believe that a lot of this is the team of people which surround her. Hillary Clinton is smart, capable and earnest. She has dedicated her life to serving her country and fighting for what she believes is right. But, like any human being she only has so many hours in the day. This means that everything that happens in the world is filtered through layer upon layer of ally and friend at the highest level of the democratic party. Electing anyone means electing their team, that is the lens through which they view the world.
The problem with Hillary Clinton is the problem with the most powerful within the party right now.
You really need a timeline of examples? OK
Post 9/11 we were told that it was just politically unfeasible to oppose the Patriot Act. Standing up at this time just couldn’t be done politically. Of course Paul Wellstone voted against and was on his way to reelection in a purple state by standing up for progressive values. This was not a lesson anyone in the democratic party wanted to learn from.
We all know 2003 and the Iraq war build up. In retrospect politicians want to tell us they were ‘lied’ into war and it was bad intelligence. But at the same time, we were told it just wasn’t politically feasible. The country supported war. The hundreds of thousands who marched on DC were ignored. The party crumpled in on itself, unsure what to do and in the 2004 election we were left crippled and compromised on an important issue. Lesson learned? ummm, don’t listen to Colin Powell? or something?
Then through the entire 2001-2009ish era we had to deal with a party that refused to embrace gay marriage. You see, it wasn’t politically feasible to support this issue. We were left with politicians who took the ‘smart’ play by supporting some middle of the road while talking about the sanctity of marriage. THIS WAS WRONG MORALLY AND POLITICALLY. The party just refused to get its act together.
What about Obamacare? Well, single payer wasn’t realistic, fighting for the public option wasn’t feasible.
What about civil liberties? Torture? Closing Gitmo? Having trials for terrorists? Bad politics, bad optics.
This doesn’t even tough on the economic issues . . .
These same people have failed the country on economics
The main issues left off that list are economic. Think we should fight hard on minimum wage, progressive taxes, education funding, labor unions, etc. ? well, those issues just don’t resonate politically. It’s not realistic.
And here’s the issue that has hit them hard in this election.
THE CLINTON WING OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY DID NOT BELEIVE THAT THESE ISSUES WOULD RESONATE
This is it. This isn’t just a political mistake that has allowed Sanders to close an enormous gap and become an actual threat. It is a symptom of the illness at the highest level of the party.
Honestly, I think a lot of it is psychological. These people have dedicated their lives to the party and the country. But I really believe they have failed both. Coming to grips with Sanders’ popularity requires them to also come to grips with that failure. I think some of the reaction to him (not all) is an understandable defensiveness regarding the entire direction of the party in the last 16 years. (deciding a bunch of naïve kids don’t understand how the world really works — as opposed to recognizing that we’ve been part of a catastrophic wealth concentration and erosion of the middle class).
What does this mean?
When this all first started I hoped it would mean that Clinton’s team would learn the fundamental lesson: fighting for economic progressivism is popular and it is the only way to achieve it.
It seems clear now that the tone of the campaign reflects a defiant refusal to learn this lesson. Instead they have decided that huge chunks of the democratic party are fools who should be pitied. It’s sad to say that this isn’t really that surprising. It matches the lectures we received at various points over the last 16 years (and probably before that? I’m not *that* old).
It also matches their (apparent) failure to learn their lesson from 2008. In 2008 Obama offered a desperate electorate hope and inspirational change. He called upon people to hope for more and strive for more and this message resonated strongly and overwhelmed Clintons’ pragmatic approach. It really seems that no lessons were learned for 2016. They didn’t come into this campaign with anything inspirational, anything to drive people to the future, they seemed to not even have a realization of how many people are suffering out there. The Clinton campaign makes me worry that the only lesson the democratic party learned from 2008 is that Obama is a cool black guy and people liked his image — they apparently didn’t learn that inspirational progressive messages resonate. That’s just sad.
It’s too bad that this looks like another opportunity for the democratic to push forward into the future with an inspiring message of economic progressive has turned into a bitter fight.