So, here’s the thing: I don’t much like Sen. Clinton. Never have. I voted against her in 2000, when she first ran for the Senate in New York. I agree with her on the issues less than perhaps any other Democratic candidate for President. And I am sick to death of all the morally empty diaries about how people will not vote for Hillary Clinton for President.
And it isn’t because of the conventional reasons. I don’t think that you have to vote at all to be a good American. I don’t think not voting for a Democrat is by default helping the Republican. And I certainly don’t think that the Democratic Party deserves anyone’s loyalty no matter what they do or who they nominate.
But why I’m pathetically bored and a bit offended by the moral emptiness of these diaries isn’t because of the cases they make against Sen. Clinton for President. It is because if the Democratic nominee for President is Sen. Clinton, not one person has presented a viable suggestion of who else we should elect President. What people are essentially writing is that if Sen. Clinton is the Democratic nominee, they hope she wins the Presidency, but they just have no intention of helping be a part of it. They expect the rest of us to do the dirty work for them.
If people want to make the case that if Sen. Clinton and any of the Republican candidates are the nominees that mass non-voting to make a statement about voter anger and apathy is a valid and potentially powerful response, I would listen, even if most others wouldn’t. I might even recommend. If you want to make the case that we are better off having an awful Republican President than an awful Democratic one, I’ll let you say your piece. If you want to present an option where somehow someone who isn’t Ralph Nader could beat both Sen. Clinton and a Republican nominee, I’ll try to see if that can be taken seriously.
But if you just won’t vote for Sen. Clinton no matter what the circumstances, you are saying that you would never stoop so low as to pull the lever for her, even if you end up really hoping the rest of us do. And that’s just low, and a morally bankrupt alternative to whatever believed terrors make sure that you will never be a part of electing President Hillary Clinton. If her potential Presidency is so horrifying that you cannot imagine the circumstance where you would vote for her, then you have a moral responsibility to be coming up with alternatives for all of us, not just letting us know that you wouldn’t ever cast a ballot for her.
So, either make a case for an alternative, or stop asking the rest of us to congratulate you on being better than you hope we’ll be.