The problems the country faces will not be solved by politics as usual. Especially not by the same kind of triangulation that has seen the Democratic Party shrink all over the country in election after election. President Obama is the best in decades at those kind of politics and look what has happened to the Democratic Party under his leadership. Secretary Clinton promises to bring more of the same with none of his skill.
Even if everything Clinton and her supporters say is true about her, it’s not enough. She’s not going to be able to succeed where Obama has succeeded, let alone where he has failed. She has less political skill than Obama, not more.
Worse, climate change will not be solved by politics as usual. There is no more time for half-measures and tweaks to the system. A Republican or a Clinton presidency means a global catastrophe that will bring civilization crashing down within my daughter’s lifetime. Republicans have policies that are the opposite to what is needed. Clinton and that whole wing of the Democratic Party have policies that are inadequate to what is needed.
At this stage, a choice for either opposite or inadequate is a choice for catastrophe.
The country and the planet face disaster on so many levels. It is delusional to think that a candidate who gets to the top of a corrupt system and, leaving that system in place, can somehow tell the oligarchs to cut it out. Hillary does not have a magic wand.
Bernie? His focus is on the right thing, which is attacking the system, trying to break the power of the billionaires, instead of working with them, trying to get a movement of people together to take the country back from malefactors of great wealth instead of fighting for a more gender-balanced version of the system we have now.
Can Bernie’s “political revolution” succeed? I don’t know. It is the longest of long shots. But it is our only hope. This election may be humanity’s last chance to avoid catastrophe.