It’s Foolish to Sit at Home in Protest
There was an interesting article at Quartz that made some very interesting points, but is as a good example of the delusion that is symptomatic among Hillary Clinton’s fan base.
How privileged do you need to be to imagine that it’s a good idea to risk the actual lives of vulnerable Americans because you “hate” Clinton so much that you vow to stay home if Sanders doesn’t get the nomination? How protected from the consequences of a Trump presidency do you need to be to think your hatred of Clinton constitutes, as I saw someone say earlier this week, an “inviolable principle,” meaning that it’s more important than the lives of vulnerable Americans? That all applies equally to any Clinton supporters saying the same about Sanders. (We have yet to see the full weight of American anti-Semitism aimed at Sanders, and if he wins the nomination, we most certainly will.
[snip]
And whoever becomes the Democratic nominee, the stakes are far, far too high for us to selfishly stay home because we didn’t get our first choice. I will happily, proudly vote for either Clinton or Sanders, and I hope you will do the right thing and join me.
Much of this is true. If you think staying home is a good idea you are being selfish and ignorant. One only has to go back to the idiot Nader supporters who said there was no difference between Gore (who is a huge environmentalist and Iraq war opponent) and Bush. Clearly that wasn’t the case! Certainly Hillary is more conservative than most of the Democratic base, but she is still an astronomically better choice than anyone the Republicans could field.
Furthermore, there is really no practical reason to protest this election as a Progressive. The 2022 democratic nominee will likely be much more Progressive than Hillary regardless of what happens because that is clearly where the party and country is heading. The only reason why Hillary is likely to become the nominee because she is running against a 75 year old socialist who doesn’t even identify as a Democrat. If she decided not to run the Democrats would have likely had a chance to nominate a more Progressive and stronger female candidate like Amy Klobuchar or Kirsten Gillibrand (it has become clear that Warren never had any interest in running).
But in the words of Donald Rumsfeld, “you go to war with the army you have.” Which brings me to my other point…
Hillary Clinton Is a Neocon
I want to again highlight the final statement in the aforementioned quote:
I will happily, proudly vote for either Clinton or Sanders, and I hope you will do the right thing and join me.
While I will vote for Hillary. I will NOT be happy about it, and I will NOT do so proudly. There are only two redeeming factors in voting for Hillary as a Progressive: you will be preventing a reactionary from becoming President, and you will be voting for the first female President. But that is it.
What the Quartz article conveniently leaves out is that Hillary Clinton on foreign policy is objectively a neoconservative. I suppose some of her defenders my point to her support for the Iran deal, but if she came out against the signature foreign policy achievement of the Obama presidency she likely wouldn’t be able to successfully run in a Democratic primary. And to be sure Chuck Schumer may have mortally wounded his bid to become the Democratic leader next year by doing so. Moreover, she has be a strong proponent of sanctions in the past, even though the those sanctions had nothing to do with the nuclear agreement.
Iran aside she supported the Iraq war, pushed the Obama administration into bombing Libya, and supports (supported?) the no fly zone over Syria. Here is the NYT on the pivotal role Clinton played in persuading a skeptical Obama into bombing Libya:
Her conviction would be critical in persuading Mr. Obama to join allies in bombing Colonel Qaddafi’s forces. In fact, Mr. Obama’s defense secretary, Robert M. Gates, would later say that in a “51-49” decision, it was Mrs. Clinton’s support that put the ambivalent president over the line.
The consequences would be more far-reaching than anyone imagined, leaving Libya a failed state and a terrorist haven, a place where the direst answers to Mrs. Clinton’s questions have come to pass.
And since leaving the administration Hillary has been one of the strongest voices in the peanut gallery criticizing Obama’s lack of military intervention in Syria, in particular supporting an “insane plan for a no-fly zone.” Interestingly enough John Kerry (who has been an astronomically better Secretary of State than Hillary) was recently able to negotiate a cease fire between the various parties in Syria, which has held despite some notable hiccups. Diplomacy works.
And even more recently Hillary bashed Obama during her “craven” and “pandering” speech before the neoconservative/Likudnik organization AIPAC:
Pledging to “take our alliance to the next level,” Clinton said that one of the first things she’d do in office is invite the Israeli prime minister to the White House. That was a barely veiled rebuke to Obama, who never treated Benjamin Netanyahu with the deference the prime minister felt entitled to. Before the speech, some had hoped that Clinton might offer a word of solidarity or encouragement to beleaguered progressives in Israel. She gave them nothing.
I could go on about her being beholden to Wall Street etc. but I think that has been documented enough at this site.
To conclude, to sit there and believe you are voting for anyone but a neoconservative would be incredibly delusional. You would have to ignore mountains of evidence to the contrary. However, you should still vote for her! The alternative would be so much worse, and progressives have a chance to retake the Supreme Court for the first time in I don’t know how long. This is a choice between keeping the status quo and sending America back into the stone age. Progressives need to recognize, however, that Hillary is not one of us, and if we forget that we run the risk of allowing another Bill Clinton presidency who steamrolled progressives. We can’t let Hillary do that to us when she, hopefully, becomes President…
P.S. Sorry if there are a lot grammatical/spelling errors. I don’t have a lot of time to edit my post today.