Avedon Carol, a noted feminist and liberal blogger at Echidne of the Snakes, posted the above on her Facebook page yesterday, and I happened across it this morning. I believe it describes the problems I have, not with just Secretary Clinton’s candidacy, but with the current leadership of the National Democratic Party.
For quite some time the Democratic Party has talked big to its base about enacting a liberal agenda, but when push comes to shove, they have consistently supported the status quo, and, indeed, in many cases, pursued policies not that dissimilar to those beloved by the Big Business wing of the Republican Party, such as the following:
1. The repeal of Glass Steagall and the loosening of other financial protections created by the New Deal in exchange for campaign contributions from Wall Street Too Big Too Fail Banks,
2. Welfare reform that eviscerated support for poor families, and had a disproportionate impact on minority communities,
3. Education “reform” that promotes privatized charter schools and did little to stem the school to prison pipeline,
4. Immigration policy that has made certain Barack Obama will go down as the President who is responsible for deporting more people than any other US President,
5. Trade agreements promoted by Democratic administrations, such as NAFTA and TPP, that benefited (or will benefit in the future) large corporations at the expense of American jobs.
This is far from a complete list, but it should be enough to show that the continued nomination of candidates, which pay lip service to liberal goals and programs that would make the lives of real living Americans, instead of the fictional corporate persons who dominate our politics at all levels of government, is no longer sustainable. Bernie Sanders isn’t an anomaly or some fringe candidate that came out of nowhere. He’s the direct result of the Democratic Party’s failure over the past four decades to fight for the rights of people whose votes it courts.
By no means do I wish to condemn all Democrats. There are many good elected officials at the local, state and national level that are making the good fight for traditional Democratic values. Elected officials that place human rights over the rights of Big Business, Billionaires and lobbyists. Sadly, these brave souls are too few and far between, and their power in Congress is severely limited by the entrenched interests of the Party elites. How else could Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a so-called Democrat who betrayed her fellow Democrats in Florida to support Republican incumbents still remain in office, much less head the DNC?
I’m tired of the Democratic leadership telling us what they cannot or will not do for us. I’m tired of being ridiculed and marginalized for supporting the policies that brought the Democratic Party back from the dead in the 20th Century, and which helped create the largest economic boom in world history — one that provided an escape from poverty for a large majority of its citizens, and which led to greater civil rights for African Americans and other minorities. I’m tired of being labeled a “liberal” or a “hippy” or an out of touch “idealist.” What has incrementalism and triangulation actually done for anyone, except for those who hold the reigns of power in the current Democratic party and their buddies on Wall Street? Not very damn much.
I’d hoped that the challenge by Bernie Sanders would encourage, or, at the very least force, Secretary Clinton to move away from her corporate backers and support positions of economic fairness more in line with the majority of the people who vote for Democrats, the people whose lives she claims to care about so much. Unfortunately, however, that doesn’t seem to be the case, as recent misleading attacks by her and her surrogates on his single payer healthcare plan, the state of his own health, smearing him as a communist sympathizer, his alleged lack of support for the lives of African-Americans, etc,. etc., etc., has been a major disappointment. It seems that instead of moving to support policies such as those that have so engaged Sanders’ supporters and argue she stands in a better position to get them enacted, she and her campaign has made the calculated decision to go negative, smearing his record with lies and half-truths. And that’s a shame, because she had an opportunity to re-make herself into a progressive fighter for the American people. But I suppose that wouldn’t go over too well with the big money contributors to her campaign.
I will vote for the Democratic candidate for President regardless of who wins the nomination, but there are many people, people who were galvanized by Obama in 2008, and who are showing similar levels of support for Sanders today, who will likely be discouraged and pathetic about the electoral process if she becomes the candidate. People we need to win elections not only for the presidency but in the Senate and House of Representatives. I worry that their lack of enthusiasm for more of the same old politics from the Democrats will result in a Republican President assuming power in 2017. No one wants that.
Avedon Carol nails it on the head when she says in her Facebook post that the nomination of Hillary Clinton will lead to, at best, four more years of being told liberalism and liberal policies are a “non-starter” with the American people.
They aren’t you know. Sanders’ grassroots insurgent campaign fueled by the financial support of $20 dollar contributors — as opposed to the Super-Pac money and max contributions which come from Hillary’s base — is all the proof you need that the American people are fed up with our current slide toward becoming a banana republic controlled by oligarchs and their minions, i.e., the candidates they put in power over us to protect their profits no matter the costs to the rest of us. The voters are ready for President Sanders. I’m not so sure that President Clinton is a sure thing, based on her record, her unfavorables with many Americans, and the view among many that all her “pragmatism” really means is a President who will do little to help the poor and the rapidly declining middle class except at the margins.
I gave another $20 to the Sanders campaign today. From a personal financial standpoint, I can’t really afford to keep making contributions to him, but then, when I think about it, I can’t really afford not to, either.