Although many here who have read my pro-Bernie and anti-Hillary diaries and comments may not believe it, I actually have tried hard to see what the Clintonite crowd sees in Hillary that they find so attractive. She’s strong-willed, I’ll give her that. And she works very hard, I’ll give her that too.
But engage with nearly any dedicated Hillary person on matters of temperament, judgement, and especially on policy, and their typical response is “Hillary is winning!” Not that a $12/hour minimum wage is superior to $15/hour. Not that closer scrutiny of the Wall Street / regulatory agencies revolving door is superior to breaking up the too-big-to-fail banks. And certainly not that Hillary’s bellicose Neocon-style foreign policy views are superior to Bernie’s determination to end the military-industrial complex’s wars for profit, and substitute constructive diplomacy for America’s obsession with “regime change”. No. Just “we’re winning!”
Yes, it’s true that Hillary has benefited greatly from the corporate news blackout of Bernie that has been in place from the beginning of his campaign. Hillary has benefited greatly from the DNC’s ridiculous “stealth debate” schedule, its front-loading of the primary calendar with conservative Southern states, and its collusion with the Clinton campaign on dodgy campaign finance practices. And let’s face it: Hillary has also benefited greatly from Bernie’s extraordinary civility, he having declined to criticize her over some of her more toxic, recent baggage, i.e. the FBI criminal investigation, and the Clinton Foundation / State Department influence peddling & money laundering scandal, to name just two of them. As a result, Hillary currently has significantly more pledged delegates than Bernie (superdelegates, at this stage of the game, still being irrelevant). So by that narrowly quantitative, decidedly non-qualitative standpoint, yes Hillary is winning.
Notwithstanding all of that, I’ve tried to find some zone of comfort within myself in which I could be reconciled to a Hillary nomination — and a Hillary presidency. But Hillary herself doesn’t make that process at all easy. In fact, she somehow seems determined to win in as gracelessly ugly a manner as possible, betraying not so much as a trace of humility, nor even a shred of emotional intelligence, as she contemplates what she blithely assumes will be a Democratic Party that automatically — and obediently — falls into line behind her. Even now, she seems not to realize how close she came to Sanders cleaning her clock — due to some of the very same character traits she continues to manifest at this very time. And she still doesn’t understand that many of the Sanders people came into the party in order to demand serious, fundamental, actual reform (Bernie’s political revolution) — not to support a lip-service “progressive” who offers more of the same old, same old business as usual in Washington.
Hillary’s obsessive ambition and her lust for power blinds her to virtually all else. All she can see is that golden throne Oval Office executive chair, and how to get there. Hillary simply doesn’t learn.
The following clip from Monday night’s MSNBC town hall event is most revealing. In it, you can see Hillary’s exasperation that she’s been compelled to actually earn our votes...by competing with an actual challenger! You can see the indignation and outrage of her offended sense of privilege, as she pops her cork over Rachel Maddow’s innocent (even deferential), pro-forma media question. And I really have to ask my fellow progressives/liberals/Democrats one more time: Is this really the person we want to put up against Donald Drumpf...or whoever the Republicans nominate to run for the general election in November? And will it really take Hillary losing the election (assuming she captures the nomination) to a Republican, before the Democratic Party Establishment finally wakes up and comprehends the truth: This time we really mean it...and we don’t want what you’re selling!