Back before the primary season got going — before anyone had even declared — I decided that this year I would write in Elizabeth Warren in the democratic primary and then vote for Hillary in the general election. I wasn’t happy about it — in my opinion, Hillary was a flawed candidate who was likely to lose if the republicans put up a halfway-decent opponent (fortunately, they didn’t).
Then Bernie announced, and he seemed like a reasonable second choice. I attended his first big rally, in Madison, and liked what he had to say. I never thought he had any chance of actually winning the nomination — Hillary had gotten in, as expected, and nobody expected anybody to be able to seriously challenge her — but I still saw a vote for Bernie as a chance to express support for progressive principles. Obama was the first presidential candidate I ever donated to; Bernie was the second.
Then a funny thing happened….despite all of Hillary’s advantages, despite the media ignoring him to focus on Trump, despite everyone believing that nobody would ever take a “socialist” seriously….Bernie started gaining. In a few short months he went from having essentially none of the vote to pulling ahead in some states. On social media, my liberal friends were for Bernie, my mostly non-political friends who post the occasional political status were for Bernie, some of my conservative friends admitted that they’d vote for Bernie over Trump, and my far-right friends started posting memes attacking Bernie. He was still the clear underdog, but it looked like he actually had a chance of becoming president.
As the primaries started heating up, so did this site: we went from Hillary’s supporters dismissing Bernie’s chances and patronizing Bernie supporters, to attacking Bernie’s character and the character, intelligence, and patriotism of his supporters. I started spending less time at the site due to a total lack of interest in getting involved in the pie fights, but continued to believe Bernie was the best candidate. At the same time, ANYBODY who could get the democratic nomination is going to be a million times better than ANYONE who could get the republican nomination, and there was never a time when I wouldn’t vote for Hillary over Trump, despite the constant posts from her supporters that my vote wasn’t wanted or needed.
I still think Hillary is a weak candidate, but I have a problem with Bernie now. It’s not that he’s staying in the race past when others think he should drop out — he has every right to stay in until everyone has voted (although I think he SHOULD have dropped out when he lost New York and started focusing on getting progressives elected to Congress to pass his agenda). It’s not the BS posts about how he doesn’t support downballot candidates, or shouldn’t be allowed to participate because he’s not really a democrat.
It’s the taxes.
When Mitt Romney ran for president, he looked like he was hiding something (most likely how little tax he pays in most years) because he refused to release his taxes. Donald Trump looks like he’s hiding something (most likely, how little he’s worth compared to what he claims) because he refuses to release his taxes. When Bernie refuses to release his taxes, he looks like he has something he wants to hide. Given that his biggest advantage in the general election is his obvious honesty — even people who hate his liberal positions admit that he’s consistent and they believe he means what he says — Bernie can’t afford to not be 100% on the up-and-up.
I’m still not enthusiastic about Hillary, and I stand by my vote for Bernie in the Wisconsin primary. But at this point, Bernie has no realistic chance of winning the nomination, and if he did, the tax thing has damaged his credibility — the one thing he can’t afford to lose — in the general election.
Given how Bernie’s been treated, with people calling for him to be primaried in the next senate election for having the nerve to run for the democratic nomination, I couldn’t blame him if he said good riddance to the party and quit politics altogether. I don’t think he will, though — I think that, once he realizes he can’t win the primary, he’ll work as hard as he can to elect Hillary and progressive candidates downballot so that he has a chance to pass some of his agenda in the next Congress. Regardless, I think it’s (past) time for him to stop campaigning against Hillary.
I don’t need to love Hillary. I do need to beat Trump.