It’s after midnight so it’s officially Tuesday here in Oregon. Yesterday I had my gobsmacked lesson in “The Culture of the Kos Diary Commentariat — 101.”
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In the comments to my diary well-reasoned arguments agreeing or disagreeing with me predominated. I appreciate those who wrote them, especially those who took the time to write thoughtful essays that could easily be diaries themselves. But interspersed were insults, innuendo, and accusations of my being a liar and an accomplice (shill) of Hillary. Some people seemed to think new diarists on Daily Kos are less credible than long time diarists.
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I was struck by the vehemence of some of the Bernie supporters against me. These comments were rare. More telling, and to me unfortunate, was the anti-Hillary sentiment expressed with hyperbole to demonize (or Trumpinize) her.
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What do I actually think of Hillary Clinton?
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I have it on good authority that she is one of the most driven and ambitious politicians in Washington today. She is sometimes abrupt to the point of being rude to her staff and to people she knows well in the corridors of power in D.C. She can be so focused she doesn’t recognize that she may hurt other’s feelings. At times she can make comments that are dismissive of “the little people.” And yes, like many politicians, the warm and fuzzy Hillary is often an act. You’ll just have to trust me that my source for this knows of what they speak, so please don’t ask.
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A President Hillary Clinton won’t do the bidding of corporations, big banks, Wall Street and others in the donor class. She will consider their interests just as Bernie would (and yes, Bernie would listen to their representatives). She’d decide on her own what decisions to make in the interest of the 99%. Her ill-advised pocketing of wads of money from Goldman Sachs for giving speeches was just that, ill advised. It wasn’t, as Bernie seems to imply, without using the word, a “bribe” in advance to do their bidding if she got to be president.
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She won’t start another Iraq-type war even though she voted for the first. She won’t use NSA satellites to spy on your backyard barbecues.
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She also won’t be Bernie Sanders trying to fulfill a promise to bring a revolution for the 99% to Washington. That doesn’t mean it isn’t her intention to do so in her own (dare I say) establishment way. Bernie took ownership of the idea of bringing a revolution to Washington, and Hillary really couldn’t use similar rhetoric because it would have been a fairly direct attack on Obama.
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It’s become almost a given that whenever Democrats talk about this election they give credit to Bernie for energizing so many apathetic people, especially young but believe me, there’s no age limit especially in the Feel the Bern Portland elder community. Bernie also is given credit for forcing Hillary to the left, especially in paying attention to income inequality. It may be Bernie sacrilege to say that nobody really knows that Hillary wouldn’t have paid attention to this if she ran unopposed. Let’s say it another way. We can only speculate because Bernie grabbed this as his cause and ran on it to great success. This is nothing against Bernie, it needed to be done if only to assure that it would be the major domestic issue in the election among Democrats. It is truly the major domestic issue we face, though not with Republicans, where illegal immigration seems to be their spoken major domestic issue, with lots of underlying racism.
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I think a President Sanders would have been hard pressed to change Washington in the dramatic way he promised unless the Democrats won both houses of Congress. If anything Hillary will make incremental progressive changes. She’ll be thwarted or enabled depending on the results of House and Senate races. Since it’s more possible the Democrats will win control over the Senate, prognosticators should think of the changes a Democratic president can make with the Senate backing her, but not the House. For one thing, judicial and other presidential appointments won’t be held hostage.
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On a personal note, it’s lucky I am retired, like to write, and have so much time on my hands. I had nothing else to do after I posted yesterday’s diary and spent an amazing amount of time following the comments and responding to them.
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Who knows what tomorrow will bring. It’s hard to imagine this diary will provoke as much discussion as yesterdays. In the morning I’ll head up to Waterfalls Cafe here at the old folks home, Willamette View, with Mac and Duff (my Westies) and my trusty laptop, and schmooze with the other elders over politics and mortality as we usually do. Maybe readers will comment, maybe they’ve had enough of me. Either way, yesterday was quite an experience for this Daily Kos newbie.
