Full disclosure: I am a Sanders supporter who caucused for him in my state and am disappointed that he did not secure the nomination.
That said, I have about had it with the Bernie-or-Bust crybabies who insist they can never support or vote for Hillary. Even though they constitute only about 10-15 percent of Bernie’s supporters, they could be a factor in electing Donald Trump as President, whether by voting for him, voting 3rd party, or not voting at all.
I am reminded of children who will throw a tantrum because they don’t get everything they want, when in fact a lot of what they sought is already on the Democratic Party’s platform: reforming the criminal justice system, a $15 minimum wage with inflation index, tuition-free public college under a certain income level, aggressive attention to climate change with a price on carbon, stronger support for LGBT causes, putting a strong leash on Wall Street with a new Glass-Steagall-type law, opposing death penalty, expansion of Social Security, progress on banning of fracking, legalizing marijuana and a number of other proposals. The Sanders proposals to limit the revolving door between government and the private sector, to end the occupation of Palestine, and to oppose the TPP outright were not approved, but the document is still the most progressive one ever, and – on top of that – Hillary stated publicly that she opposes the TPP.
While it is true that the platform has historically been largely ignored by the President, this year there is sufficient support for its agenda that the Sanders bloc will be able to hold Hillary’s feet to the fire on most of it. And a lot of it is close to her heart and her priorities anyway. What can be said with certainty is that Bernie’s popularity has pulled the discussion to the left and made the Party more truly progressive than it has been since the 1960’s.
What the “crybabies” don’t know or what they willingly ignore is that all progress comes in fits and starts. About the only time it comes in one fell swoop (eg: French Revolution, Russian Revolution), the end result is not a good one. Better to nurse it along with a tempered approach, much as our founding fathers did in the 1780’s and 1790’s. The conservatives may be obstacles to attaining all we want as fast as possible, but they do tend to keep us progressives more honest and responsible. This would include the conservative element within our own Party. We need to contain our enthusiasm with observations like MLK’s famous statement, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
I’ve been around for nearly 70 years. Born during Truman’s presidency, I have seen the prosperity of the Eisenhower years. I have endured the assassination of the Kennedys and King. I have seen the implementation of the Civil Rights Act and Medicare. I have experienced combat in Vietnam, was awarded a Purple Heart, and eventually denied a military career due to my moral opposition to that war. I have watched Nixon lie to the nation and be forced from office. I have watched a well-intentioned Carter fail to learn from his mistakes, followed by a Reagan administration that saw the Beirut bombing and Iran-Contra without any Congressional penalties and which started us down the dismal road of trickle-down economics. Then there was that 8-year respite from austerity that was the Bill Clinton years; too conservative for my taste and with a lot of false steps, but at least working us in a more progressive direction and significantly improving our economy. And then there were the GW Bush years starting in 2001 that saw an intelligence failure allow the devastation of 9/11, followed by ever-more-regressive and repressive policies under the so-called Patriot Act and the devastation of interminable wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (the former of which was completely unnecessary and for which Bush lied to get Congress to approve.) These years also saw the demise of banking oversight which resulted in the 2008 recession.
Finally, we elected a truly good man to the office who, due to his skin color and progressivism, was condemned and obstructed at almost every turn by the most conservative and reactionary Congress in recent time. In spite of this Obama has accomplished a lot, such as the ACA (Obamacare), the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), rescuing the American auto industry, signing Dodd-Frank to put limits on banks, appointing two good Supreme Court justices (should be 3, but obstruction is preventing that), killing Osama bin Laden, reestablishing American honor and respect in the world, and a large number of useful laws and executive orders.
The point of this is that history is not all that far in the past and is not uniform. It has its ups and downs. It is not smooth sailing from one point to a better one. To expect the simple election of Bernie Sanders to magically heal our nation is as naïve as believing that Trump can expel 11 million citizens or that he can build a wall that Mexico will pay for or that he can oppress and expel Muslims. In order to have a Sanders “revolution” we would need a commanding majority in both the House and Senate in addition to Sanders in the White House. Bernie himself has indicated this on more than one occasion. This would require massive voting by Progressives and Independents, as well as good candidates for those offices. No matter what else happens this year, such a sea change is not going to happen in the numbers needed.
We need instead to find and elect as many progressive candidates as we can, which includes much legwork by us progressives to get out the vote. More importantly, we need to redouble our efforts in 2018, a presidential off-year when all too few progressives bother to vote. Remember the sea changes that occurred in 2010 and 2014, when lack of votes for Democrats ushered in Tea Party and far-right-wing dominance. It will take us years to recover from that. If (BIG if) we can get a majority in both houses of Congress and in enough state houses by 2020, we can at least rewrite Congressional districts so that they are not gerrymandered to benefit the GOP. In fact, we need to make gerrymandering illegal. And then, assuming that we are able to enact progressive policies that benefit all in a fair manner, we will continue to garner support and a greater majority. But this all takes time. And patience. And hard work. And voting!
Obama is the President with whom I feel the greatest affinity, especially after the dismal failures of Nixon, Reagan and GW Bush. Now, because of the 22nd Amendment, Obama can no longer serve, and we much choose anew. Our viable choices are Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. Trump is self-evidently unfit for the office and totally unprepared; if he were elected, we are in deep trouble in ways that have been effectively documented elsewhere.
So now we come to Hillary, whom all-too-many Berniebots condemn as unworthy and untrustworthy. It should be noted that the attacks on her honesty are all rooted in 24 years of Republican obsession with her. Issues like the Vince Foster incident, Whitewater, Monica Lewinsky, Benghazi, and the email “scandal” have all been pursued to the point of exhaustion by the Republicans who have utterly failed to pin any of this stuff on her. Let us look at the email and Benghazi issues which are the only ones that can be considered current and relevant.
FBI Director Comey has recommended against bringing charges, and with good reason. Both of Hillary’s predecessors in the Secretary of State position (Powell and Rice) used private email and have been found to have been far more “careless” with secret information than Hillary. Charging her would imply the necessity of charging them also. In fact, when further questioned on Hillary’s use of “secret” information in her email, Comey admitted that the documents were not even secret, nor were they marked appropriately. Was she careless? Perhaps, but not as much as some members of Congress, notably including Trey Gowdy and Jason Chaffetz, who to this date still use private email.
And then there is the question of deleting some 30,000 emails. Whether or not they were all personal, as Hillary has stated, such deletion pales in comparison to the 5 million(!) emails deleted by GW Bush and Karl Rove, and no GOP committee has ever been formed to investigate THAT.
As for the issue of the four Americans killed in Benghazi, let us review Hillary’s involvement in that. The GOP witch-hunt in the form of Trey Gowdy’s Committee lasted longer than any other investigation in history and yielded exactly no new information. What is certain is that Hillary did what she could from her location in DC, and tried as well as she could to expedite assistance and rescue. The resources to effect such rescue simply did not exist, and they did not exist precisely because the penny-wise and pound-foolish GOP Congress cut funding for our embassies.
In the matter of honesty, there are some false statements that can be attributed to Hillary, but far fewer than virtually any other politician of recent vintage. Politifact lists 73% of her statements as at least half true. Contrast that with 25% for Trump (and 75% false with nearly 20% pants-on-fire false!) In fact, Politifact shows her as even more honest than Bernie Sanders (though not by much.)
The long and short of it is that Hillary’s “dishonesty” is mostly a figment of Republican wishful thinking. If the Bernie loyalists continue to disparage her on that basis, they are buying into GOP talking points and ignoring reality.
Without the dishonesty issue as a legitimate gripe, the only reasons to oppose Hillary would be (a) she’s not progressive enough and (b) she’s not likeable. The likeability issue should be irrelevant. A lot of people 155 years ago didn’t like Abe Lincoln, including some in his cabinet, but he proved to be worthy of our respect. Who can say the same would not apply to Hillary?
To say she’s not progressive enough is to beg the question. First, she has fully adopted many of Bernie’s progressive positions. Second, she is even more progressive than Bernie on some issues, such as gun control. Third, her commitment to children’s health and to women’s rights is second to none.
So, to the Berniebots, I lay this challenge: With Trump, we take 10 steps back into the past, at least to 1950 if not before. Racial and religious and ethnic discrimination once again rears its ugly head. Authoritarianism becomes centralized in the person of the President. Progressivism is in full retreat, perhaps never to recover.
With Hillary, we have a continuation and enhancement of the Obama policies that have served us so well in the past 7.5 years. We will have a more progressive approach to politics than even Obama was able to pursue. And, most importantly, we have the example of Bernie and the dream of a progressive nation that works for all of us. Bernie is not going to disappear. He will work on ways to energize and empower the progressive movement even more. He will push hard for mid-term voting participation, one of my pet issues. He will be relentless in trying to tame Wall Street. He will advocate strongly for environmental issues. Hillary will not put very many, if any, obstacles in his way, as Trump certainly would.
Thus, to vote for Trump is a vote against everything you’ve supported with Bernie. A vote for no one or a vote for a third-party candidate only increases Trump’s chances of winning. You may have a visceral dislike of Hillary, as illogical as that may be, but you owe it to yourself and to the rest of us to insure that Trump is NOT the winner of this election by accepting Hillary as your President. Grow up and deal with reality. Wishful thinking will get us nowhere. Instead, get involved and agitate, after the election as well as before.
-Doug McGaw
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Interesting responses… and far more than are probably warranted and many of which are off-topic. The strength of some of the responses certainly shows that I succeeded in hitting a nerve with a number of people. My first reaction is, “If the shoe fits, wear it. Otherwise don’t worry about it.” I have not responded to the responses until now for two reasons: 1. Let the anger and furor die down, and 2. I had surgery yesterday (after posting) so am not up for a dogfight.
Is the title over the top? Perhaps, but the Bernie-or-Busters whose comments I’ve seen seem to invite the scold. Again, if the shoe fits… I shan’t apologize for my words or tone, since they reflect my thoughts pretty well. And they are my thoughts, and no one else’s. Besides, I’ve not seen any way to change the title.