Why a vote for Hillary is more than a vote against Trump and why Bernie’s fight still matters
We are now at a point in a primary battle where the candidates have shown their character and enough people have voted that some paths now seem clearer than others. The narrative is that Trump and Hillary will be our nominees (the only nominees in the eyes of the media) and that we now have to pick. I will say up front that this is far from over, or accurate, but that’s not what I’d like to address here. I want to talk again about the “lesser of two evils.”
Trump is either one of the world’s greatest show-people, insane, or both. He is presenting terrible things that would be huge steps back in social justice for America, for race, for unity. He has also, to my knowledge, never been responsible for making direct decisions resulting in the deaths of human beings.
Hillary has been pushed left by the work done during the primary with Bernie — who was drafted into this particular stage of the fight by the internet, even announcing his candidacy 10 months ago on Reddit — and even before the push had some reasonable domestic policy. She can be defined as a domestic centrist, which may be better than Trump.
She’s also had terrible positions on domestic policy — continuation of the war on drugs (including not supporting full decriminalization for marijuana), for the death penalty, in favor of some limitations on abortion, pro “universal healthcare” that is enforced along with privatized companies controlling the prices instead of single payer, and while she says she is for campaign finance reform she has not refused the DNCs latest decision to reverse Obama’s lobbying fundraising reforms. She is in favor of domestic spying, against increased encryption for consumer devices. She has bundled donations from anti net-neutrality lobbyists. These are things that, personally, make her a less desirable candidate.
But here’s the big thing — all of the stated positions aside, she has an actual track record of killing other human beings through direct decisions and actions she took. Not just her vote for the Iraq War, but the operations she has personally overseen. She likes to take credit for the killing of Bin Laden, but let’s look at Libya, where Gaddafi (by no means being defended as a person here himself) was killed without trial, was sodomized with a bayonet. Warning, the youtube links in that Wikipedia article are graphic.
She has joked about it.
She has put lack of US losses ahead of thousands of civilian casualties in her interests abroad. She is an interventionist, pro regime change, and the architect of several military actions that are as bad as many in our history. She is a friend of Kissinger. Make no fucking mistake about it, she has blood on her hands.
If this comes down to “the lesser of two evils,” I’m honestly having a hard time sorting this out. No politician in our history has had their hands clean. I’m not completely blind to the ways of American power. Sanders himself has voted for continuing to support military action and I’m not personally advocating pacifism or pretending we are not part of global conflicts already existing. But I am worried about our attitudes towards war, towards killing, towards our fellow human beings. When Sanders speaks of the tragedies of war, I hear a familiar pain.
In this election, it’s quite possible that with Trump being insane and riding a wave of fascist populism, his presidency will result in worse things than Hillary could come up with. He has flirted with denouncing regime change, but has said blatantly violent statements about what he would personally do in the middle east or to any “terrorists.” But a vote for Hillary is a confirmation that our military industrial complex is still in power, it’s a vote for war and it’s an acceptance of leadership at the highest level that, quite publicly, is in favor of war as a resort that is far from last. Bernie is the first democratic presidential candidate I’ve seen at this point, this far, in my entire life, who has said in a televised debate that America cannot be the policeman of the world.
A vote “To Keep Trump Out”, as it is being presented by the Democratic establishment, must still be understood as a vote “For Hillary.” And there are other options. There will be Stein, of course, solid and steadfast, but right now there is still also Bernie. He’s still in the race. And even if he doesn’t make it all the way, every vote for him should be counted and the Party needs to understand that there are those of us in the Democratic party (and I voted for Gore over Nader after much heart wrenching, believe me, I’ve been thinking about this a long time) who desperately want our party back.
Anyone who is upset at these criticisms being spoken because they may “hurt her chances in the general” is not understanding that these are exactly already why her chances are slimmer in the general — the left understands these things and wants a genuinely compassionate candidate that supports the issues they are passionate about. They sat out the moderate democrat elections before Obama, where we at least had hope things would be different.
The right hates Hillary for other reasons and will never cease attacking. If you truly want to defeat Trump, do everything in your power to help Bernie now.
I’ve spent time on the ground in several states and he’s the only candidate I’ve seen that has positive reactions from both republicans I talk to upset with their party and many long term democrats sick of voting for war, as well as independents and first time voters trying to find someone who just feels honest. And maybe with Bernie in office (and again, he is not an anti-war candidate on the level I’d wish) there will be discussion again about drone strikes, militarization of police, everything else that comes with the contemporary Democratic party.
And if reform from within it does not come — as the DNC is making clear they will fight every step of the way, not even letting congress level primary challengers have access to the democratic database for campaigning against incumbents — then it is up to us to take this battle past the primary. The shape of it is unclear now, but we have shown that in 2016 we are capable of pulling “fringe candidates” into the spotlight. We’ve done it once — we can do it again. I hope Bernie will be with us, but Bernie is part of a movement that we should continue supporting until the convention. And beyond.
Thank you for reading and I hope you consider this seriously.
