A (Brief) Case For Hillary To Bernie Fans

This was spurred by a friend’s Facebook post essentially asking why Bernie supporters should be excited for Hillary — other than fear of Trump (which IMO is a pretty good reason in and of itself), what’s the positive case for Hillary? This is written from that perspective — speaking to a “Berner” who’s wondering, “why should I be excited for Hillary?”

I really don’t understand the enmity that Bernie people have for Hillary on anything relating to domestic policy. (Their differences on foreign policy are more significant, but if you really think Trump will be better on that front, I don’t really know what to say).

But on the various progressive priorities that seem to be energizing Bernie folks — health care, college debt, etc. — the differences are mostly about tactics rather than goals. Hillary believes (correctly IMO) that given a Republican Congress it’s better to fight for incremental, achieveable progress, than go down swinging fighting for the whole enchilada.

Bernie/Berners tend to disagree, and argue that the magic of the political revolution (tm) will force Republicans to accede to their demands. I’m not buying it, but that’s the theory in a nutshell — that there’s this great majority support for these radical progressive ideas, and that by organizing those forces they can get Republicans to accept them (or vote them out of office). Color me skeptical about that theory, but that’s not really the point here.

Here’s the thing though — on most matters of domestic policy, the President is constrained by Congress. Any progressive piece of legislation that manages to get through Congress, you can be sure Hillary will sign. Does anyone really believe that if Congress magically passed a public option for health care that President Hillary Clinton would veto it? Or a $15 minimum wage? Or a college debt forgiveness bill?

The President isn’t a magician. Hillary will fight for all the same progressive priorities, albeit perhaps with different tactics (less hectoring at people, more co-option and compromise). So the positive argument is pretty much the same positive argument as for Bernie — or any Democrat, to be honest — on domestic policy: she’ll fight for a higher minimum wage; she’ll fight to protect and expand rights for LTGBQ individuals; she’ll fight to build on the gains of the ACA; and so on. She will appoint a Justice to the Supreme Court (and probably more than one, given the makeup of the court) who will protect choice, the environment, the Affordable Care Act, and pretty much every other Democratic/progressive win of the past half-century.

I will say that a much more Hillary-specific argument is that she’s *really really good* at the mechanics of governing — like, unusually good. Dick-Cheney-level good (*that* guy knew how to work the levers of government), except NOT EVIL. Looking at the modern presidency, that factor — knowing how to actually use the powers of the office and get people to do what you want them to do — is highly underrated. I’m looking forward to her boring, competent, march of progress.

This conveniently-timed Vox post lays out the “boring governance is good governance” case in greater (and much better-researched) detail: http://www.vox.com/2016/7/28/12308198/hillary-clinton-speech-dnc