When Yes Isn’t An Option
… and when No means “Seriously, NO”
As the pressure increases to Support Hillary Because Trump, I’ve been feeling a personal statement coming on. It’s one that may well resonate with many of my fellow Bernie supporters.
I’m very, very over the lecturing and scolding along these lines: “Well, that’s fine to like Bernie, but be realistic; don’t be stupid/foolish/selfish/ignorant/
irresponsible (etc etc) enough to not vote for Clinton or god forbid support Trump — because it’s the same thing, you know.” Always with the strong inference, stated or un, that it’ll be the fault of me and my ilk if Trump wins.
So, here’s my new cut-n-paste statement in response:
The gross irresponsibility is on the heads — and at the choice — of the DNC and the superdelegate party elite, if they charge forward through the ethical crossroads to which they’ve brought the Party and the country. It’s not on the citizens whom they’ve deliberately done their best to deceive, manipulate, and now shame into supporting their deeply unacceptable candidate… OR ELSE.
Forget it. That game’s over, eschewed by both awake, actual “progressives” and essentially the entire rising generation of voters. If it takes both parties crashing to the ground to get that message across clearly to this entrenched, deaf-to-or-supremely-uncaring-about-the-citizenry establishment, let it come.
Hopefully, this private club will pull out of their suicide dive after being so completely called out on their sham of a ‘democratic’ Primary. Hopefully they’ll do the right thing for the future of the party, the citizens and the country come the Convention.
If they don’t, they’re likely to successfully prevent the nomination of the strongest candidate, as shown by his astonishing steady, yearlong rise against their expected shoo-in; as proven by his phenomenal continuing momentum, all polling, and the stark demographics showing him clearly to be the future of a Party that calls itself “progressive.” And all this despite every counter-effort on the part of his nominating party. And yes, I do put far less weight on the current, skewed “popular” vote of a citizenry and a primary manipulated to the max from Day 1… not to mention the major voting messes in significant states… and so should the superdelegates, given their sole intended function within the party.
If that’s where it lands, however I vote in November (and I will), it won’t be for Trump, nor will it be a spiteful “Screw Hillary.” But my vote will reflect my clear cognizance of everything that’s happened. And it will reflect clearly what I choose to no longer support.
No, it is not — AT ALL — about being a “sore loser.” And that’s now a phrase that might sever friendships, should I have anyone who calls me “friend” who thinks I’m that shallow.
I really am well aware of the circumstances and plenty informed, I’m guessing a good mile more than the average voter — at 56, I’m more politically informed and well-read than I’ve ever been in my life.
If this is what the Democratic Party has come to — not just the machinations to so dangerously push their pre-anointed, damaged candidate on the country; but the entire structure, the allegiances, the priorities and ethical hollowness reflected in party-elite lobbyists and the thorough integration of Big Industry funding… I don’t see them as any possible road to progress. Certainly not progress to anywhere I want to see my country taken. In fact, far in the opposite direction, to entrenching us so far into the corporate/geopolitical nightmare, that our nation — and possibly our planet — will never escape from it intact.
No. Thanks for the lecture and dire, finger-wagging warnings, but if the Party chooses this disastrous, dismissive path despite everything this Primary has shown them, then I’ll choose to vote with my conscience and knowledge and belief that we can do better than this if we demand it. I’ll risk the bumpiness of a brief, bumbling Trump presidency with an entire, very real American Revolution mobilized to bring him down (along with the remnants of the despicable GOP that birthed him).
Everything in our country and in the world points to this being the time and clear opportunity for major, vital, systemic change — perhaps our last — which, it very much appears, now means standing up to the status quo with a Very Loud “NO.” Said firmly, clearly and often. As many times as it takes.
When I outline my reasons for saying “No” to Clinton, more than one person has chided me with a sarcastic, “So Hillary frightens you but Trump doesn’t??”
Yes. Well, rather, of course Trump as a national leader is a pretty horrifying concept, in a major WTF way. But, to me, the reality of Clinton is worse, much more frightening in the long picture. And you gotta know I’m not alone in this; because the more you know, the scarier it gets. And there’s a growing number of us who know stuff now we’re not going to un-know.
Here’s the thing: Trump has no idea what he’s doing politically. He’s a pugnacious, yapping showdog chasing a slowing car. He won’t have any idea how the damned thing works if he catches it. Once in the Oval Office, he’d need handlers to show him how to work his zipper. If we focus on electing liberal down-ticket candidates, there’s very little Donald Trump could actually do of dire significance in his brief, media-panting tenure. (Yes, depending on how long he makes it, we may have Supreme Court issues. What have we learned in the last year about Advise and [non]Consent? As to the fear tactic of all the dire things we could lose if the wrong Judge goes in (I hear women’s reproductive rights thrown around a lot)… folks, this is still America. We can see in France right now what happens when a government hits the limit of what a very awakened, very mobilized and very motivated citizenry will accept.)
The Clintons, on the other hand, know exactly what they’re doing. They cut their teeth on this political paradigm; their entire careers have been steeped in gaming the ever-more-moneybound system from the get-go; they helped create and solidify — and have vastly benefitted from — the oligarchy our country now factually is.
Trump won’t be hard to stop. Clinton II in the White House would be all but impossible to stop. Trump shouts his dangerous shit from the rooftops; the Clintons have long experience in keeping theirs well below the radar. Hillary’s history, her priorities and her tendencies are clear and documented, and she will do everything in her power (which would be scarily vast and deeply networked after these decades) to make sure the likes of a Bernie Sanders can never get a toe-hold again.
Yes. That scares me a lot more.
So. On to the Convention… and beyond. In the meantime, if you’re one of the finger-waggers, just stop it. Write/call the superdelegates and the DNC instead. Below is a link to do just that.
And good luck to us all.