Monday, May 23, 2016

Letting Go of Bernie Sanders


As Bernie Sanders speaks beautifully and passionately not twenty-five miles from where I sit, as I close the mail-in ballot that carries my vote for him here in California, as I clear my schedule for some phone banking this weekend, I’m despondent because I’m thinking about the campaign and in my mind I have ceded defeat, as have many of us who were feeling the Bern. We all turn at different times; some have let go before me, some have yet to, and I am currently in the process. Some will hang on psychologically until the moment of nomination, perhaps even afterward. Much of the #NeverHillary arm of Sanders support is tipping the king as well and are already voicing their rationalization of voting for Jill Stein or Bugs Bunny, writing in Bernie Sanders or just staying home. Not me. Jill Stein is not even on the ballot in many states and as such is the purest kind of spoiler. Staying home abrogates your civic duty on down ballot elections and the Bugs Bunny thing, though adorable, is not helpful for anyone.

I was an avid Sanders supporter and will be until the end. The end of the primary, that is, and at that point I will load all of my eggs into the Hillary basket. I hope Sanders plays nine innings and maximizes his pressure on the DNC and the rest of the party apparatus to take the progressive arm of the party seriously, but I am also preparing myself for the change. The fact of Sanders having secured five appointments to the Platform Committee today validates his having stayed in it this long, just as his staying in through California and into the convention will likely garner still greater progressive influence. But the best way for the Sanders campaign to remain relevant in the coming administration is to ensure a Democratic victory in the fall, as Sanders progressives will mean next to nothing under a Trump presidency.

In my opinion, the Democratic side fielded two very different candidates this presidential campaign year, both of them excellent. Some number of my liberal friends will blanch at this, but if you look at Clinton’s senate voting record, you will see that her policy dispositions aren’t too far right of the candidate I was supporting. She is a hardcore policy wonk, from the nuts and bolts of legislation to the teeth pulling of appropriation to the final job of implementation, and her network is vast. There is no more prepared person in the country to be president and no more connected person in terms of having good working relationships with all of the major players on the world stage. Relative to her opponent, the comparison would be laughable were the consequences of a Trump presidency not so dire. No learning on the job needed with a Clinton presidency and the sigh of relief that world markets would breathe could be measured in the hundreds of billions.

A source of resentment for some Sanders supporters has been the clear advantage Clinton has had in terms of Democratic establishment support and preference. Isn’t that fair enough though? Sanders is an Independent and has been his entire political career. He stepped into the Democratic Party’s apparatus solely to launch this bid, and as is the case with any organization, its inevitable tilt is going to favor someone who has been involved in the support and maintenance of that apparatus for a long time. I have been a Sanders believer since well before he declared his candidacy and I fully expected the handicap to extend beyond name recognition and into the murky netherworld of party machinery. It’s the nature of David and Goliath schemes.

A fair way to think of it is that Sanders was up against a reticent party apparatus that was the practical equivalent of what Trump was fighting. Each ran into the headwinds of their own chosen party establishment. Trump’s victory over the Republican establishment was undeniable in spite of the advantages afforded the other candidates by virtue of its preference for them. Sanders was unable to compensate for the advantages that were afforded Clinton by the DNC. Membership has its privileges. Sanders needed to win conspicuously against all slings and arrows like Trump did, and he just damn didn’t

Still, our side presented a case clearly and fearlessly in the face of a daunting rival, and though we lost (or seem to have), we made a sizable impact that will not be ignored in the party platform and rules, and consequentially in down-ticket funds allocation. It is, as Sanders says, the beginning of a political revolution, and this has been a mighty shot across the bow. The best way to make Sanders’ accomplishments this primary season all for naught would be to participate in a boycott that would damage Hillary’s chances in November. A lot of my fellow Sanders boosters say they won’t support Hillary in the general election, but I don’t think that’s wise. Supporting Hillary Clinton in her historic bid for the presidency is an essential element of maximizing the impact of Bernie Sanders’ unprecedented campaign.

Hillary is a hawk, but her foreign policy connections and relationships are deeper than anyone on the planet, and her major moves in foreign policy will never be capricious. Trump would start a war just to watch stuff blow up or because some world leader rubbed him the wrong way.

The Supreme Court affects people in their most intimate places. To have its direction steered by a hand that is callous and dismissive of large groups would be a travesty of civilization.

Hillary is nothing if not stable. Trump is nothing if not unstable. Markets like stability. You do the math.

The reasons a Clinton presidency would be more just, safe and prosperous than a Trump presidency are myriad, and all three categories are very much in delicate balance. I’ve heard the give-up mentality of voting for Trump just so the pendulum swings, just so America gets what it deserves, just to set the rhinoceros loose in the art museum and see what happens, but I say let’s not find out. That’s not a serious and sober way to look at America, this year, right now, for the next four or eight years. Trump versus Clinton. There is no question as to which of these two individuals is qualified to be president of the United States and which is not. My preferred candidate did not prevail, but decent, thinking people need to consider the importance of this election. 

A friend of mine recently talked about holding his nose and voting for Clinton. The fact is that he would be pinching off the stench of a four decades-long career of fighting smartly and effectively for children and families. He would be sparing himself the reek of bravely championing LGBT concerns at home and abroad before it was politically expedient. Holding your nose and voting for Hillary lets you avoid the fetor of a career-long commitment to broadening access to healthcare in America. I guess that kind of courage and confidence in domestic and international affairs really makes you grab for the clothespins.

My fellow Sanders supporters and I swung for the fences and did the improbable this past year. We financed a national presidential primary on spare change and let the most powerful political organization in America know that there is a large, informed, motivated and engaged portion of the citizenry that is not happy with the status quo. We will be considered in this coming administration, but remember folks, only if Clinton prevails in November. It is important to demonstrate engagement through local activism and electing progressive candidates to state legislatures, city councils, school boards, dogcatcher positions and the like, while at the same time keeping the pressure on at the federal level; the best way for a Sanders supporter to do that right now is to see that Hillary Clinton is elected president in November, not Donald Trump.  


19 comments:

  1. Very well thought out, reasonable and persuasive. I love Bernie and I'm glad he's pulling the party to the left. Hillary will be so much better than Trump that to not vote for her in November would be like letting go of the steering wheel and letting an angry chimp drive your car.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for reading and considering this point of view. It ain't easy for a lot of us.

      Delete
    2. Kind of like what you did in 2008 letting a senator with 143 days experience run the country?

      Delete
  2. The truth is that Hillary Clinton is a hard core Washington insider who is controlled by special interests and PAC money. If she is elected we will see very little reform indeed. She has already stated that the very idea of free higher education for Americans is absurd, even though Germany, Finland, France, Brazil and even Cuba and Iran have free college. She doesn't think that single payer health care will work in America, even though it works in the rest of the industrialized world. She voted for the war in Iraq, so her foreign policy positions are questionable at best. And she has endless skeletons in her closet, from Whitewater to email breaches to her associations with shady lobbyists. Trump looks like a nightmare, yes, but God help us if we end up with Hillary. Bernie might have been America's last chance at redemption. Once he's gone it will be a choice between very bad and much worse.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I know. I know I know I know. I know. And also I know. And, you're right. You're right you're right you're right. And also, you're right. It ain't easy, is it?

      Delete
    2. Bernie has NEVER advocated for, much less promised, "free higher education" for Americans. His plan is free TUITION at PUBLIC universities, which would be paid for by Americans, which means it's not free. Stop it with the grandiosity and hyperbole (something Sanders supports CAN'T see to stop). Single payer might work for our grandchildren...maybe...maybe not. One thing I've never, ever seen Bernie fans count is the number of jobs lost to: 1. Bernie's payroll tax (it will be millions of jobs, by the way), and 2. the number of jobs lost to all the things that Bernie wants to do away with. If we have single payer, we don't need health insurance companies. Guess how many people work at health insurance companies? And she doesn't have ANY skeletons in her closet, because we've heard about them for nearly 30 years!!! The closet has been cleaned out. Nothing ever sticks. And that's what makes the HRC haters so mad.

      Delete
  3. 3 things:

    1. Just to be clear, Hillary was not "bravely championing LGBT concerns at home and abroad long before it was politically expedient."

    That is a falsehood. As recently as 2002 as a NY senator she expressed opposition to legal gay marriage. Hillary Clinton consistently does and says What is politically expedient to serve her political career. By definition she is not a champion of any policy or any group. She is a champion only of her political career.

    2. Despite this, If she is the democratic nominee and Bernie doesn't run as independent I will vote for her.

    3. If Bernie runs as an independent I will vote for him because I care about my children's future more than Hillary Clintons career.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Voting for Bernie as a third party candidate is ensuring a Trump presidency. Not unlike voting for Trump outright. Wake up.

    ReplyDelete
  5. It's a lot like many folks with hoarding disorders. The belief permeates that to give up one thing is to give up everything associated with it, and so, a betrayal of that original, sometimes disconnected genesis of the attachment. Ceding that Sanders is likely out of the running for the nomination doesn't mean that you have to give up principles, ideas, ideals or core beliefs. It just means that you have to work to find expression for those values through available means. And, to ask yourself what realistically available options will move you towards the prize. I look to the struggle for women's voting rights, African-American voting rights and civil rights struggles in general to see that they are not one all at once — even though, in retrospect, one can certainly point to watershed moments — but in tiny steps that sometimes seem as if no progress is being made. My wife's parents, black children of the pre-Depression South, never thought they'd see the end of Jim Crow, much less any semblance of real positive cultural change, yet my father-in-law lived to see the first African-American president. As Dr. King and others used to say, "Keep your eyes on the prize."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. What a wonderful comment. So thoughtful and generous. Unlike most comments I have read this election season, you have shown you have a head AND a heart.

      Delete
    2. I concur, a lovely contribution to the discussion.

      Delete
  6. You are wrong to concede, and wrong to adore Mrs. Clinton. You are doing a disservice to Democrats, and most importantly are failing to recognize reality. The reality is you are dissing the winds of change, Hillary is toxic, and always gets more toxic as her competition gets tougher. Democrats in power recognized she was toxic and kicked her to curb in 2008, promising her state. They do it again when they realize change will win, and toxic old school will not win. Hillary is driving the Bernie bus to Trump town. Ruining both hers and Bernie's chances to win. The centrists will bail on dems and Hillary but stay for Bernie. Centrists are the voters who matter. In a rare election staying home let's the other guys win. In most election, the core votes as expected, and the swing voters win or lose it for candidates. Only Bernie has a chance to beat Trump. If anyone can.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Sorry to hear you capitulate....That you have yielded control of your freewill to the unrelenting pressure of the elite...you are powerless....you are alone...accept our kinder gentler form of tyranny...It is your only hope...

    ReplyDelete
  8. I'm not a Democrat. I love Bernie. Hillary is just as disgusting if not less palatable then Trump. If faced between Hillary of Trump, neither will will get my vote. Period.

    ReplyDelete
  9. For the first time in my life, I shall maintain the courage of my convictions in this Presidential campaign. No more voting the the lesser of two evils. Even in I need to scratch Bernie's name on the ballot with my pocket knife.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sanders progressives will have little influence under a Trump presidency. Please consider that over the course of the summer as the bruise begins to heal. Thank you for reading and commenting.

      Delete
  10. IOWA RESPONDS...February First...I flew up to my registered state of Iowa, entirely to vote for Bernie in the First Election. My Florida friends thought I was crazed.."He doesn't have a chance". Even though Crooked Hillary claims winning that first contest in Iowa, the Iowa Supervisor of Elections still calls it a Dead Tie. Iowans had confidence in a way underdog, just as we did for "That unknown Black Kid from Chicago" Iowans are way different breed of Americans. We vote with our hearts and the hell with Coastal Media Predictions. Amazing that Iowans bet everything on a little known Senator from Vermont. To this last moment. I find no encouragement or satisfaction that my once home state of California is unwilling to Stand Up for their core belief and ignore Coastal Media.

    I am Printing "Impeach Hillary" bumper stickers!

    Tim Taffe
    Fort Lauderdale

    ReplyDelete
  11. Then she shouldn't have turned on the progressive base ... because she's likely to lose. Then ... blame the base. Wait until the indictment ... right in October.

    ReplyDelete
  12. She played politics, classic hardball, and she won. To knock out the champ, ya gotta knock out the champ. Bernie didn't. Now you can think hard and ask who is ready for the presidency, for appointing supreme court justices, maybe three of them, for nuclear codes? You can be like the guy in the wheelchair who slammed his brakes on because someone was tailgating him: I may be crippled but I made my point.

    ReplyDelete