I can't cite a lousy night's sleep for my crankiness today when it comes to Bernie Sanders supporters who continue to whine and threaten to sit home if Sanders isn't the 2016 Democrat nominee. As if staying home on their grumpy asses on election day and by default potentially putting a Republican in the White does anything other than spell a death knell for the policies Sanders supporters claim to support and value. Is seeing the Supreme Court shifted to the right for a generation, more failed trickle down economics, increased military spending at the expense of social programs, and even more income inequality really worth proving ones "purity" to the Sanders mantra? I'm sorry, but I see such behavior as both irrational and an example of cutting off one's nose to spite their face. A pro-Sanders reader sent me a link to a piece that looks at the idiocy of this mindset as laid out by a Sanders supporter who cannot see that refusing to "learn to love Hillary Clinton" threatens everything the author claims to support. Here are excerpts:
The moment has arrived. That moment when the establishment’s sniggering apologists tell those damn idealists that it is time to get with the program and settle for the latest shabby party product or risk going home empty-handed. Hear the eternal refrain: Don’t make the perfect the enemy of the good.
There has been a slew of these strident come to Jesus jeremiads from the usual suspects after former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s win in the New York primary. But the latest sermon on submitting to destiny from former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau both perfectly encapsulates the mindlessDNCHillary Clinton Campaign talking points, while attempting to provide a how do you do fellow kids credibility because he was part of the 2008 primary fight against Hillary Clinton.
The substance of the screed is as tired as it is tiresome. Favreau makes a number of claims that fail basic scrutiny when he counsels supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders, or “Berniacs” as they are called by The Daily Beast. For instance:
“Maybe you don’t believe that she’s different from the caricature we’ve all helped perpetuate. But she is running a campaign with a policy platform that’s more progressive than her husband’s administration, her 2008 campaign, and—in a few cases—Barack Obama’s administration.”
The problem, of course, is not that Hillary Clinton is not taking progressive positions. The problem is that, given her record, the best analysis of her policy platform is that she is lying about those positions.
Senator Sanders not only offers a progressive platform that he has a well-demonstrated commitment to, but his theory of change is vastly different than former Secretary Clinton’s. Sanders sees change as coming from social movements, such as the Civil Rights Movement he participated in, which uses people power to pressure government officials into making concessions. Clinton claims that she will use her extensive experience in politics and government to personally work the gears of the state apparatus from the inside on behalf of the causes and people she states she cares for.
In summation, for those who genuinely support a progressive platform on domestic and foreign policy, Hillary Clinton is not qualified. Her record shows her approach to domestic policies is to run to the right while throwing up progressive rhetoric to cover her escape, and her foreign policy would be a return to Bush-era belligerence and incompetence.
In other words, no Jon, we won’t learn to love her, though maybe some of us will hold our noses and vote for her in November if she is the nominee to prevent an even worse candidate from taking over the empire. Then again, maybe not.
To quote the author, do Sanders supporters really prefer allowing someone even worse to occupy the White House, nominate Supreme Court appointments and push policies diametrically opposed to what Bernie Sanders supposedly stands for? Oh, and as for the parallel with the civil rights movement, does the author not recognize that 50 years later, the civil rights battle still is not over. Wake up to reality!!
2 comments:
so vote for the Hawk and head for the war zone guaranteed...
As I've commented elsewhere, even though there's a lot not to like about some of Hillary's past policies and even if one may have doubts as to the depth of her commitment to evolving, there can be no doubt whatsoever as to what the Trumpster would like to do and of the willingness of the moral degenerates that comprise the Republiscum Party to enable him to fulfill their own desires. They ALL have proven over and over that despite their claims to love America, they have nothing but contempt and disdain for most of the people who live in America.
People who sit out the election are like the Nader supporters whose self-indulgence helped lead to the appointment of George W. Bush as President and the subsequent invasion of Iraq, disenfranchisement of vast numbers of Americans, and attacks on the rights of people who do productive work for a living. And those who see a Trump presidency -- as Nader supporters had seen a Bush presidency -- as laying the framework for a New New World Order are in the same camp as those who declared that it was necessary to destroy a village to save it.
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