Thursday, June 02, 2016

The Thing I Don't Get About The Bernie Supporters Who Say They'll Never Vote Hillary

(Update: Hello again, Crooks & Liars readers visiting via Mike's Blog Round-Up! Thank you, Batocchio for all your support! Oh, and Infidel753 added a link to here as well. Danke!)

Actually, there's several things I don't get.

There's a very noticeable online faction of Bernie voters - yes, the BernieBros - who'll say they'll vote Trump instead of Hillary when the time comes this November.

To which I say ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR GODDAMN MINDS.

Part of their argument is that they can never support Hillary as she is untrustworthy, a liar, too far Right in her politics for their tastes, a War Hawk who'll bomb other nations.

And Trump isn't any of that already?! Every argument these anti-Hillary voters have applies just as well - no, worse - to what Trump will do in the White House.

Trump will clearly - he's openly promised to these things - bomb "enemy" nations, push for a return of an illegal torture regime, start trade wars with China, disrupt our foreign allies to the point of chaos. Trump foreign policy would be a disaster beyond the pale of what happened under Bush the Lesser.

Trump's economic policies would favor the elites far worse than anything a pro-business Hillary will offer up to Wall Street and the banks. And Trump will clearly create an economic crisis - just on his trade protectionism alone - that would rival the Great Depression.

Trump's domestic and civil rights policies will be complete disasters for everyone - yes, white folk included - as his anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant policies will be on scales far worse than our shameful internment of Japanese-Americans in World War II, than our mistreatment of Native tribes since the 1800s, than our decades of Jim Crow segregation.

Do you really think Hillary will commit even a tenth of the sins a Trump Presidency will inflict on our nation, on the world? Do you think Hillary is a worse candidate, a bigger liar than Trump?

You'd be wrong.

Hint: Hillary is nowhere near the liar Trump is. So take that excuse for voting Trump and shove it up your collective ass, BernieBros.

Hint Number Two: If it gets to be Hillary vs. Trump, Hillary is the candidate most likely to NOT commit massive civil rights abuses here at home, and is the most likely to NOT leave nuclear craters in places like Gaza, Iran, and Atlantic City (I am not joking). Will Hillary be a War Hawk? Compared to Obama, probably. Compared to Trump, she'll be a f-cking Pacifist qualifying for the Nobel Peace Prize For Not Being a Republican Neocon.

For all the claims on Hillary being a weak candidate who can lose to Trump, she's been consistently hitting Trump on his failed business practices, his terrible rhetoric, his sexism and racism. She will not flinch against him the way the Republican field of nobodies who quit this primary season. I can't see why this is an argument.

For all the claims that Bernie can do better, that's barely a point made from the current polls. Both Hillary and Trump can beat him, and the polling is better for Bernie (now) only because the polling for Hillary is artificially skewed by fake scandals the Far Right is STILL shilling 25 years on. Hillary's Unfavorables are high now only because there's a sizable faction against her among Dem ranks. Once she gains the nomination - much like for Republicans lining up (painfully) behind Trump - it's a good bet the polling for her will improve (Trump's Unfavorables remain high even after securing the GOP nomination... because Trump IS THAT BAD).

There's one more thing for the anti-Hillary voters among the Far Left to remember: there is more at stake here than just the White House.

Whoever wins the Presidency this November is going to be the one who gets to fill the Supreme Court vacancies (among all the judicial seats still vacant because of Republican obstruction).

Right now, the damned GOP Senate is refusing to seat Obama's pick Garland for the current vacancy. The Republican argument is that they'll hold off for whomever wins this November so that "the voters" can have a say in who takes that seat (the real reason is to hope for Republican election wins and stop the Court from shifting Center-Left).

Do you WANT to give Trump the power to fill that SCOTUS vacancy (if he wins, it will likely mean the Republicans keep control of that Senate)? You do that, say goodbye to Roe, say goodbye to Obamacare, say goodbye to civil rights, say goodbye to gay marriage or gay rights of any kind, say goodbye to voting rights, say goodbye to prison reforms, say goodbye to public education and clean air/water and unions and safety regs and fair wages and birth control and food stamps and Medicare and Social Security and everything else our nation's achieved since the New Deal era.

Your vote for Trump will likely give the Republicans a chance to fill more than just one SCOTUS seat: Ginsburg and Breyer for example are in the same risk as Scalia was dying in office. Even Kennedy (also same age risk) dying would take away the "moderate" Justice with a likely Far Right judge who will make Scalia look like Holmes. We'll be at the mercy of a Far Right - not even a Center-Right - Supreme Court for two decades or more.

Just on this alone, I'm voting Hillary over Trump. I'd vote Bernie over Trump.

And that's just it: there's more than the SCOTUS - our entire Constitutional system - at stake when it comes to Trump. Trump will be the massive wrecking ball to our nation that WE DO NOT NEED NOR DESERVE.

If the progressive Far Left among you who feel that our nation needs a revolution to break the system, this is not how you fix things. Trump is how you break things. And once broken it is very hard to put it all back together or even improve upon the remnants.

Do you think ANYTHING Trump has left in his wake has survived his meddling? He's wrecked a football league, he's wrecked airlines, he's wrecked casinos and left Atlantic City in the dumps, he's wrecked food services, he's wrecked planned condo towers, he's wrecked people's lives with a fraudulent academic scam, he's wrecked business deal after business deal and nothing has survived him except himself and his precious trademarked name.

We cannot afford as a nation to waste any vote - yes, waste - on this con artist.

Is Hillary the best possible candidate? I'll be honest, I'd have hoped for better (like oh a third Obama term. DAMN YOU 22nd AMENDMENT). I'm not there for Bernie because I disagree with the Far Left agenda - I can't see the nation accepting single-payer just as they're getting used to Obamacare working, and the expense of his plan is scaring even progressive economists - he's offering.

Compared to Trump, however, every minor - and yes, they are minor - sin of Hillary's soul still makes her the better choice. Compared to Trump, Hillary is at worst another LBJ... and that's at worst, considering all of Johnson's work with civil and voting rights, that's not too bad. At best, Hillary can be another Truman.

Trump can be the next Strom Thurmond, the next James Buchanan, the next John C. Calhoun. Just no. No. A million times No.

If it's Hillary winning the Democratic nomination, please for the love of God find the sanity and logic of backing her over the disaster Trump will be. If it's Bernie, fine so be it, Bernie is a better choice over Trump. But so's Hillary. Try to see that, people. Please.

P.S. And it will really help if you all turned out in spite of the Republican suppression efforts and vote for Democrats in ALL available races, okay? Everything is at stake here: The Senate, even the House is up for grabs despite the gerrymandering, even some state elections and governors' races are vital. Elections matter, people. Get the damn vote out.

10 comments:

Infidel753 said...

I would simply point to the last time this kind of thinking won out -- in 2000. If anyone can look at the eight years of Bush and claim that it would have made no difference if Gore had been President during those eight years instead, they are truly beyond all hope. And Trump is far more arrogant, ignorant, and bigoted then Bush was.

dinthebeast said...

I actually believe Hillary will be a good president. She's the only candidate in recent memory who actually knows what the job entails. So unlike Obama, who I'm really gonna miss, she's under no illusions about the intentions of the Republicans.
Also, I just read something that interested me a lot, it was part of the media's response to her speech in San Diego, and it said that we don't know what Hillary campaigns like in a general election, as she's never run in one. So what will she be like once one hand is no longer tied behind her back? If her speech in San Diego is any indication, this election might not be as ugly as I have been fearing. She made Trump look small and weak while also making herself look larger.
As for a Trump presidency, aside from the awful, awful Republicans he would appoint to undo what Obama has done (a lot of what Obama has accomplished since 2011 has been bureaucratic, boring progress which has made government measurably better), just remember what the Republicans said about Romney as a candidate: "All he needs to be able to do is use a pen." And as we've seen with the Ryan meeting, that's definitely what they're thinking about Trump. Trump is doing for them what they've been unable to do for themselves with their party and platform, he's winning. They are poised to do for far right ideology if he wins, what Obama and the Democratic majorities in congress did for us in 2009, only they aren't inheriting two botched wars and economy in freefall.
So they must be stopped. This isn't a game, Bernie Bros. If you get butthurt and throw this election, you are damaging the lives of millions of citizens, and considering the effects the repeal of the ACA will have, outright killing more than a few.
So once again with feeling: Hear ye O Democrats and sane people of every stripe: VOTE, GOD DAMN IT!

Ps: I voted by mail in the primary already, and man does it feel good to get to vote for Barbara Lee again!

-Doug in Oakland

E.A. Blair said...

If someone came up behind me at the voting booth, put a gun to my head and said, "Vote Republican or die." I'd have to say, "Pull the trigger."

Ed said...

This article shows me that your system of government allows it's president to commit atrocities. It makes the supporters of such a government look evil.

Anonymous said...

"...this is not how you fix things. Trump is how you break things. And once broken it is very hard to put it all back together or even improve upon the remnants.''
I've run into some Bernie-or-Bust types who say they want to "burn it all down." They don't think a Trump administration will adversely affect them, and don't care about anyone else.

Marc McKenzie said...

@infidel: Agreed. Honestly, I heard similar arguments from people who were hard-core Nader supporters (and also from Alexander Cockburn in the pages of The Nation and his own magazine, CounterPunch). Of course we all know how that turned out. To think that we've forgotten those events is, well, pretty sad.

If some supporters of Sanders really do want to "burn it down" because they fell that we can rebuild the ashes, then they are insane. There was a great cost for Bush's Presidency, both financial and in lives.

MJ said...

If the Bernie supporters cannot bring themselves to vote for Hillary, come to that, they can at least support congress people who will shut down the worst of Trump's insanities, yeas?
Scandal mongering against Hillary is not likely to stop. Expect more fake scandals, new fake scandals, cloned fake scandals, fake health 'scandals', tempests in teapots, misdirection fake scandals... It won't end just because the nomination process ends. It hasn't ended in 25 years and it is always something, and every time something else is ginned up it comes dragging a couple of zombie fake scandals back to shambling life with it.
Also "wrecking ball", hah! who knew, Palin actually got something right. It's bound to happen once in a while. Is there an opportunity there?

Paul said...

Eric, I hope your state is not Open Carry...

Paul said...

To Anonymous and to Marc,

I know the results of 2000 are still pretty raw, even if it's been 16 years.

The problem with the Bernie-or-Busters (the BernieBros of my disdain) is that they are much like the MIA Democratic voters we have here in Florida, who REFUSED to show up TWICE in 2010 and in 2014 all because the Democratic nominees - Sink and Crist - were not Progressive enough for their tastes. And for their failures to show up, WE GOT STUCK WITH RICK "NO ETHICS" SCOTT.

Just take everything Scott has done to destroy the state of Florida - our toxic waters, our flooding coastal cities, our parking lots known as I-4 and I-95, our broken schools and broken child care services - and dump that onto Trump for an idea how Trump will govern: then add Trump's racist animus against Mexicans and Muslims and Asians and women, multiply it by three trade wars and four real wars, and you've got an idea how Trump will make George W. Bush seem like Eisenhower.

There are rumors Trump is considering Rick "MEDICARE FRAUD" Scott for his Veep spot. Two peas of the same sick pod...

Jerry Shepherd said...

I would like to point our just one thing. If the republican nominee wins the highest office you can kiss you're Social Security goodbye. To me that is enough reason to vote for Hillary.