There is something juvenile about debating politics in the ways that we debate on online forums. It reminds of me a schoolyard playground where we insult each other, throw names and do the political equivalent of “My dad is cooler than your dad.” My last diary was a bit in this vein, albeit intentionally rant-y and maybe even a little playfully controversial. But this time I want to talk a little more seriously about the primary. And please, lets be adults. We can have different opinions without being kleptocrats, establishment hacks, warmongerers, or Wall Street apologists. Our supporting a different candidate does not mean we want the Sanders’ supporters to “grow up” or be “realistic” or any number of insulting ideas that too many Hillary supporters have let stand as an argument rather than the candidate herself.
But first, let me seriously outline a few things about myself. I’ve been on DailyKos since 2006; I joined to comment on the Francis Busby race in the wake of Randall Cunningham’s stunning resignation, and later to support Tammy Duckworth, whom I found to be an incredibly compelling candidate with a bright political future, in her primary against Christine Cegelis, whose supporters mainly ranted against the establishment recruiting Duckworth to run after anti-abortion architect Henry Hyde announced his retirement. And my, my, that’s a long sentence, but it encompasses all the different veins that I originally got into on the Kos. It was a formative period for me, I was 14, hence my username, watched Keith Olbermann religiously, and beginning to write letters to the editor, blog posts, and join countless Democratic newsletters. I also had plenty of stupid ideas and misguided beliefs, as my profile commentary shows (last time some Bernie supporters went there, overlooked the disclaimer, and came back to my diary attacking me for what my profile says, when I only keep the profile as a sort of caution to myself). I even spent a while under the delusion that I was pro-life and still a bit ensnared in some conservative Christian values as a result of growing up in a deeply religious southern family with a number of preachers. I’m perfectly honest about this. The diary history is there. My own repulsive and ridiculous comments are out there. What really got me into politics, was, in fact, my ardent opposition to the Iraq war. At 12 I would read the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, a far-right rag, and disagreed with it. I watched news and vote debates and even got in tremendous trouble in civics class, in a discussion, where taunted by other kids whose only rational was their familial partisan affiliations and tribal politics, I said that maybe it would be better if Bush got shot before he could take us to war in Iraq (a terrible statement to make, but again, 12 year olds aren’t always the best at responding to political attacks, especially when all the teachers make no secret their own Republican leanings and taunt you for your support of Democrats). So, the Iraq War brought in me into politics, and then it only grew from there as I opposed much of what Bush tried to do in 2005; I opposed the bad Bankruptcy reform bill, the Tort reform bill, and the attempt at privatizing social security.
In 2008, a few weeks before Iowa, I decided to support Barack Obama. As a Senate Page, I’d met both Senator Clinton and Senator Obama (and Bernie Sanders, Robert Byrd, and Daniel Inouye for that matter). I always kept a soft spot for Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson, because it was him who said “Barack, look at those kids over there just staring at you. You gotta go talk to ‘em a bit.” Barack Obama was the first Presidential candidate I donated money to, convinced my grandfather and mother to back (they were both Clinton partisans so this was no mean feat, though my grandfather now keeps an Obama poster in his bedroom, which is quite incongruous for a 66 year old white southern male from rural northeast Georgia who was the son of a Church of God preacher). I didn’t hate Hillary; I gave her ample consideration and felt Obama’s message and newness was what we needed in 2008 and that her position on the Iraq War compromised her as Democrats tried to run to repudiate the Bush years.
So with all that clear, this is who I am, and I am a Hillary supporter for 2016. Here is where I find the DailyKos vacuum to be unproductive and silly. The same for Facebook and other social media. The cult of personality stuff around Bernie Sanders, the feel the Bern, the memes, the hipsterish aspect of how his positives are presented, is irritating yes, but I don’t think its half as irritating or mind-boggling as how much of the stuff on DailyKos and other areas is, if not explicitly anti-Clinton, written by Bernie supporters who have negative views of Hillary Clinton. Any Clinton supporter who has written a diary can testify to the droves as visceral anti-Hillary comments, some of them uprated by prominent diarists and commentators who then comment to say that Hillary supporters are being unfair or inaccurate when they say that Bernie’s online support seems at least half-driven by anti-Clinton sentiments, even among those who are genuinely excited about Sanders’ platform and his style. Now we can all support whomever we want, that’s great, and supporting another candidate is not an insult or unfair or anything like that. My point in my last diary, beneath all the rants was this: in polls of the primary nationally, (such as the recent NBC-Wall Street Journal, previous Washington Post-ABC News, and others), Hillary Clinton has eye-popping favorability ratings among Democratic voters, to the tune of 83% of Democrats viewing her favorably and 47% of Democrats viewing her in “a strongly favorable light.” Pretty much nowhere can you can a state where a majority of Bernie Sanders supporters don’t also like Hillary Clinton and see her favorably, yet in the echo chamber here its turned into fucking MyDD all over again and both diaries and comments overwhelmingly over-represent the segment of anti-Clinton Democrats. Even OllieGarkey, a user who posted a diary about why, as an Occupy Wall Street Democrat, she backed Hillary enthusiastically on banking issues, immediately got hit with all kinds of vitriol, as did Hillary with comments like “When Hillary speaks, Wall Street trembles…with excitement.” So here are a list of my retorts to common attacks on those who support Hillary Clinton:
Iraq:
It’s gotten fucking ridiculous. Some people on this site talk as if Hillary Clinton single-handedly executed and masterminded the Iraq war. I disagreed with that vote, I think it was a big mistake, but I also know that Hillary Clinton knows it was a mistake. I can’t help but feel a double standard here in the harshness with which Hillary Clinton is attacked for that vote, when Barack Obama picked Joe Biden (who voted yea) to be his VP, and appointed 2 Secretary of States who both voted yes (Clinton and John Kerry), and when our past 3 Democratic majority leaders, Daschle, Reid, and Schumer, all voted yes, as did some progressive heroes like Iowa Senator Tom Harkin, and over all, 58% of the Democratic caucus. Hillary Clinton was not the key vote by any stretch of the imagination, nor was she alone in making this mistake. I was told on my last diary “I guess you’re ready for another war?” No. The way the rhetoric goes, basically I would have to believe that, if President, Hillary Clinton would support a preemptive war against strong opposition from the international community and on flimsy evidence? I think Hillary’s biggest mistake was underestimating just how trigger happy/already decided the Bush administration was on war; I strongly believe that Hillary did not expect the Bush administration to actually go to war without UN approval or without having exhausted diplomatic means. For all his faults, Bill Clinton too, had a cautious foreign policy and generally only acted with broad multi-lateral support and did not launch any ground wars during his Presidency, while being one of the only modern U.S. Presidents to get a standing ovation at the UN General Assembly. So no, I don’t believe that Hillary Clinton, if President, will unilaterally strike another nation or commit the U.S. to an extended ground war that only further destabilizes its geopolitical position. I expect that what further moves she takes, right or wrong for better or worse, will be done cautiously and done with the support of our allies in Europe, the Middle East, and elsewhere in the world. There is a substantial divide within the Democratic party on internationalism and military force as a solution to security and geopolitical concerns and this has always been there, but we cannot let it become our litmus test for every major candidate or it will tear the party apart quite literally.
Hillary Clinton is a Conservative Kleptocrat:
Really, really, really confused at how this became a meme, or why the self-described “good Bernie Sanders supporters” don’t do more to attack it and discredit it, because its one of the most blatantly false claims in the primary. Hillary Clinton has a long record of being an advocate for women’s rights and being progressive on a whole host of social issues. She co-sponsored the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, she voted to remove Telecom immunity from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance bill and then was one of just 28 Senators to vote against the final bill when the Telecom immunity was not stripped. In fact, she was co-sponsor of the Striking Telecommunications Companies' Civil Immunity for Surveillance amendment. She opposed expanding offshore oil drilling. She was one of 37 Senators to oppose a zero-tolerance Border Enforcement bill that also included provisions about expanding border fences and deploying 6000 more national guard troops to the border. She was co-sponsor of an Earmark Moratorium. She supported numerous times in the 2007-2008 setting a timeline to withdraw from Iraq, something fiercely opposed by John McCain, Republicans, and George Bush, and she co-sponsored the Iraq Troop Reduction Amendment which would have begun reducing troop numbers in Iraq starting 90 days after its enactment (it failed 47-47 in the Senate). She voted for the DREAM Act. She supported Habeas Corpus for all detainees of the United States. She voted against the Foreign Intelligence Acquisition Act which allowed the Federal government to monitor foreign communications routed through the country (she was one of 28 nay votes). She supported Alternative Energy subsidies, opposed declaring English the national language, co-sponsored the vote of no-confidence on Alberto Gonzales, co-sponsored the bill to allow and fund stem cell research again, she had a great record voting against pretty much every abortion restriction and pro-gun bill. Hillary: opposed appointing Michael Hayden Director of the CIA, voted against extending Bush tax cuts that we couldn’t afford, she voted and was a key vote to strike text opening up ANWR to oil exploration, and in fact co-sponsored legislation to keep drilling and exploration out of ANWR. Hillary Clinton voted against both John Roberts and Samuel Alito. She co-sponsored amendments to provide low-income home energy assistance programs, and increase Pell Grants, and voted against Bush’s 2005 Energy bill with its oil industry handouts (one of only 26 senators to do so). She’s on the record opposing the Firearms Manufacturer Protection Bill, and against CAFTA. She was one of only 26 senators to vote against the Class Action Fairness Act, which made it harder for victims of corporations to sue for damages.
I’m only going through half her Senate career with that. Hillary Clinton had NARAL ratings of 100% every single year she was in the Senate. She had 100% ratings from Planned Parenthood, from NOW. She had extremely high ratings of between 80% and 100% from the Humane Society, the Goldwater Institute, and Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund. She had very high ratings from the League of Women voters, the Human Rights Campaign, and consistently had ACLU ratings around 80% or higher, and 100% ratings from the NAACP, in 2005 she had a 100% PeacePac rating, (McCain had 25% rating for comparison). Her AARP ratings were 100%, the SEIU consistently rated her between 90% and 100% and she had typically high marks from the League of Conservation Voters and the Sierra Club. She has a 100% lifetime score from the Brady Campaign to end gun violence, and typically a 0% from the NRA. Her AFL-CIO lifetime score was 94%. Harry Enten over at 538 had a great response on this titled Hillary Clinton was Liberal. Hillary Clinton is Liberal. Hillary Clinton is rated as a Hardcore liberal on the OnTheIssues.org scale of rating public statements, and in 2008, she was actually running with a slightly more liberal record than Obama and the 2008 primary was not, per revisionist histories, about who was more liberal and Clinton did almost as well with self-described liberals as she did over all in the Democratic primary. On the OTI scale, Hillary is equally liberal as Elizabeth Warren and only slightly more moderate than Bernie Sanders. While Bill was indeed a moderate (though he has drifted left over the years), Hillary Clinton has always been liberal and where she has drifted or changed positions is almost always in concert with the entire Democratic party, with the effect being that Hillary has consistently stayed in the left-wing of the Democratic party and become more liberal over time. So the lie that Hillary Clinton is conservative, or a kleptocrat, is the biggest bag of horseshit on the internet and I urge leftist primary voters not to let that type of argument misguided them into think Hillary Clinton is not on their side when her voting record, public statements, and interest group ratings from Women’s groups, gun control groups, Latino groups, unions, and environmental groups all say otherwise.
Reality check, Hillary Clinton supporters also care deeply about income inequality and racial justice. Bernie isn’t the only candidate who has and is speaking out against income inequality, and as others have noted, Hillary Clinton has a fantastic and ambitious minimum wage plan and a strong Wall Street Reform plan. It’s entirely possible to value Hillary Clinton’s unique range of experiences, her intimate understanding of the Presidency, Congress, and Global Affairs, the utter rarity of having a candidate both this ideologically good, this electorally strong, and this qualified and ready to be President. Bernie Sanders campaign hasn’t impressed me. Sorry, but I don’t feel the “Bern” when his campaign responds with ad hominem attacks when Emory University’s Kenneth Thorpe (one of the architects of Vermont’s attempt at a Single-Payer and a very prominent single-payer advocate), says his health care plan is underfunded by almost 1.1 trillion a year. This, here, is total amateur hour crap:
Sanders assumes $324 billion more per year in prescription drug savings than Thorpe does. Thorpe argues that this is wildly implausible. "In 2014 private health plans paid a TOTAL of $132 billion on prescription drugs and nationally we spent $305 billion," he writes in an email. "With their savings drug spending nationally would be negative." (Emphasis mine.) The Sanders camp revised the number down to $241 billion when I pointed this out. (http://www.vox.com/2016/1/28/10858644/bernie-sanders-kenneth-thorpe-single-payer)
Single-Payer is just highly implausible right now as much as I want it, and I think Bernie’s plan does not account to how Republican controlled states and courts would instantly undermine his bill, and it very obviously is on the extreme optimistic end of how much money this is going to save and what the costs will be. It’s an extremely hard to sell plan to a general electorate that is just beginning to accept Obamacare. I disagree with Bernie’s style here even; I wouldn’t go straight for another massive healthcare system overhaul and reorganization just 5 years later, with the economy still in a fragile state. If you want to address the issue further, as Hillary does, in fact, want to do, there are other options. Expand Medicaid even further, get it expanded in the rest of the states, lower the medicare age to 60, increase funding for healthcare subsidies, increase funding to public health initiatives and do more to get doctors to rural areas and clinics to poor urban neighborhoods. I’m tired most of all of all the rhetoric about Hillary and Wall Street, the misguided assessments of her fundraising (90% of her money comes from small individual donors, including broad segments of the base and progressives and unions, so why do Sanders supporters portray 140,000 from private prisons as “Oh, wow, I guess we know who Clinton and her 150,000,000 dollar campaign are beholden to now” kind of rhetoric, one which is silly and ignorant).
I hate how pragmatism is continually devalued, and the way Bernie Sanders definitely seems to devalue the many many small and not-so-small victories we have made in the past decade. As someone who has studied politics both through an International Studies/Poli sci background and an anthropological one, I have to say that Sanders misrepresents the kind of power the President has and has an overly simplistic idea of what our policy can do in a globally interconnect economy where the President our federal polity don’t really have massive, far-reaching ability to impact and control economic trends and happenings. I’m not a fan of two things: 1, simplistic assessments of America’s economic problems, and 2, Sanders obsession with economic issues. Intersectionality is indeed nice and all, but I disagree, as an anthropologist, with political approaches that place the infrastructure over the superstructure. It’s an old division between Marxist anthropological approaches and semiotic approaches, but I don’t think that this sort of purely political economy approach can explain and fix social problems, culture matters to, as do issues of global affairs and global politics, all things which Sanders can barely be forced to talk about for more than 30 seconds and often makes factually inaccurate statements when he is forced to (I’m not even going to get started breaking down the number of times Sanders has made incorrect statements surrounding the complex geopolitical situation around ISIS). As a mere addendum to all this, I think even Sanders can’t possibly believe his talking points about how his election is going to sweep in a bunch of progressive candidates and change the whole political system; it will do absolutely nothing of the sort and there just aren’t even competitive senate races even out there to get Democrats above 55% — and that’s if we sweep every single seat and that would include some more moderate Democrats like Ann Kirkpatrick, Jason Kander, and Baron Hill winning, in addition to moderate senators like Maine Independent Angus King (I-ME), Joe Manchin, Heidi Heitkamp, Joe Donnelly, and too a much lesser extent, Democrats like Tom Carper, Michael Bennett, Mark Warner, Bob Casey and Bill Nelson. That’s not enough seats to break a filibuster, and I can’t believe that Sanders will genuinely repeat Obama’s mistake of thinking Republicans won’t play hardball just before of an electoral shell-shacking. I doubly dislike Sanders’ disdain for the Obama coalition, and his belief in deemphasizing social issues that are deeply important to me and many other Obama Democrats in favor of a single-minded focus on economic issues that he believes will bring many white voters back into the Democratic party all around the nation, which I think displays a miscalculation of how modern politics as come to work, of the role cultural and tribal boundaries now play larger than class and economic ones, and how many of these voters aren’t coming back into the fold.
I don’t have any apologies to make, any debates I need to get dragged into, nor any defense of my self as a progressive and a Democrat. I believe in a different approach, and I value the types of experience as well as the known commodity who has already experienced the worst of the far-right’s attacks for decades and continually survived and come back to strike them down. ). If Sanders won, I would support him with the utmost vigor against Republicans like Ted Cruz and Donald Trump, but in the primary, I have gone from being roughly undecided, then nonchalantly in favor of Clinton, and finally to being strong, resolute, and proud in backing Hillary Clinton, a shift that the attitudes of Bernie Sanders supporters play no small role in, as I have watched them attack Hillary’s progressive credentials, respond to any critique of Bernie’s platform by calling it a Clinton hitjob, as they rail against big media and the establishment of the Democratic party, and as they aggressively respond to any flaw and mistake as if Bernie and his campaign can do no wrong. I am perfectly aware Clinton and her campaign have made mistakes, and they do have warts. I am comfortable with that, accepting, and understand them, and prepared to present a picture of my support for her as a candidate and platform in her totality. In contrast, the depictions I read of Bernie Sanders are of a virtually flawless candidate, and they utterly refuse to entertain critiques of their vision of this completely outsiderish, untouched by Washington, completely independent, completely consistent, and completely liberal candidate, which ends up building this image of Bernie Sanders that is inaccurate in some key ways and also reacts negatively to any attempts to put him down into perspective and context, and to highlight flaws in his Congressional record, his style, his personality, and even to point out the obvious: the Sanders is indeed a professional politician running a professional, standard political campaign, including polling, lead campaign officials who lack progressive credentials, and changing his positions on things like marijuana specifically to try and peel off certain voters from Hillary Clinton. Part of my irritation is that while I like Bernie Sanders, I don’t, in a Ron Paul supporter kind of way, see this old white guy from a politically uncompetitive area as the ONE who will change everything and understands totally the solutions to all our problems. I see him more or less as a likeable and well-intentioned politician who is doing a good job pushing the party to the left and bringing up important issues, but who isn’t nearly so perfect and whose “independence” has largely been guaranteed by a small, rural, parochial state where local politics and retailing are far, far more important than they would be in a huge state like say, New York, but also that Bernie has been more or less a de facto and relatively standardfare Democrat for nearly 20 years now. Hillary has her problems, her private email server was a deeply misguided attempt to maintain her independence from the White House that showed a lack of understanding of technology and security issues even as she was just following the same procedure and precedent her predecessors had. She can be pretty wooden on the campaign trail. I think she does a poor job sometimes in displaying her sincerity or really bringing out how deeply and personally she cares about many of these big issues. She’s been too willing to play the political game sometimes, she’s made mistakes, she’s misjudged Presidents, she’s still been, sometimes, too willing to go back to Clinton era folks for advice, but goddamn it do I respect her for the many big fights she’s fought for Democrats and for all the things she’s accomplished in and out of politics.
Hillary Clinton has broken down barriers, expanded the role of women in politics, asserted that a First Lady can be more than a decoration but also be an equal to her husband and a major partner in policy initiatives, in all that she’s done to help women and children in the U.S. and abroad as Secretary of State and Senator. I respect Sanders too. I respect both these candidates, flaws and all. I like them both on policy. I like them both as people. Beyond matters of ideology, I view Hillary Clinton and not Bernie Sanders as the candidate that would make the best President, even though I score exactly 91% with both candidates according to ISideWith (and have yet to meet someone with more than a 10% difference between the two candidates). I want Hillary to win and will be doing my best to support. I know Sanders’ supporters will do the same. Let’s just keep things in perspective, have a good fight, get Democrats energetic, local party organizations stronger and full of more volunteers and money (like in 2008), and whoever the nominee is, send a resounding message to Republicans and conservatives up and down the ballot in 2016.