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| Nope. Not buying what this guy is selling |
Your candidacy has been truly remarkable. You have done something I would have said was impossible until you proved otherwise. You took a platform with which I am 100% in agreement, and with your dishonesty, your style, your refusal to take the role of the US Presidency seriously and your refusal to consider political realities as part of the demands of the job of the professional politician, you drove me into implacable opposition to your candidacy.
That's amazing. When you first began your campaign, I thought "Wow - an American presidential candidate who speaks clearly about the need for stronger federal government intervention in the community to reduce inequality, end poverty, guarantee education and health care - that's amazing and I want to support you". But then, almost immediately, I began to have doubts. First, none of your campaign messaging seemed willing to address the problems in passing this kind of liberal legislation in the US. In fact, you didn't seem willing to address the legislature at all - you just kept saying YOU would do these things, which is, of course, impossible in our system. You insisted that we break up the banks, even though the consensus of the economic community is that's nowhere near the best way to address the 'too big to fail' problem. And when I tried to learn your positions on other issues, outside of economic inequality and social justice, you didn't seem to have any. You can't be a 'one issue' president - it's an executive management job, and you'd better be ready to deal with everything that would be on your plate.
And then, as time passed, your campaign seemed to just stop being about you and your ideas and your policy goals. It morphed into something vile and ugly, a non-stop 24x7 attack on Hillary Clinton. I knew most of the smears of Ms. Clinton were wrong, premised on decades of unrelenting attacks from the Right, but still I wondered "even if Clinton is truly evil personified, what is that saying about why I should vote FOR Sanders?" Indeed, if the Sanders campaign couldn't make a case for why he should be the President - if all they could do is make a case for why someone else should NOT be the President - they have given me no reason to vote for him.
I would still love to see much of the Sanders policy agenda enacted in the US. But I want to see the plans for passing and funding and implementing those policies. If you can't even tell me that, you're just a huckster promising the rubes anything to get into the office - you're a liberal Paul Ryan.
Nope. I can't support you, Senator Sanders. You were a good man with good ideas who was completely unprepared to operate at the highest levels of American governance. I hope you started something that can be picked up and moved forward by a smart politician who will drive toward these solutions with something more than empty promises.
But for now? For now I'll happily see Hillary Clinton win the White House. She will fight to get what incremental change is possible in the real world, and as the first female American president her election will be a historic moment of pride for us all.
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Okay, upfront: I voted for Sanders in the Wisco primary. My wife and her sister convinced me. Besides, even back then it was pretty plain that Clinton would win.
ReplyDeleteAnd in the end, I agree with most of what you say. I dismiss the paranoid ravings of the Green Lantern crowd, but as an executive and legislator what she has demonstrated, over and over again, is fortitude and determination and willingness to do the hard, thankless job of 'the art of the possible'. Her track record is of achievement in the face of opposition, which is surely what we need in a Democratic President. Certainly Obama could have used more of it in the early days...
And I also agree with you about the likely disappointment. It's inevitable, as I am a fuzzy thinking libtard and socialist, and the system we have is the system we have.
But having watched her and listened to her actual words that were used in speaking actions, I believe that she is in fact at least as liberal as Obama (her voting record in the Senate was nearly identical to Sanders and slightly to the left of Obama) but that in here prior positions, her actions have been more constrained by circumstances than she would have liked. Especially as First Lady.
Wishful thinking? perhaps. But hopefully not blinkered ideological rantings.
But more importantly; What will be the official designation of Bill Clinton in the White House? First Dude? Mr. Rodham? Ex-President Gelding?
"Fuck You Ken Starr, You're Fired and I'm Back Here"
DeleteMost of all, and this has been noted regarding women politicians, they are far more likely to admit being wrong and changing their policies based on new information or changing conditions than are men. You can see that in her treatment of LGBTQ issues.
DeleteAlso, she doesn't seem to need the ego stroking that all the male politicians seem to require.
DeleteYeah, that's the thing, isn't it? The certainty. The smug, arrogant certainty. They KNOW, and we must be stupid or corrupt because we think these predicted outcomes are less certain than speculative.
ReplyDeleteIt's kind of interesting to observe - once someone adopts a demand for ideological purity, they become sworn enemies of thinking, of asking questions, of considering possibilities.
Penn Gilette once wrote that once you merely question the existence of god, you're already an atheist, and they seem to have adopted the same kind of faith based worldview. To question it is apostasy....
that's Jillette, you savage. (I should know, I saw them twice in Milwaukee and once in Vegas, and Young zombie got his picture and we got this great little Bill of Rights card)...
DeleteAlso, and such as. I spent much time questioning the existence of God. I investigated several churches... none of them seemed any different, or better, than the liberal Lutheran church I grew up in. And then, one sunny September day, I came into my office in one of the best moods, and joined my staff in watching the towers fall. And jut that same way, I realized that God did not exist, because one God demanded this horror and another God demanded the other and that all of these Gods were made up by humans with an axe to grind.
DeleteI never merely questioned the existence of God. But at one singular moment, I realized God is no more real than Underdog, snd he was created for pretty much the same reasons: money and power.
And yet, with this very post I gave them the perfect opportunity to change my mind. Just make a compelling case - you're so certain President Clinton II will start all these wars, just tell me where and when. Why would be nice too, but explain to me where you see these nebulous wars will be fought.
ReplyDeleteSo far, nobody has bothered to put their geopolitical certainty up for public perusal...
Can I venture a guess? It will involve the track record of the other Clinton and implied decisions based on innuendo and imagined connections...
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