2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumFor all those who say the can't vote for Hillary
Saying Clinton And Trump Are The Same
If Hillary Clinton gets the nomination, Im not going to bother voting in November! I have been seeing this more and more, and it is discouraging and disconcerting. Did Bernie Sanders refuse to vote on anything, just because he felt that he wouldnt win? Of course not, and Bernie supporters shouldnt either.
Not to mention that, although they differ on several key issues, Sanders and Clinton have voted the same 93 percent of the time.
Yes, Clinton supported Wall Street bailouts and supports the TPP.
Yes, Sanderss stance on gun control is not as strong as what many left-leaning folks would like.
But in both cases, it is wrong to reduce their candidacy to one issue. The fact that either candidate has a real opinion and voting record on any of these things puts them in an entirely different class than Donald Trump, and people who think otherwise are deluding themselves.
When liberal-minded folks work together, we can achieve great social progress. If Bernies political career has taught us anything, it is to be perpetually optimistic and to keep working toward improvement. If you believed in working towards a better America before, you should still believe in working towards a better America now. Lets keep working, instead of sulking in a corner and spewing political nihilism
All-Or-Nothing Thinking
Merriam-Webster defines liberal as not opposed to new ideas or ways of behaving that are not traditional or widely accepted. Liberals are open-minded by definition! Closed-mindedness and an unwillingness to engage with new ideas is a conservative thing.
As members of the liberal community, we must hold ourselves to a higher standard of discourse that what were hearing from the right. We become barriers to progress when we refuse to engage in good-faith discourse, choosing intstead of name-call and make personal attacks. Were better than that.
Im sure that this article will get me called shill and many other creative names. Which is sad, really, because Im used to being called names from backwards conservatives. Its too bad that I am now expecting to be called names from fellow liberals. How about instead of #NeverHillary, we try #NeverNameCalling or #NeverDisrespect? Its less catchy, perhaps, but will ultimately lead to greater social change.
I think that we should all follow Sanderss example and continue to be involved and invested in our collective future.
If you still will not vote for the Democratic nominee, then I doubt you ever would.
JohnnyRingo
(18,581 posts)You make some excellent points and presented them nicely.
larkrake
(1,674 posts)HumanityExperiment
(1,442 posts)This is the fight going into the convention, holding whomever the nominee is to the left via the updated platform
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)easily get united behind Sen Sanders and that isn't true about Clinton. Secondly, please don't try to pretend that Sen Sanders and Clinton are close on the issues. Nothing could be farther from the truth. We are still involved in a nasty fight between the two wings of our party, the progressives and the corporatists. The brutality of this battle demonstrates the very large chasm that we have between us. And "fellow liberals"? Liberals don't support the domination of our government by the Big Corporations.
Waiting For Everyman
(9,385 posts)They are opposites.
If Bernie chooses to back her I won't judge him for it, because there may be factors he knows about that I don't. Whatever he decides to do is fine with me. I'll always answer a phone call, text, email, or tweet from him as to whatever he thinks is worth doing.
But I don't decide what to do based on what somebody else is doing, or what somebody else thinks is a good idea, or what somebody else tries to twist my arm into doing. I can make up my own mind, and I plan to keep doing that.
I've been a lifelong Dem, and I'm 66. I have always voted straight ticket before.
"All good things gotta come to an end...
but I want you to remember all wild deeds live on"
"The struggle continues" (Bernie Sanders, June 7, 2016).