Why I DON'T support Bernie for President

This is a long post, but hopefully very specific about the reasons Bernie does not have my support. I am not a political newbie. I have been paying attention to and been involved in politics all of my adult life. I understand the issues. IOW, I am a highly informed voter.

Here are the reasons I do not support Bernie:

1. He talks a lot about the problems, but his policy prescriptions are either wrong, completely missing, or not viable/passable.

I actually want to start calling him Captain Obvious, because he seems to be stuck on telling us what the problems are over and over and over again. Millions upon millions of people in this country already know what the problems are. Every other progressive candidate sees the same thing and has spoken out about it. He is not a hero to me because he can see the obvious.

And there are some things he clearly doesn’t see that others do, or has been very much a Johnny come lately on issues, such as institutional racism.

His policy prescriptions are wrong in many cases, IMO. For instance, free college for “qualified” students is not something that will truly help PoC (and is not designed to). Their K-12 schools are horribly underfunded. First we must fix that problem or his free college pitch is just another pander to middle class white kids. And he wants to pay for it off the backs off fees that impact 401K and pension funds. That’s ridiculous. HRC’s and Obama’s proposals for free community college are much more viable.

HRC gets it. We need to find a way to beef up schools in urban areas with programs like head start and better funding. They should not take funding away from failing schools, they should increase it. Bernie seems oblivious to this.

Break up the banks? Reinstate Glass Steagall? Why? How will that help anything? It wasn’t commercial banks that failed. It was investment banks NOT tied to commercial banks and mortgage companies that failed. And thank god the commercial banks COULD absorb the investment banks or it would have been worse. The problem isn’t Glass Steagall; the problem is lax regulation of investment banks and others involved in the housing industry.

No wonder HRC won’t commit to reinstating Glass Steagall. It’s a fun talking point for rallies and will raise cheers from people who don’t understand the issue, but it won’t fix the problem.

On the TPP, as I have stated before, reasonable people can disagree on that. One of the best things about it is that it allows workers in other countries to organize into unions. That one thing could actually be the key to leveling the playing field. I don’t have anything against a candidate that is against trade agreements, but I at least expect him to articulate why, and what it would take to for him to be in favor of a trade agreement. We live in a global economy – that’s just a fact of life he seems to ignore. He doesn’t seem to have an alternative solution, and he sure as hell doesn’t seem capable of talking to people like they are adults on the issue like HRC does.

Nothing made Bernie look so inept and like an old out of touch white guy than Netroots nation. When challenged by BLM he went right back to the dumb economic equality talking point. You know why? Because that is what Bernie truly believes. Those that worked with him back in the days all his supporters like to rally around to prove he is some sort of civil rights champion have said that even back then he was convinced racial injustice was really rooted in classism. And he is completely wrong about that. So completely wrong.

I am not a PoC, but I am a lesbian. I spent my first 20 years in the closet so that I could have a shot at economic equality. And it worked. But when I came out of the closet 15 years ago after I was economically successful I did not find some sort of civil rights nirvana awaiting me. I still couldn’t marry my partner. I still had to raise a child whose parents could not marry. I still had to deal with discrimination day in and day out. My son was still bullied in school because he had two Moms. ANY GLBT person that has economic security can tell you that economic security does not confer civil rights. Despite what a lot of straight white privileged people seem to believe. It’s just bullshit. And I do not want a president that is so clueless on such an important issue.

HRC has voiced support for and championed policy proposals that actually impact the symptoms of racial injustice and has for a long time. Bernie is finally on board (at least mouthing the words after much pressure has been applied), but again, his Netroots nation performance was a dead giveaway that he doesn’t get it.

2. He has a very long record of accomplishing nothing. He has been in congress for 25 years with almost nothing to show for it, and certainly nothing that addresses the current issues we face. And I resent that he is introducing lots of legislation now that he knows is not passable, simply as fodder for his campaign. The senate staffers he has working on these issues are being paid with tax payer funds, all of which is being wasted.

Clearly he is unable to build the kind of coalitions that are needed to get things done. I know this from personal experience. It isn’t just BLM he ignores. Once I had made it career wise (economically) I did quite a bit of volunteer work for liberal policy advocacy groups at a fairly high level in DC. Bernie was nowhere to be found. Sure, he votes the right way, but he is completely uninterested in understanding the challenges faced by many of us – at least not interested enough to talk to us. It was absolutely no surprise to me that he wasn’t keen on talking to BLM. To me, it fits his MO exactly. An old white guy who thinks he knows best, and doesn’t need to hear from anyone else.

You know who can build coalitions? HRC. She has spent her life doing just that. Not being able to play well with others is a no go for me when it comes to a presidential candidate. Our issues are just too important.

3. He is not a Democrat. In fact he has spent 25 years dissing Democrats, even to the point of calling for a primary on Obama in 2012 (as I make sure to remind every PoC I meet that mentions the presidential campaign).

Don’t give me this “he’s running as a Democrat” baloney. See item #2. He isn’t going to be able to build a coalition with Dems in congress because he has scorned them for decades.

4. Huge numbers of his supporters come off as racist, white privileged elitists. This is not in any way specific to DU. I see it all over the internet. On Facebook, Twitter, comments on liberal blogs – just everywhere. It’s impossible for Bernie to be unaware of some of the really clueless and sometimes overtly racist things his supporters say hundreds of times a day. As far as I can tell, he has not said a word about it. He is either oblivious or content to let it slide.

Even if you don’t put that on him, at some point a person is known by the company they keep, or the crowd that supports them. I can’t even imagine throwing my voice into that mix by supporting him. I don’t think I have ever been more disheartened as a progressive than I have been in watching the comments of Bernie supporters over the last few months. In fact, even the 2004 blaming of the gays for Kerry’s loss wasn’t as disheartening as Bernie’s supporters are saying now. Just no. I will not join them.