2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: If you don't think Bernie and his campaign and his supporters basically calling Hillary [View all]JHan
(10,173 posts)As for me - My views on her were tepid last year, then I warmed up to her by learning and researching her positions. Often when I came across "evidence" of her supposedly lying or flipflopping, it was a case of her statements taken out of context, blown out of proportion, or her held to a different standard than her peers. I realised how entrenched the hate and irrational assessment of her and her career was.. took a step back and completely reassessed her, Obama and my understanding of politics generally.
I've never doubted Hillary's commitment to health care, her commitment to children or education. If she has a different view to mine on any of those issues, it doesn't mean she doesn't care - just means her perspective is different. I can even forgive some decisions she made as senator, understanding the cut and thrust of legislative politics and senate politics. Progressives will claim this is evidence of her selling out - but a bill doesn't get passed without compromise. According to Eric Liu , Hillary is a grinder ( and I agree): http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/02/the-gadfly-and-the-grinder/463467/ and for those who want to take a sledgehammer to the system this is frustrating.
And regarding Bernie. I disagree with Bernie's solutions for college and wage stagnation - Bernie wanted to raise the min. wage to $15 which sounds great but he constantly framed it as holding big corporations to account, neglecting the impact on small to medium size business owners who are desperately holding on during a sluggish economic recovery phase. I also wasn't sold on his free college plans (and I'm young), some of his other policies didn't gel with me but never at any moment did I question his commitment to those issues because I was unable to see eye to eye with him on the solutions.