Monthly Archives: October 2016

The Power and Importance Of Truth: Why I Criticize “Our” Candidate

LIAR

Apparently, I am a victim of decades of Republican propaganda against the Clintons.

The irony is that I worked as a volunteer for Bill Clinton both times, met Bill and Hillary, motorcaded through Georgia with Al Gore and his family and got to know them pretty well, and sat next to Andrea Mitchell at the Vice Presidential debate with Gore vs. Quayle. I’ve been actively involved in every presidential campaign since, always for the Democrat even though I’ve never considered myself a Democrat because I recognized the deep problems the party has.

I also, for all those years, admired and adored the Clintons and defended them from all that Republican bullshit I’m now accused of falling for.

Since 2008, however, I have come to recognize the Clintons — and the Democrats in general — even more for what they are. I’ve seen the long-term impact of Clintonian Third Way politics, the damage they’ve done to the party and to the country, and I’ve seen the craven, arrogant way they use and abuse power. Who else has the gall to walk into polling stations and illegally campaign on voting day, simply because they know their local cronies won’t charge them with the crime?

So when people use the simple-minded defense that I’m sharing Republican lies (I am not) or falling for Republican spin (I am not), they are betraying their own superficial understanding of the facts and their own lack of attention to what I’m actually saying. Or they’re just spinning damage control for their candidate and being disingenuous.

Why do I keep criticizing Hillary Clinton while TRUMP? Because I believe in holding our leaders accountable, and I don’t believe in putting aside that principle for tactical reasons. Donald Trump is a disaster, but Donald Trump is not going to be the next president. So I don’t care what he might do in that office. Hillary Clinton is going to be the next president, so I’m VERY concerned about what she’s going to do.

Staying mum on her faults and falling in line isn’t going to improve her. The same folks who now say not to criticize her because of the election will change their tune once she’s in office and say we shouldn’t look backward or criticize her too harshly and possibly hinder her effectiveness in office. Her questionable record and current actions will be considered old news. That’s why I point out that the Empress has no clothes NOW. And my criticizing her is not going to cause her to lose. If she loses, it will be because she is a historically unpopular candidate.

The Dakota Access Pipeline issue is the perfect example of why I continue to criticize her. Her lack of leadership on the matter is obvious and deplorable. Clearly the ONLY way to get her to take a more positive role in the situation is to publicly chastise her, en masse, for her political cowardice and/or preferential consideration of the corporate interests involved. Silence will allow her to do nothing and to skate past the problem while people suffer and the land is despoiled.

I don’t accept silence as a valid or noble political tool, sorry. If the truth is too harsh, the problem is with the candidate, not the truth.

On The Matter Of My Vote

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I have, as a rule, avoided discussing how I’ll vote because I generally see that as a distraction from much more important things. My vote isn’t going to decide the election, and is itself a less than minuscule factor in the contest.

That said, as anyone who follows my blog already knows, I have a lot of issues with Hillary Clinton that will make casting a vote for her extremely difficult. The DNC collusion (particularly the unethical use of state parties to bypass campaign finance donation limits allegedly to support down-ballot candidates while actually funneling almost all the money to Clinton’s campaign while the DNC was, according to its own bylaws, supposed to be neutral), the swiftboating of Sanders’s civil rights activism, the bullying and rigging that went on right before the cameras in places like Las Vegas, the Clintons illegally (and arrogantly) campaigning in polling stations because they knew their local lackeys wouldn’t prosecute them, ordering poll workers to give the wrong ballots to independent voters in California, the disenfranchisement of hundreds of thousands of voters in multiple states like New York, the utter disrespect shown to Sanders’s duly elected delegates and volunteers at the convention…

Jesus, I could go on and on, and I haven’t even started on her record or policies. The DNC money laundering/collusion, which is a matter of public record and not just conspiracy theory, is all by itself compelling enough reason not to support Clinton or the Democrats at all. A vote for Clinton sends the message that all of that bullshit was exactly the right thing to do because it gets them what they want. It rewards electoral villainy. And I have some strong issues with doing that.

Should Trump lose? Yes. But my hope remains that Clinton wins by a very tight margin so that she knows she’s going into that office on probationary status, not with the mandate to continue doing as she and the DNC have been doing. I want her to know she cannot just take progressives for granted and treat them like shit and expect to win again. Odds are, she’ll have a more formidable challenger next time and she’s gonna need our votes. If a voter doesn’t vote for her, she’s likely still going to win, but that vote doesn’t add to her mandate. If any voter opts to go that way, I completely grok that. Clinton already has the gift of Donald Trump (though even so, she’s oddly weak against him), so perhaps she doesn’t need that one vote, and perhaps the lack of support contributes to her doing more progressive things in office because it makes her afraid of losing next time.

And the risk that Trump wins? Well, as I’ve pointed out, that risk was just fine for Clinton supporters who were “with her” when they put aside the math which showed that maybe running the least popular Democratic nominee in history might be a bad idea. If she can’t even beat Trump of all people because she was already unpopular and her actions in conspiring with the DNC lost her even more support, that’s on her and the DNC and all her supporters, just as much, or more, than it’ll be on folks who don’t choose to vote for her in November.

The entire case for Hillary Clinton tends to boil down to a handful of words: Woman. Trump. Nader. History. Democrat.

The only one of those words that isn’t entirely a plea to emotion or tribalism is “Trump.” And most of the folks who are tearing their hair out and screaming apocalypse when other folks say they might have to risk Trump because of silly things like “ethics” were more than willing to take the risk of Trump when they determinedly followed the DNC into the electoral pit by choosing the candidate with the demonstrably far worse chance of beating Trump. It was fine for them to risk Trump to get their preferred nominee, but now it’s just crazy to risk Trump for other reasons.

Me, I think it was crazier to bring a Clinton to a Sanders fight. And I’m tired of hearing simplistic hyper-emotional rhetoric and canned spin from the very people who put us in this situation.

My point boils down to: whether I vote for her or not, the election will turn out the way it’s going to turn out. She will win, or she won’t, and it will not be based on my vote. Another reason I won’t say how I’m voting is because by doing so I’m implying at least a bit of endorsement I can’t give, but however I vote, it ain’t coming down to me. In fact, a logical case could be made that my individual vote is of such statistical unimportance that demanding I violate my personal integrity for the sake of what is, effectively, a non-effect is absurd. That aside, again, what’s gonna happen is gonna happen, and if she loses, it will be because she was the worst choice for the fight and because she and hers screwed over a huge segment of leftward voters. If one individual chooses not to vote for her, for whatever reasons, their complicity in her loss will be infinitesimally smaller than her own, or than the DNC’s.

I don’t support Clinton, but I hope Trump loses. That’s all the endorsement she’s earned from me.