I’m occasionally asked why I’ve decided to cast my vote for Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries and the eventual general election. There’s no short way of saying it so I’ve laid the thought process out below.
There are two social behaviors at play that need to be accounted for.
The first is a social equivalent of every action having an equal and opposite reaction, or near enough to one. This can be seen clearly in how the GOP reacted to Obama’s huge victory in 2008–not just in terms of winning, but how he won and what he represented to the progressive movement. That victory resulted in Republicans being compelled to do whatever they could to show any sign of political relevance, even to the point of the establishment looking the other way as the Tea Party infected the GOP and turned it towards fundamentalism and extremism, culminating in Trump.
The second behavior is one with many smaller examples over time by looking at mid-term elections. The party that feels they have the political power becomes complacent, apathetic, and non-involved. Meanwhile the party wanting the power is motivated and involved. This, I’d say, is also largely why one party rarely holds the White House for more than 8 years, and it’s only by the absolute ridiculousness of the GOP candidates that Democrats even have a chance this cycle.
Then there’s the simple reality that even if Bernie is elected, he’s going to have far less political support and allies than Obama when he entered office, AND Bernie will be going up against a GOP that’s already fortified in their obstructionist ways with no sign of change in sight.
That sad bit of reality has forced me to conclude that while a Democrat might be able to win given the fluke nature of this cycle, they’re still not going to be able to accomplish anything once in office. What we need to be doing, instead, is looking at the positioning of Democrats and the progressive movement in the years to come. We might not be able to score a major victory for the cause today, but there are steps we can take to set us up for better positioning in the future.
This is where those social behaviors come in.
If Bernie wins, even if he can’t accomplish things once in office, it’s going to be seen as a major political victory for the progressive cause. Republicans, again, will be thrown onto the defensive and feel compelled to demonstrate political relevance. This could result in even higher levels of conservative extremism as they double-down on the only strategies they’ve known for 8 years.
Then, once Bernie’s dream meets political reality and he’s unable to accomplish anything, his followers will fall into frustration, apathy, and will probably become even more aggressive against our system of government that continually fails them. Meanwhile Bernie’s progressive agenda is going to give the Republican propaganda machine all new material to motivate conservatives politically. Sure, they hate Hillary, but their attacks on her aren’t exciting anymore. Attacks on Bernie will be exciting. That progressive apathy and conservative excitement will utterly devastate Democrats in 2018, when, as a mid-term, Democrats would already be at a disadvantage.
We need to work towards mitigating those social behaviors. If there were a moderate Republican running and the ACA/SCOTUS weren’t on the line, I’d say that giving Republicans that little victory would be good for the progressive cause long-term. But the ACA/SCOTUS are on the line and there’s no reasonable Republican in contention. Our best option now is to elect a Democrat that’s LEAST threatening to them, and Hillary is less threatening than Bernie.
Therefore, after months of going back and forth, I finally threw my support behind Hillary. She’s not the best candidate, but she’s the best candidate for the current political atmosphere.
I want to see Bernie’s dream come to fruition. I want his message to remain loud and spread, winning the hearts and minds of the citizenry. But I fear that by electing him now into a no-win scenario, we put his dream and his message into the sights of the Republican propaganda machine without sufficient chance of accomplishing anything of it.
Instead of waging war on a battlefield that only favors conservatives, we need to work to change that battlefield. Bernie’s “political revolution” needs to grow beyond one man to encompass politicians up and down the political ranks, in the federal government and the states. We need to take a page from the Tea Party and build an army of politicians ready to challenge not only Republicans, but establishment Democrats.
More than even that, though, we need the message to spread in a way that it won’t be instantly repelled by the knee-jerk reaction of Republicans, defensive and trying to protect their little slice of relevance. Because even if we had the army of politicians and a strong leader to unify them to the cause, and even if they were able to push progressive policies into legislature despite Republican obstruction, if conservatives remain united against them it’s only a matter of time until they regain political power and undo everything we’ve accomplished. We need to move the country left—not just our political system.
It’s a slow process to change a political system from within. It’s a slow process to ensure those changes last. And it’s a process that requires careful thought, to know the battlefield, social behaviors, and long-term strategy.
And I feel that, for the good of the progressive movement, the dream and message will weather the current political storms far better with Hillary in the spotlight, taking the blows we know she can take and preserving what gains we’ve made so far, than for Bernie to be put into a position of impotence where he and his dream will be attacked with all the force and tools Republicans can muster.