So, as it looks, Hillary Clinton is likely going to be our democratic
nominee this November. I am not very thrilled with this prospect. I am
someone who aligns with the democratic party ideologically, at least in
theory, but Hillary Clinton is not the nominee for me. I can understand
why the Bernie or Bust movement exists, and am seriously thinking of
voting third party if Clinton is the nominee if the proper candidate
presents themselves.
Why not swallow my pride and vote Hillary?
So why don’t I swallow my pride and support Hillary anyway? I mean,
she’s better than Trump, isn’t she? And there’s so much at stake this
election, supreme court justices, blah blah blah. Well yeah, but that’s
exactly what she’s counting on. You see, the Clintons (I say this
plurally intentionally) are masters at a political strategy known as
“triangulation.” Bill Clinton’s campaign in 1992 is the textbook example
of this strategy, and Hillary has taken a lot out of his playbook for
this election too. Trinagulation is a political strategy in which a
candidate positions themselves near the center of the acceptable
political spectrum, basically, to double dip on voters. In the 90s, Bill
Clinton adopted many conservative positions in order to win over some
voters who would traditionally vote for Reagan/Bush, while also winning
over most of the traditional democratic base.
Hillary Clinton entered this race as the presumptive nominee,
starting off with 60% of support from the get go, giving her a certain
air of inevitability. As Sanders entered the race, her camp seemed to
feel threatened, and pushed the idea that there’s no way a “socialist”
can win the White House, despite many polls suggesting he could. People
were pushing for party unity and the need to unite behind a strong
contender like Clinton from the beginning. Clinton put her positions
just left enough to be mildly liberal/progressive enough to win people,
while still being significantly to the right of what Bernie and a
plurality of the democratic base wanted. Hillary has spent her entire
campaign ignoring and dismissing these people. She pushes for
incremental change instead of sweeping change (and I think my previous
article argued for a need for significant change). She tells us we have
to be pragmatic and work with the system we have, and work with
republicans, and that progressive ideas are “unicorn ideas” that will
never pass with our “political realities” and that we have to give up on
our dreams for a better future and settle for the mediocrity she’s
trying to force down our throats.
From a progressive leftie’s perspective, Hillary and the DNC
establishment supporting her have been doing nothing but arrogantly
condescending to us about how our ideas are unworkable crap and we have
to settle and compromise. Meanwhile, she runs to the center to try to
appeal to moderates and even some right wingers. After all, we don’t
matter, our votes are taken for granted and guaranteed. What are we
gonna do? We’re the left. We have nowhere to go. If we don’t want Trump,
we better support Hillary. Hillary doesn’t have to be a good candidate
who actually has similar values and supports policies we like, she just
has to be better than Trump and then use him as a reason to scare the
left into voting for her.
From there, her strategy is all about damage control. We are told
that this is the most important election ever and that Trump represents
an existential threat to democracy. We are told that there is so much at
stake like supreme court justices and Obamacare and that it is too
dangerous to play electoral chicken with Hillary. We have to unite
behind her and #votebluenomatterwho. We are told that if we vote for the
green party or another third party and don’t support her that it will
be all our fault when she loses, and that we have to support her or
else.
To vote for Hillary is to give her exactly what she wants, and to
reward her for basically pushing us out of the acceptable spectrum of
debate and alienating us. Hillary Clinton has, from day one, tried not
to be a champion of progressive values, but merely a lesser evil. She
has trampled on our values and told us that because we align more
closely with her than her opponent, that we should support her, nay,
that we HAVE to support her and we are awful people if we aren’t. It
doesn’t matter that there’s a grain of truth to some of these arguments.
It’s the fact that she’s shamelessly exploiting this in order to win
rather than appealing to what we want and trying to represent us
adequately.
How voting should work
I like to believe that candidates have to earn the votes of the
people they want supporting them. Voters do not exist for the parties,
parties exist for the voters. It is the candidates’ job to push forward
an agenda that the voters can get behind, and then get the voters to
support them, not for the candidates to browbeat the voters and blame
them for all of their failures, which is precisely what the democratic
party’s attitude is this election. If Hillary Clinton doesn’t win, it
isn’t because she was a weak candidate, it was because of all those
darned “Bernie Bros” who refused to back her because they didn’t like
her. Just like how it’s apparently all Ralph Nader’s fault that Bush won
in 2000, which I’ve seen thrown around a lot too. I hate to pull out
the “E” word, because I hate this word so much I may eventually write an
article on it, but the democrats are acting awfully “entitled” to
peoples’ votes. They expect lefties to be loyal to their party after a
primary season of browbeating and talking down to us, and they think
that they deserve our votes just by virtual of being left of center. All
of their failures, according to them, are because of us, and not
because they happen to be a weak candidate that alienates half their
voting base. This is NOT how voting should work. Candidates should earn
the support of their voters, not come to expect it without offering much
in return.
Should I not vote for Hillary then?
Well, if you take what I have been saying to its logical conclusion,
then only you can decide who to vote for. If you like Hillary, vote for
Hillary. If you like Trump, vote for Trump. If you don’t like either
enough that you want to vote third party, then do that. Only you can
make that decision.
As for me, personally, I have serious reservations about voting for
Hillary. Yes, it’s true if Hillary doesn’t win Trump likely will, and
Trump is in my opinion an objectively worse candidate. Not apocalyptically
so, but still worse nevertheless. However, it does not feel right to
validate Hillary’s political strategy by giving her my vote. Knowing
that she likely went into this race with the express intent to suppress
and ignore my views and those similar to mine in order to run to the
center rubs me the wrong way. I take it as an affront to my personal
values that she does this, and I feel like she is pushing me right out
of the spectrum of debate by doing this. The fact is, if Hillary does
this with the intent to win, ignoring her party’s base in order to
pursue moderates and independents, then I have to force her hand by not
guaranteeing my support to her. After all, the big reason she is taking
this gamble is because she believes that most voters she alienates and
ticks off will forgive her and/or forget about the differences and
support her out of fear of a common enemy. By telling her she is not
guaranteed my vote and following through sends a message to her that she
has to appeal to me and she can’t take me for granted. If I want to see
my political views seen in the political spectrum in the future, I
don’t think I can sit idly by and reward democrats when they don’t even
try to appeal to me. I mean, sure, I know, I will never get everything I
want in our system. People have to compromise and all. But when my
views are chewed down to the center before negotiations begin where
they’re never given any consideration to begin with, I have to feel
alienated from this party that is supposedly on the “same side” as I am.
It probably also means I’m going to have to be firm to get my views
heard, and if not supporting Hillary is what it takes, then maybe that’s
what I’m gonna have to do.
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