So...Hillary Clinton...or Jill Stein. That IS the question. It was the burning question that defined 2016 for me. Do I vote for the democratic nominee who I hate with a passion, or the person who is an idiot but who at least tries to pander to me? In 2016, idiot who pandered won. But...let's face it. I didnt' come up with the idea of using detailed voting metrics in 2020. In 2016, I would define my metric as thus:
1) Basic income
2) Medicare for all
3) Free college/student debt forgiveness
Those were my three big purity tests. We can clearly tell what happened with Bernie vs Clinton. Bernie got 2/3 while Clinton got 0/3, or at most 0.5/3 after pushing a half ###ed "free college" plan in her platform. God, getting ANYTHING out of her was like PULLING TEETH. That's why I hated her. She really didn't give the left anything and had disdain where she thought giving extremely watered down half measures that make Biden look progressive by comparison (yes, Biden really is that much better than Hillary).
Meanwhile, Jill Stein supported medicare for all and free college, and was even nominally pro UBI, although didn't make it a big part of her platform. So...2.5/3. No wonder I voted for her.
No, I didn't care about the court. Or all the SJW privilege stuff. Or anything else. I had my three point purity test, and that was it. I was maybe willing to waive UBI somewhat if you supported a $15 minimum wage and were pro union, ya know, stuff that are basic parts of Biden's platform. But Clinton only wanted $12 and had to be dragged kicking and screaming to $15. And she was on the board of directors for walmart so didn't have strong union credentials. Ugh, just thinking about this stuff makes me realize how cringe Clinton was at the time. Like, whatever we have with Biden, Clinton was just SO much worse.
But...we get it, Clinton wasn't winning any popularity contests...even though the presidential election is literally a popularity contest. Her whole thing was she sucked less than trump, so you better vote for her instead of trump.
Introducing Metric 1 to the 2016 election
So, let's use a modified version of Metric 1 but for 2016. Basically, I didn't have a "spoiler" provision in the 2020 version of the metric, so I'm gonna use that. And we will use Hillary Clinton's platform, as well as statements I recall her making to judge her as a candidate.
Basic Income support- 10 points
Medicare for all support- 10 points
Other Economic issues- 10 points
Social issues- 10 points
Foreign policy issues- 10 points
Worldview/ideology- 20 points
Commitment to progressive goals- 20 points
Experience/competence- 10 points
Basically the big difference is I go back to the 2020 version where I placed 20 points on commitment to progressive goals. This was intended to sniff out fake progressives where they shift left and then run center come time to do anything. You know the type (Clinton is the type). I'll be judging both Hillary Clinton and Jill Stein by this metric, so let's see who scores higher and whether my Stein vote was actually justified.
Hillary Clinton
Basic Income support- 3/10
I didn't know this at the time, but she actually DID consider supporting a UBI. At the time I would've definitely given her a zero, but the fact that in retrospect she even CONSIDERED the idea, I'll give her a couple points here. At the time she would've gotten a zero as I was under the impression she was hard against UBI.
Medicare for all support- 1/10
I mean she had a mild healthcare plan but it was all band aid fixes that didn't do anything.
Other economic issues- 8/10
I mean, she had an okay platform. She did get pushed to adopt that $15 minimum wage. She had a half ###ed free college plan. She did want to make some investments into climate change and housing. A lot of this stuff didn't make it into my 2016 purity test, but she did at least okay. And she did say the right thing on unions in her platform even if I didn't trust her. She was just WAY too much of a jobist, but let's save that for ideology/worldview.
Social issues- 9/10
On social issues she largely supported the right positions. She was more progressive than Biden's being on immigration right now, and she even was fairly moderate on guns. I just didn't trust her because, well, we'll get to that.
Foreign policy- 10/10
Let's face it, she was secretary of state and highly experienced and decorated on the foreign policy front, and she would've been strong on Russia.
Worldview/ideology- 8/20
This is where 2016 me HATED Hillary. We didn't agree on much. She was a milquetoast centrist dem. Even if she supported the right positions on issues, the nuance was everything. She had a "public position" and a "private position", and to probe her private positions, I saw a christian who met the right half way on everything. She didn't really seem comfortable with abortion. She definitely wasn't comfortable on gay marriage. Despite dropping the TPP she dreamed of hemispheric markets with open borders. She seemed to have open disdain for the Bernie camp. She was a hardcore jobist who internalized the protestant work ethic to an insane degree. And...I knew all of this. And I didn't trust her. I didn't trust her to stand up for the right thing push comes to shove. She was a transactional politician, she didn't really believe in left wing causes, and when we agreed it was often for the wrong reasons. Like my views, especially at the time, but even now, I was driven primarily by a sense of secular humanism. While I've chilled as I "found god" again somewhat, my views haven't changed, but as that angry humanist, I kinda recognized that Clinton just...wasn't appealing to me at all. Not socially, not economically. Foreign policy sure, but how much did I actually care about that in 2016? If I did the ideological makeup of her worldview, I'd find a lot of moderate christianity + postmodernism/wokeism there. And it just didn't appeal to me at all. I wanted someone who was more secular, and had a worldview driven more toward serious ideological and economic change in this country. Clinton just wasn't the person, especially at the time.
Commitment to progressive causes- 0/20
Again, Clinton was the kind of person who talked out of both sides of her mouth at the same time. She was for something, but then she was against it. She had no authenticity, no sincerity. She just cared about winning. She would sell you out if it improved her electoral chances by 5%. She was clearly more socially conservative in all the wrong ways, and I didn't trust her to do anything progressive at all. She was a worthless establishment democrat and that was that.
Experience/competence-10/10
Yes yes, very experienced. Resume as long as her arm. All the right boxes. Too bad I didn't care much about ticking boxes at the time.
Overall- 49/100
All in all, Hillary Clinton was a pretty mediocre candidate. And I'll be real with you. At the time, I judged her more by what I estimated her real positions to be, rather than her nominal positions. I didn't trust her. I just didn't. Because here's the thing. Hillary Clinton was a moderate democrat with a moderate worldview. She shifted left to try to appease Bernie, but if she got into office, would she do anything to actually advance causes? No. We saw how her husband governed in the 90s, and I tend to view them both pretty similarly ideologically. She can be left wing all she wants come election time, but in office, let's face it, she'd probably sell us up a creek without a paddle and meet the republicans half way. Been there, done that. Still, she is slightly higher than I judged Stein this election. I have her at 45. Originally it was 52, but I've shifted her downward after her spat with west as I questioned whether she and the greens were defending Russia. We really don't know on that one.
But yeah. Clinton was well into "moderate" territory. Keep in mind in 2020, my scoring of this metric was as follows:
0-34- Are you even a democrat?
35-49- Centrist
50-59- Fauxgressive (fake progressive but actually centrist)
60-79- Flawed progressive (I'd vote for you but Bernie is better)
80+- Only Bernie scored this high
I mean I could've lowered the perfect metric to like 75 and still got the same result.
Now, let's look at how I viewed Jill Stein at the time.
Jill Stein
Basic income- 5/10
I asked her directly on reddit if she supported UBI once and she said yes. However, I admit it was kind of a half ###ed endorsement.
Medicare for all support- 10/10
She endorsed medicare for all
Other economic issues- 10/10
Yeah she was a lot more progressive than Hillary on like everything. Full on green new deal, free college/student debt forgiveness, job guarantee, etc.
Social issues- 8/10
She seemed a bit more progressive than Hillary. At the same time, oof, her anti vax stuff didn't age well.
Foreign policy- 0/10
I mean, even back then I knew her foreign policy ideas were insane. I just supported her as a virtue signal against HRC.
Worldview/ideology- 13/20
She seemed a lot more in line with me than Clinton was. Not perfect. But I did feel like she at least embraced her positions from a position of sincerity and that she meant what she said. We obviously disagree on some stuff, most notably foreign policy. And she is kinda woke (although so was hillary). And she wasnt really anti work. And she was kinda anti vax. 2024 me isnt too keen on her due to becoming more mature since then and more familiar with the left. But at the time she seemed like a welcome improvement from Hillary and more in line with Sanders.
Commitment to progressive goals- 14/20
I mean, I have some things to say here. I didnt doubt her sincerity at the time, although I did question if she really was pro UBI. And I do have doubts and wonder if the Russians ARE funding the greens now. Of course at 2016 this didn't even enter the equation. And I did figure she had no way to pay for her proposals, but darn it, she would try. So I think 14/20 is a fair score.
Experience/competence- 0/10
She had none. And she appealed to anti vax weirdos.
Overall- 60/100
Yeah she barely made it into the flawed progressive category, but she did make it. I think Howie Hawkins scored a bit higher, like a 65 in 2020? Yeah. So, at the time, yeah, preferred her over Hillary somewhat. I admit I did have to hold my nose either way, but I figured expressing support for my top ideas and punishing Hillary was the best decision at the time. Can I regret it? not really. Clinton really was a turd, and while we can do this alternate history what if scenario if Hillary won, here's my idea of what would've happened.
She would've been elected, she would've had a mild bump in polling like Biden, but once the honeymoon period was over, the country would be dead against her. She would never get anything done, or anything passed. She's sell out her election promises to meet the GOP half way, and she would get destroyed in 2020. Idk if the GOP would run trump again or someone else, but I think she would create a similar reaction on the right that led to trump in the first place. I dont think she would've been a good president. Maybe the court would look better. Maybe. Either that or she'd never fill a seat because of mitch mcconnell just obstructing until the GOP took power again. That could've happened.
And yeah, just imagine covid happening under her watch. Even if she handled it better than orange crapstain, she would never live it down, and she would've gotten destroyed in the 2020 election.
So...would alternate history be any better? Democrats love to relitigate this stuff, like if only their guy won, but here's the thing, they seem to not understand that if their guy won, it would literally change the entire electoral history since then, and because its exceedingly rare for one party to occupy the presidency for 12+ years straight, a win to a third term would mean near certain defeat in the fourth. Even the new deal coalition only held it together for 5 consecutive terms.
So...you can spin this 12 ways to sunday about what I should have done, and blah blah blah. But I did what I did, and at the time, I felt pretty darned justified. I didn't know Trump would turn into the psycho he now is. No one took him serious at the time, except for the clinton campaign, and even then, that was just like an act, right? They were only being alarmist because they wanted to win elections. I dont think even they knew trump was as dangerous as he is.
So let's not really relitigate this.
I voted for Jill Stein. I'm not really sorry. I admit I underestimate clinton a bit, but she was a turd, i didnt trust her, I had good reason not to, and thinking about it again I see where past me was coming from. Did she really redeem herself here? Maybe a little, as I apply more modern metrics to her at the time, and judge her more with hind sight, but honestly, given 2016 me was all about my top ideas and sending a message, I feel like my stein vote was justified at the time. I won't do it again. I like Biden better than Clinton for one, and for two, Trump is dangerous, and for three, I'm really kinda not really as enthusiastic for "leftists" these days. I've come to realize I got my own ideological spats with them too, and they don't do as well in a more modern context in my metrics.
Of course, my metric is changed.
If we applied my actual 2024 metric, we'd halve the commitment to progressive goals score and add 10 points to not being a spoiler. if we did that Clinton would be up to 59, and Stein would fall from 60 to 53, which is almost exactly what i originally gave stein this cycle (52).
Under such an environment, eh...yeah. Trump being as dangerous as he is does make a difference in my vote. In 2016 he was just the verbose reality star saying tons of crazy crap, now he's a literal threat to democracy saying crazy crap.
But yeah, 2016 and 2024 are just different election cycles. The issues are different, the candidates are somewhat different, and even the same candidates and my understanding of them have evolved. If I had to do it again in 2024, knowing what I do now, I probably would hold my nose for Clinton. This is primarily because, again, I've cooled on leftists and trump is more dangerous now. but yeah, that's really the big factors. It's just...the election cycles are different. Even judging the same candidates the issues are a bit different now, and what underlies my voting behavior is a little different.
So yeah, 2016, my stein vote was justified, 2024, I ain't doing it again because Stein just isn't as appealing to me and Trump is scary. And there you have it.
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