The Leftist Case for Clinton: You don’t win tug-of-war by dropping the rope.

[ehrnst]

To clarify — I consider myself to the left of Sanders on nearly all domestic issues, and I lean heavily towards non-intervention in foreign affairs, particularly in the Middle East.

I voted for Clinton not to preserve the center-left establishment, but because I believe she’s the single person best positioned to co-opt the existing institutional framework and advance my values in the world.

....................................................................


The short version is this: If we play our cards right, historians will remember the sixteen years from 2009 to 2025 as a period of profound change in American society. That change will be largely credited to two outsize personalities — Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton — and their progressive coalition of young voters, people of color, and urban whites with college degrees.

.................................................................................

Keep in mind: Clinton was the first First Lady who wasn’t a homemaker. The Republican Party at the time still considered working mothers a threat to “family values,” and Clinton’s very existence in the national spotlight made her Public Enemy №1 of the antifeminist movement. She was branded as a “congenital liar” (PolitiFact: she is the 2nd most honest candidate on record.) She had to bake cookies. The GOP even turned her husband’s infidelity into a political flashpoint, highlighting the instability of their nontraditional marriage.

And she wasn’t just a passive symbol of gender equality. She wielded her platform more vocally and aggressively than any First Lady since Eleanor Roosevelt.

She gave her “women’s rights are human rights” speech, despite pressure from her husband’s administration to soften her rhetoric. She spearheaded a health care plan that, had it passed, would have been the largest poverty-reduction measure since Medicaid. She coauthored It Takes A Village, which argued — in a country still swooning from Reagan — that we have a collective responsibility to make sure every child has the basic necessities and opportunities for a happy life. Republicans called her a “Lady Macbeth.”

...........................................................................

Clinton gets blasted on the left for taking money from interest groups and giving speeches at banks. But if you think you can get elected in 2016 without a $500 million war chest, if you think you can be a New York senator without shaking hands on Wall Street, you’re just not being honest about the realities of electoral politics.

If your only goal in life was to overturn Citizens United, you’d have to start by founding a Super PAC. If your only goal in life was to end the war on drugs, you’d have to start by quitting weed. You can’t change rules if you refuse to play the game.
So Clinton has gotten her hands dirty — to me that is a feature, not a bug. To me, that is the very model of how change happens within massive, complex institutions. I personally aspire to be this clear-minded and goal-oriented in the way I approach problems, at any level of influence.

https://medium.com/milobela/the-leftist-case-for-clinton-c5de3dfd8a67#.v3ib8gy85

[backscatter712]

1. That's where I'm at.

I'm pretty left. Voted for Bernie in the primary.

But I've also had some first-hand experience with "DINOs" in previous years, like Betsy Markey here in Colorado, who defeated Marilyn Musgrave. and turned the very-red Colorado 4th district blue.

And here's the thing. You're not going to agree with the centrist Dems on a lot of things, but you can work with them. Protest (peacefully, of course), rattle the chains, make noise, but also talk civilly with them, and you'll get quite a bit done. Put a Republican in that office, and he'll do nothing but cockblock.

For example, we were able to successfully pressure Markey to vote for Obamacare. Not a perfect bill, and not everything we wanted, but certainly a hell of a lot better than the previous status quo.

So yeah, I'm going to disagree with Hillary on a lot of things, but we will be able to work with Hillary on a lot of things, and make a few things happen out way. If we see Trump in the Oval Office, we'll get nothing done our way, and he'll set our country back a hundred years.

[retrowire]

2. This is a very good case to vote for her.

At this point, she's the only choice for progressive values to continue. Of course, I, as a Bernie supporter feel it should've gone differently and I still have my fears about how this is going to turn out.

But I'm smart enough to know the best way to play this game.

[VulgarPoet]

3. This is essentially where I am stuck.

I don't believe that a "center" approach gets anything done. I'm more on the "roadkill" philosophy of politics-- the only things to be found in the center of the road are yellow lines and dead squirrels. There will likely never in my lifetime be a president that I consider liberal enough for my tastes.

But Trump is a fucking madman. He's singlehandedly added fuel to the fire for everyone from white supremacists to "men's rights" activists; threatened to destabilize national security by inviting Putin to more or less send his cabals of state sponsored hackers to have their way with government networks, and given those Brexit morons hope for the future.

This is a man who should have been introduced to the back of the woodshed a long time ago.

[Hekate]

4. Thanks -- that's refreshing

Let's do this thing and move foreward.