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onehandle

(51,122 posts)
Fri Apr 15, 2016, 12:57 AM Apr 2016

Hillary Clinton for President - Endorsement

It is not enough to be a candidate of anger. Anger is not a plan; it is not a reason to wield power; it is not a reason for hope. Anger is too narrow to motivate a majority of voters, and it does not make a case for the ability and experience to govern. I believe that extreme economic inequality, the vast redistribution of wealth to the top one percent — indeed, to the top one percent of the one percent — is the defining issue of our times. Within that issue, almost all issues of social injustice can be seen, none more so than climate change, which can be boiled down to the rights of mankind against the oligarchy that owns oil, coal and vast holdings of dirty energy, and those who profit from their use.

Hillary Clinton has an impressive command of policy, the details, trade-offs and how it gets done. It's easy to blame billionaires for everything, but quite another to know what to do about it. During his 25 years in Congress, Sanders has stuck to uncompromising ideals, but his outsider stance has not attracted supporters among the Democrats. Paul Krugman writes that the Sanders movement has a "contempt for compromise."

Every time Sanders is challenged on how he plans to get his agenda through Congress and past the special interests, he responds that the "political revolution" that sweeps him into office will somehow be the magical instrument of the monumental changes he describes. This is a vague, deeply disingenuous idea that ignores the reality of modern America. With the narrow power base and limited political alliances that Sanders had built in his years as the democratic socialist senator from Vermont, how does he possibly have a chance of fighting such entrenched power?

I have been to the revolution before. It ain't happening.

On the other hand, Hillary Clinton is one of the most qualified candidates for the presidency in modern times, as was Al Gore. We cannot forget what happened when Gore lost and George W. Bush was elected and became arguably one of the worst presidents in American history. The votes cast for the fantasy of Ralph Nader were enough to cost Gore the presidency. Imagine what a similar calculation would do to this country if a "protest vote" were to put the presidency, Congress and the Supreme Court all in the hands of the extreme right wing that now controls the Republican Party.

Clinton not only has the experience and achievements as first lady, senator and secretary of state, but a commitment to social justice and human rights that began for her as a young woman. She was one of those college students in the Sixties who threw herself into the passionate causes of those times, and she continues to do so today.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/hillary-clinton-for-president-20160323

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Hillary Clinton for President - Endorsement (Original Post) onehandle Apr 2016 OP
"Rolling Stone endorses Hillary Clinton for president" Number23 Apr 2016 #1
For the reasons they say they don't like Bernie is exactly why I do. aikoaiko Apr 2016 #2

Number23

(24,544 posts)
1. "Rolling Stone endorses Hillary Clinton for president"
Fri Apr 15, 2016, 01:27 AM
Apr 2016

Holy moly.

I missed this when it must have first come out. A great endorsement.

Every time Sanders is challenged on how he plans to get his agenda through Congress and past the special interests, he responds that the "political revolution" that sweeps him into office will somehow be the magical instrument of the monumental changes he describes. This is a vague, deeply disingenuous idea that ignores the reality of modern America.

You get a sense of "authenticity" when you hear Sanders talking truth to power, but there is another kind of authenticity, which may not feel as good but is vitally important, when Clinton speaks honestly about what change really requires, about incremental progress, about building on what Obama has achieved in the arenas of health care, clean energy, the economy, the expansion of civil rights. There is an inauthenticity in appeals to anger rather than to reason, for simplified solutions rather than ones that stand a chance of working. This is true about Donald Trump, and lamentably also true about Sanders.


100% agreed.

aikoaiko

(34,183 posts)
2. For the reasons they say they don't like Bernie is exactly why I do.
Fri Apr 15, 2016, 01:35 AM
Apr 2016

He is ignoring the realities of modern American politics because that is the only way significant change can occur.

He may not win, but ignoring the the realities of American politics is what has earned him over 40% of the Democratic primary votes and delegates.

If he had campaigned the traditional way, he would have failed as badly as O'Malley.


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