2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Dems who say they won't vote for Hillary if she's the nominee remind me of... [View all]Douglas Carpenter
(20,226 posts)forward and seek a newer world - not simply hopes to refine the status quo.
I certainly have no reason to hate Hillary. I never met her. It is simply that she is not a social-democrat and would not be supportive of the kind of policies that I am convinced to a moral certainty and beyond any reasonable doubt would be necessary to move the country forward. Is she better than the any of the Republican alternatives? Of course. But I would actually like to see polices enacted that are more than simply less dangerous than Republican policies.
If there was a viable progressive and social-democratic alternative to supporting the Democrats without endangering the possibility of putting some right-wing crazy in power - I would support that instead. But the political system of the United States is not constructed that way.
Once a LaRouche devotee won the Democratic Primary for Lt. Governor of Illinois. Nobody suggested that they were morally bound to support him. On another occasion a KKK, Aryan Nation leader won the Democratic Primary for a U.S. Congress seat in Southern California. Again, nobody suggested that loyal Democrats were obliged to support him. My point being that being a Democrat is not a religion. Everybody has some point where they will not support the Democratic nominee.
Of course Hillary is not that bad and I said before and I'm sure most Sander's supporters agree as is affirmed by polling that if Hillary became the nominee they and I would support her. But this is a primary process and for the first time in decades there is at least the possibility of nominating and perhaps even electing someone who goes beyond simply tweaking the status quo. Hillary is nothing exceptional that way. She is pretty much in the same centrist political sphere that has been dominating the Democratic Party for at least the last three or four decades. I would like to try something different.