Hey, Hillary–Listen to the REAL Message
Bernie Sanders said two things worth noting the other day, at the same event. When asked at a Town Hall meeting how to convince Bernie supporters to vote for Hillary if she’s the nominee, he responded, “it is “incumbent on her” to win over his supporters. Specifically, he pointed out that he doesn’t exercise control over his supporters and nor should he, and that many have a deep suspicion of a candidate with such close ties to Wall Street. He even gave her a road map: endorse his Medicare-for-ALL healthcare plan.
At the same event, he announced that he would do “everything in my power to keep the Republicans out of the White House.”
Hillary responded only to the first, pointing out that she did not put any conditions on her endorsement of Obama in 2008. And analysts agree that she worked very hard for Obama after the convention. However, she didn’t seem to hear the second.
She still does not get that Bernie is not a politician in charge of a machine in the old style of politics. He finds himself at the forefront of a people’s movement that he does not control. Bernie can endorse and I’m sure will endorse Hillary if she is a nominee, but that doesn’t mean he is able to overcome his supporters’ massive and justified skepticism of her belief systems and her actions. Once again, he has spoken the truth; she does have to win them over.
And Hillary needs these people. Independents and left-leaning Democrats will be major factors in November. If they stay home, we get whichever monster emerges from the Republican convention. If they show up, we get a Democrat.
I have serious issues with Hillary Clinton, and particularly her foreign policy. I worry that she’s too much of a war-hawk and way too comfortable with the worst excesses of Israel’s ultra-right government. I don’t love her cluelessness about people’s movements and her coziness with Wall Street. And while she’s obviously extremely smart, she’s done some really dumb things over and over again. I don’t expect any significant progressive shift under a Hillary Clinton administration.
In the past, including in 2000, I’ve voted 3rd party. Of course, I have the luxury of living in a state where my vote doesn’t count anyway. Knowing that Massachusetts was safely Democratic made it easy to vote my conscience and cast my vote for Nader.
Yet, if she’s the nominee, I will hold my nose and vote for her. The prospect of either a Trump or Cruz presidency is so distasteful that I want the margins of victory to be enormous; this year, I want to be counted in that victory margin, and not pushed off to the side with a Green Party vote that nobody pays any attention to. Under Clinton, I would expect some attention to economic policies that help poor people—as a sop to Sanders supporters, if nothing else—and some good stuff on women’s issues. I would expect excellent Supreme Court nominees.
And, unfortunately, I would expect once again to be out in the streets with thousands of others, doing my best to keep us from being sucked into whatever war HRC would get us into.
A lifelong activist, profitability and marketing specialist Shel Horowitz’s mission is to fix crises like hunger, poverty, racism, war, and catastrophic climate change—by showing the business world how fixing them can make a profit. An author, international speaker, and TEDx Talker, his award-winning 10th book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World, lays out a blueprint for creating and MARKETING those profitable change-making products and services. He is happy to help you craft your messaging and develop profit strategies. Learn more (and download excerpts from the book) at http://goingbeyondsustainability.com
I’m not even sure Hillary is “clueless” in any conventional, individualistic sense. Our educational and employment systems have their specials ways of making deference to Money unconsciously engrained in our attitudes and behaviors.
Of course, that makes us fortunate in that for much of the world deference to power is still enforced by the age old techniques of brutal terror.
But our *successful* politicians are socialized and indoctrinated in pervasive ways that go beyond the obvious need to cozy up to the donor class for fundraising.
Perhaps the flip side of what Bernie and Shell are saying is that Hillary can not and will not change unless there are significant changes the electorate.
Maybe it should not be totally disheartening that so many Bernie supporters will consider voting for Trump rather than Hillary. (Maybe…) But that is where we are.
Right now there are too many influencers saying it’s unrealistic to have Medicaid for all, to expand Social Security, to offer life long educational opportunities to all, and to rebuild our energy infrastructures so they don’t pollute us into a “civilization bottleneck” of evolutionary proportions.
That these ideas are termed “unrealistic” rather than “radical” or “dangerous” might be a hopeful sign. But these ideas need to be understood for what they are: necessary.
They are necessary, but also quite conducive toward preserving the elements of our current economy that almost everyone idealizes. (The same must be said for our political/governmental systems)
America is supposed to be about expanding opportunities for everyone. No doubt our systems have made some significant progress there, but there is a long way to go. And the stagnation of economic opportunities for the many while wealth is being monopolized by the few has persisted for a generation now. It is very significant, and it has the power to set us back in terms of democracy and opportunity even independently of the grave threats associated with climate change and our Terroristic National Security Surveillance State.
Hillary is no FDR (maybe), but everyone should remember that he could only do what circumstances and political pressure “made” him do. And it cannot be any other way!