Originally shared by Steve S
From a comment to https://plus.google.com/u/0/+AlexanderWaitZaranek/posts/7uZeutNwpND by Lewis Yingling:
This is the reason I consider myself a “Radical Moderate.” I am radically opposed to extremists on both sides of the spectrum. Having passionate ideals is wonderful, however, when it comes down to it the real world is a complex and complicated place with complex and complicated problems that require complex and complicated solutions. In my mind, Hillary has a much better grasp of the worlds complexity. Her record and her words show her to be more conservative then me on some issues and more liberal on others. To me, that is the way it should be.
The arguments in the comments section beneath the above Planned Parenthood post sadden me. It is obvious that Hillary has been fighting hard for women’s issues her entire life. I think it is obvious that Bernie has a good record as well. There are many people far more liberal then me and I can respect that they want to vote for Bernie in the Primary, but to argue that they will not vote Democratic in the general election is insanity. A total insult to their own Progressive values.
There is no doubt in my mind that President George W Bush was appointed and not elected. The 2000 Florida election was as horrific as it gets; tens of thousands of Florida voters were disenfranchised an the election should not even have been close. Having said that, I will point out that the “official” result in Florida had “W” winning by 534 votes out of some 6 million. As I recall, there were some 30,000 votes or more for Ralph Nader in Florida in 2000. Hey, everyone is allowed to vote for who they want, and Nader was good on environmental issues, but there was absolutely no way Nader was going to win the Presidency. So those Nader voters are responsible for doing damage to our environment in my mind because instead of voting for the most viable candidate that was good on environmental issues, they felt it was more important to “make a statement.”
Come on people. There is a vast expanse between the Democratic and Republican candidates in this election. Yes, Hillary is more moderate then Bernie, but she is a radical progressive compared to the Republicans. If you are more radically progressive then I, if you are passionate about your progressive values and feel the need to vote for Bernie during the Primary, great. Do that. We need debate and discussion within our Party. That is what America is all about; a discussion, a conversation. I will be glad to discuss why I prefer Hillary to Bernie and I will listen to you.
In the end though. In the General, lets join together and defeat which ever nut the Republicans run. We can not let this Country go backward!
Lew
If you honestly consider Sanders an extremist, you are yet another American fallen victim to your nation’s absurdly positioned Overton Window…. Voting for Clinton is voting for a conservative in any other country in the world.
Matt Sharpey 1) I don’t consider Sanders an extremist, and his stated positions are closer to my own than are Clinton’s.
2) Your view of the world is confined to Western Europe, apparently — there are many countries where a candidate like Clinton would be considered very liberal, indeed.
In any case, the extremists are the ones who refuse to support Planned Parenthood because PP endorsed Clinton, or who will refuse to vote for Clinton if she happens to win the nomination. They are the ones who see evil conspiracies wherever there is any disagreement with their point of view, the ones who deny humanity to anyone who disagrees with them.
Kent Crispin No, I’m Australian, and can confirm that Hillary would be considered very conservative, very corrupt and very dangerous in this country…. We also would never tolerate the notion of having multiple members of the same dynasty take a position as our elected President (or Prime Minister in our case) as it fairly reeks of monarchy or feudalism.
The DNC is rotten to the core, not as overtly as the GOP, but rotten nonetheless.
I consider myself as very progressive, but I have never, and will never, voted along party lines, I vote on policy alone, and Hillary’s stated policies are at odds with both her corporatist and hawkish tendencies, and I simply do not believe she will deliver…
Hillary is to the right of Obama, and the idea that any liberal, no matter how moderate, would support a candidate of her ilk when Sanders is running in the same primary is both amusing and disturbing to me and clearly to many American progressives…
The time for choosing between the lesser of two evils is long past. Your government has been literally captured by corporations and oligarchs. Your democracy is a farce, and American “liberals” are claiming the answer is a shift further rightward? I cannot believe what I am witnessing in a country that gave rise to the likes of FDR, and assert that Cold War propaganda, the lunacy of the GOP, and your absurdly placed Overton Window has distorted the political picture for those with any interest and created abject political apathy and wilful ignorance and non-engagement for the overwhelming majority of moderates and liberals let alone progressives in America.
Matt Sharpey I think you are understating the complexity of Australian politics, to tell you the truth — I’m pretty sure that there are leftish people in Australia who would have been delighted to have Clinton as a leader — she would not have eliminated the Carbon Tax, or pursued the other anti-environmental policies of the Abbott government, for example. Of course, the Australian situation is different, as well — for better or worse, the US is the most powerful country on earth, so many of the issues you berate Clinton for simply wouldn’t apply in Australia.
But more importantly, you say: “The time for choosing between the lesser of two evils is long past.” This is the statement of a political child, not a mature human being. *All political choices are compromises; you never get everything you want.* That’s the reality of living in the real world. By definition, that means you pick the lesser of the evils around you. Period.
You make the choices you think will get you closest to your goals. Not voting is one of those choices, and historically, it has been a bad one.
Kent Crispin I understand Australian politics very well, and I think your assertion that Clinton would be a popular candidate among liberals in this country is utterly incorrect.
I am always amused by the manner in which so-called “moderate liberals” attempt to legitimise their candidate by citing “complexity” and asserting that principled progressives are “political children”, it says more about their cognitive dissonance than it does about the reality of the situation 99.99999% of the time…
Your entire political process is based on lobbyists, cash, corruption, and a propagandist corporate media.
You have an opportunity in Sanders to at least begin the process of rectifying that situation….
Take it, or continue your descent into outright oligarchy….. A Descent for which the entire world is paying a very, very heavy price…..
Matt Sharpey Looking at the policies of the Abbott government described in wikipedia, I don’t think anyone in their right mind would say that Clinton was more conservative. The Abbott government was strongly anti-environment (abolished the Climate commission, removed the carbon tax, etc), anti-health (eg, cut hospital funding by A$ 15 billion), anti-secular (eg provided $245 million for religious chaplains in schools), anti-education (cut public funding for universities by 20%, increased student debts), moved to abolish the Freedom of Information Commissioner, etc, etc, etc. If you think these were liberal policies, then we have a fundamental difference in the meaning of the word. Clinton would do none of those things.
I agree that the US political process is deranged. But it is an unescapable fact that the world is complex. That is not a function of cognitive dissonance, though saying so might be a comforting way for you to deal with complexity.
The question isn’t whether Sanders’ policies are desirable — they are. The question is what he can realistically accomplish, and whether he can realistically accomplish more than Clinton (who is far more liberal, in fact, than you portray). And that is one of those complex questions for which there is no simple answer, much as you would like to pretend that there was.
Kent Crispin Champ, what do you really think Clinton can accomplish that Sanders cannot?
Either one will face an overwhelmingly obstructionist congress, but I’d argue Clinton is so deeply despised by so many particularly on the right, that such obstructionism would attain levels of calculated venom that Bernie’s honesty would be preferable to all involved.
The importance, particularly of the first term, of the next POTUS is the use of the Bully Pulpit, and given the favours Clinton owes and who she owes them to, she will be even more benign than Obama was in his first term.
Sanders will excel in this area, he will talk loudly about Citizens United, Wall Street, Publicly Funded Elections, and perhaps most importantly in terms of outcomes, he will champion diplomacy over regime change or military intervention.
Matt Sharpey The scenario you describe for a Clinton presidency (“calculated venom”) might happen. It might happen that Sanders idealism would render him completely ineffectual as well. I do think Clinton would be significantly more likely to effect change, worldwide, regarding women’s rights, though.
But, really, neither is likely to be able to effect sweeping changes. It’s highly unlikely (to the point of fantasy) that there will be a massive revolt of the electorate that will bring in cheering progressive majorities in both houses of congress — see http://www.vox.com/2015/10/19/9565119/democrats-in-deep-trouble
So their effectiveness will depend on the bully pulpit (as you say) and in their ability to make deals.
But the idea that Hillary is just another republican is stupid. She doesn’t have Bernie’s instinctive dislike of rich people, but she is a genuine liberal. (Another one of those facts that some people have a hard time understanding — you don’t have to hate economic success to be genuinely liberal.)
I don’t have any problem with people supporting Bernie, quite the contrary — as I have said many times, from a policy perspective I prefer his positions. What I am concerned with is the suicidal stupidity of the “BernieOrBurn” (or maybe that was “BernieOrBust”) perspective.