Why Hillary Clinton Is the Only Real Choice for Intelligent Progressives

The following was inspired by some of the comments on John Oliver’s recent segment on third parties on his show Last Week Tonight, plus comments I've seen elsewhere, such as on Facebook (e.g., in response to a post by Senator Jeff Merkeley's in support of Hillary Clinton). As it is rather wasted in (and too long for) the YouTube comment section, which is a cesspool that I usually try to stay out of (unsuccessfully in this case), I thought I’d post it here on my blog. Of course I should emphasize that I know the kind of people this is addressed to are a tiny though very noisy minority outside of places like YouTube and Facebook comments, and the vast majority of sensible progressive-minded people, whoever they supported in the Democratic primary, are already fully committed to Hillary Clinton. They are obviously not the targets here, but they might find a few of these arguments useful in the event that they know any Stein supporters or others who still haven’t come around to Hillary.

Among the responses to the Last Week Tonight video, I saw a lot of complaints about John Oliver attacking Jill Stein and Gary Johnson and claims that he is “biased” in favor of Hillary Clinton. Okay, let’s look at those assertions. First of all, as should be obvious, John Oliver is a progressive. I would think that the vast majority of people who watch John Oliver are also progressives, or at least open to progressive ideas. In other words, they are not at all likely to vote for, or even consider voting for, a narcissistic, racist, xenophobic, Islamophobic, misogynist who has at best a poor record as a businessman, has the maturity and attention span of a toddler, has no self-control, speaks incoherently, is a habitual liar, advocates torture and war crimes, has a “charitable” foundation that he has horribly misused, has no respect for rule of law or freedom of the press, has definite authoritarian leanings and a questionable relationship with an authoritarian foreign leader, has few concrete policy ideas (and terrible ones at that), peddled the ridiculous and racist “birther” conspiracy theory for years, has an appalling disregard for the facts on any issue, has no qualifications for office, clearly has no clue about most of what would be involved in the job he is running for and demonstrates no capacity or interest in learning about such things, and has been credibly accused by multiple women of sexual assault and other possibly criminal behavior, accusations supported by his own boasts recorded on tape. So I’m not addressing any of his supporters here (if you are one, I hope you will someday snap out of it, though if you haven’t by this point I don’t see much hope for you).

So if the Republican candidate (let’s call him Pumpkin Hitler) is out, that leaves three semi-realistic choices: Hillary Clinton, Gary Johnson, and Jill Stein (there’s also Evan McMullin, but he’s not likely to appeal to progressives). It’s obvious that while Oliver has also criticized Hillary, he thinks she is the best choice. So, does that mean he is “biased” in her favor? I suppose in a sense it does, but of course no one is free from bias. Anyway, let’s suppose there was an intelligent, progressive person who somehow knew nothing about any of the candidates (maybe they’d been in a coma for 30 years) and was able to compare them completely objectively. Who would they end up supporting?

Gary Johnson would quickly be dismissed by this hypothetical progressive voter. Sure, his stances on marijuana, criminal justice reform, government surveillance and a few other things are good, but he is terrible on some of the most important issues, such as climate change (he admits it is real, but not only wouldn’t do anything to fight it but would make it worse by removing carbon regulations, allowing drilling everywhere, and more), economic inequality (he’s against the minimum wage, and his tax policies and anti-regulation stance favor the rich), and money in politics (he supports Citizens United and other bad court rulings). No real progressive could vote for him, even if he hadn’t demonstrated the type of cluelessness Oliver mocks him for.

So then there’s Jill Stein. I must admit, with some regret, that I actually voted for her in the last election myself, in a vote exchange with a Green supporter living in a swing state (I was voting in a solidly Republican state), and her stances on a superficial level appeal to me, as they would to our hypothetical progressive voter (policies aside, I like the idea of the US having a Green Party that wields some real influence, though in the US system it would probably accomplish more on a local level). It’s also understandable why her policy ideas would appeal to many who voted for Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primaries (I’ll get back to Bernie supporters again later). Unfortunately, as Oliver shows, a closer look shows she’s not really prepared for the job. A lot of her more detailed proposals demonstrate a lack of understanding for the mechanics of governing, which is not very reassuring. Her pandering to conspiracy theorists is unacceptable (I’d known about the anti-vaccine thing, but not her answer to the 9/11 truther, which was even worse). Oliver didn’t even mention some of her other negatives. She talks about human rights, but she doesn’t seem inclined to criticize countries like Russia and China, which have terrible human rights records. She even went to Russia, had dinner with Putin, and made comments critical of the US on Russian propaganda media. Of course there is a lot the US deserves criticism for, but that is no reason to do it in a country with even more human rights issues than the US has. She also picked a running mate who is even an apologist for the bloody Syrian regime, which systematically tortures dissidents and is now deliberately bombing its own people. Stein herself has blamed the Syrian situation on the US, ignoring the fact that it started with peaceful protests by Syrian citizens with no US involvement whatever. All of these things should make any true progressive hesitate to vote for her (as should the fact that she appeared on the conspiracy nut Alex Jones's InfoWars). Finally, she once said that Hillary Clinton would be worse than Pumpkin Hitler, the Republican candidate. That statement alone should disqualify her. Look again at the description of him above, which doesn’t even cover all his flaws. Then remember that if he were to win, that would certainly mean that the Republicans would also keep control of Congress. Even aside from whatever awful things he might do on his own account, with four years of complete Republican control, the rich would get even more tax breaks; the minimum wage would not be increased at all; millions would lose food stamps and other benefits; millions more would face deportation, open discrimination and worse; women would lose reproductive rights and possibly more; polluters and other bad corporate actors would be freed from the regulations that at least partially restrain them now; we’d go backwards on climate change at a time when even limited progress may not be enough to stave off catastrophe; the Iran agreement would be torn up, likely leading to a war with Iran; the gun nuts would have free rein; the Republicans and their wealthy backers would do their best to cement their hold on power with voter suppression measure; and the Supreme Court would likely end up dominated by extreme conservatives for the foreseeable future. No progressive with a brain and an ounce of empathy for those that would suffer in such a situation could possibly say a Clinton presidency would be worse than that. This is also why the occasional self-proclaimed progressive who says that a Pumpkin Hitler presidency might be a good thing because it will lay the ground for a “real revolution” is at best ignorant and at worst an idiot with an appalling lack of empathy for others. Not only would millions suffer in the meantime, it’s more likely that four years of Republican rule would make a progressive revolution more difficult or even impossible.

That leaves Hillary Clinton. There are all sorts of criticisms of her, some more legitimate than others. I could certainly make a respectably long list of things I disagree with her on and things she’s done that I object to, sometimes strongly. But let’s just look at the broader criticisms. First, there’s the idea that she’s actually done something criminal at some point in her career. When you get down to it, this is just right wing conspiracy theorist nonsense. The truth is despite nearly thirty years of digging, the Republicans have failed to find a single thing they can credibly charge her with. Of course Pumpkin Hitler and his ilk still insist otherwise, but they aren’t interested in even the appearance of justice. So the claims that she's a criminal have no credence whatsoever. Ah, but isn’t she dishonest? In fact, objective evaluations of her statements over the years indicate that she is reasonably honest for a politician, on about the same level as Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders. Those who have been thoroughly indoctrinated with the “Hillary Clinton is a liar” claims may not believe that, but it’s the truth. Take a close look at her record and, considering its length, you won’t find that many outright lies, just a lot of the evasions and obfuscations typical of politicians (note that changing one’s position on an issue is not the same thing as lying). On the other hand, her Republican opponent has set new records for false statements. In the last debate, he made about six times as many false statements as she did, and in earlier races people like Sanders and Obama made about the same number as her. So why is she the “dishonest” one?

“Oh,” I hear some protest, “but she’s a ‘Wall Street’ Democrat and a ‘corporate’ Democrat.” First of all, labeling like that is ridiculously simplistic. Wall Street itself is hardly a monolithic thing, much less corporate America. They are both made up of numerous people with different agendas. But it’s true that she has a rather disturbing number of close relationships with people on Wall Street and people with excessively pro-business leanings. However, that doesn’t mean she always does their bidding. Neither her voting record in the Senate (which overall was almost as progressive as Bernie’s and more so than Obama’s) nor her rhetoric show a slavish adherence to corporate and Wall Street interests. She voted against the Central American Free Trade Agreement, just for one example. What’s more, she also listens to people like Elizabeth Warren. With enough pressure from people like Warren, Sanders, and a motivated progressive electorate, she can be pushed to take a least some measures to restrain Wall Street and corporate interests. Again, those who have fully absorbed the anti-Hillary rhetoric may not believe that, but there’s nothing in her record to indicate otherwise. Her record shows she is somewhere between a centrist and a progressive; which side she will lean to as president will depend at least in part in which side pushes her the hardest. If you just assume she’s the enemy, on the other hand, you’ll have to hope she does the right thing in spite of you, not because of you.

We’ve mentioned Bernie Sanders a lot already. So what should those who supported him in the primary do? Well, if they truly understand what Bernie is all about, then they should be progressives who advocate most or all of the things he advocates, such as overturning Citizens United, reining in Wall Street, fighting climate change, raising the minimum wage, protecting reproductive rights, passing immigration reform, protecting voting rights, supporting LGBT rights, supporting the rights of people of color, and so forth. Hillary supports all these things too, if not always as strongly or as wholeheartedly as Bernie. What’s more, unlike Jill Stein, she has real and detailed plans for governing and an impressive grasp of all the details involved. Her policy ideas are not necessarily radical but they are highly nuanced, something that most people don’t properly appreciate. She understands that most problems are not a simplistic matter of black and white, but required a nuanced approach. Regardless, her policy ideas are generally progressive, and they are for the most part a good match for supporters of Bernie Sanders – if they truly support the things he supports.

But, we hear a small but very noisy contingent of Bernie supporters (or former Bernie supporters, since they are evidently not listening to him anymore) protest, she “rigged” the primaries and “stole” the nomination from Bernie. To put it bluntly, this is nonsense. The DNC leaks do not in any way “prove” that the primaries were “rigged”. They do show that for the most part people in the DNC preferred Hillary. But there’s a big difference between having a preference that you reveal privately to friends and colleagues and actively trying to rig an election. The worst thing in the leaks was the suggestion by one guy that Bernie be attacked as atheist (assuming that the reference was indeed to Bernie). No one else approved of this suggestion and no such attack was launched. In the event, Hillary won the primaries by a comfortable margin. Bernie did surprisingly well, well enough to have major influence on the party platform, but he lost fairly (as he himself clearly accepts) and he wouldn’t even have come as close as he did if there weren’t so many states with caucuses, which are less democratic than primaries. Hillary won the vast majority of the latter. The few supposed examples of actual rigging that I’ve seen mentioned are questionable, and in any case were not enough to make a difference in the final results. The truth is, it is extremely difficult to actually rig an election in the US, and making outlandish claims of rigging is dangerous, as it is exactly the same kind of CT nonsense that Pumpkin Hitler and his followers are spreading now to explain his likely defeat. The closest thing to “rigging” that is actually happening is voter suppression (eliminating polling places, purging voter rolls, limiting early voting, and so forth) like the Republicans have been doing in states where they have control.

Finally, while Oliver chose to ignore the “spoiler” effect that Johnson went ballistic over, it is a real issue. If it were true that there was no difference between the two major party candidates, it wouldn’t matter. But as I’ve explained, that is clearly not the case here. There is an enormous difference, particularly in this election. Hillary, whatever her flaws, is clearly prepared for the job, has generally progressive policy positions, is intelligent and actually listens to other people. The other guy – well, I’ve already said what he is, and that was understating how bad he is. The problem is, only these two have a realistic chance of winning. Granted, those that are in safely Democratic states could maybe afford to vote for someone other than Hillary, but in an election like this, not only is it unwise to take any chances whatever, but we really need the election to be a landslide. It is frankly disgraceful that he will win any electoral votes at all. He and his entire campaign should be thoroughly repudiated by the voters, and only a complete and humiliating defeat will send that message. Since there is only one candidate who can possibly beat him, the way to send that message is by voting for her.

So our hypothetical unbiased progressive would certainly conclude, as Oliver, Sanders, Warren, and other intelligent progressives around the country (even people who have been highly critical of Hillary, like Bill McKibbon and Michael Moore) have clearly concluded, that Hillary Clinton is the only reasonable choice for those who actually want to move the country in a progressive direction. Once this hypothetical voter had reached that conclusion and made it obvious to those around him, then I suppose some might say he or she was “biased” in favor of Hillary. But he would care as much about such accusations as Oliver probably does – that is, not at all.