Thomas Frank, Elizabeth Warren, Noam Chomsky and others I respect intend to vote for Hillary Clinton in order to keep Donald Trump out of the White House.
I think this is an honorable position, provided that it is a one-time-only position.
The problem is that voting for bad candidates can be habit-foriming.
In defending bad policies in order to prevent worse, you risk losing sight of what good policy might be.
Lambert Strether, who posts on the naked capitalism web log, recently made a list of the things that you have to justify in order to defend Clinton.
1. Corruption. To protect Clinton, liberals have adopted the majority doctrine in Ctizens United: Only a quid pro quo is proof of corruption.
2. Transparency. To protect Clinton, liberals maintain that high government officials can, at will, privatize their communications to shield them from FOIA.
3. Militarism. To protect Clinton, liberals minimize her AUMF vote, ignore Libya, ignore Honduras, ignore Ukraine, and treat unwavering support for Israel as an unqualified good.
4. Health. To protect Clinton, liberals reject Medicare for All.
5. Working Class. To protect Clinton, liberals deny that there is or can be a working class electorate. The electorate is only to be viewed through the prism of identity politics.
Two category errors follow: The “white working class” is deemed to be racist, by definition, and the non-white working class is erased. Consequently, it’s impossible to think through the universal effects of the FIRE [financial] sector on the working class, nor its differential effects on particular working class identities. This is not an accident.
That’s quite a platform. And if you’re thinking the Democrat Party isn’t the Democratic Party you knew and loved, that’s not an accident either. This has been a wonderfully clarifying primary, for which I congratulate all the players.
Source: naked capitalism
I do not expect to vote for Hillary Clinton. I don’t think I would vote for her even if New York was a swing state.
The minimum that a candidate for national office must do to get my vote is to give me reason to think he or she will (1) move toward peace, not war, and (2) to enforce the laws against everyone, including the rich and powerful.
If you make the argument that your candidate will do these things, I will listen to you.
If you make the argument that this is too much to ask, I won’t.
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them
==Frederick Douglass
Tags: Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Election 2016, HIllary Clinton, Lesser Evil
Phil Ebersole's Blog 
June 10, 2016 at 2:21 pm |
Hillary was never going to get my vote — I’ve despised the Clintons since 1992 — but even six months ago I’d never have believed what I’m saying now. I’m actually considering voting for Trump, purely to try and stop Bill & Hill from sliming their way back into power. Yes, I live in a swing state — all the masturbatory talk about “strategic” voting makes me want to puke.
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