Robert Reich: Why All Progressives Must Vote For Hillary – OpEd
By Robert Reich
I continue to hear from many people who call themselves progressives or liberals, but tell me they won’t vote for Hillary Clinton in the upcoming election.
With due respect, I believe they’re wrong.
Herewith, their three major arguments and my responses.
Some claim she’s no better than Donald Trump. “He’s bad, but she’s just as bad,” they say.
I’m sorry, but anyone who equates Trump with Clinton hasn’t been paying attention.
Donald Trump is a dangerous, bigoted, misogynistic, narcissistic megalomaniac with fascist tendencies. If elected president he could wreak irreparable damage on America and the world.
Hillary isn’t perfect but she’s able and experienced. I’ve known her for almost fifty years and worked with her closely in her husband’s administration. She will make a good president.
There is simply no comparison.
Others claim that even if she’s better than Trump, she’s still corrupt, and they won’t vote for the “lesser of two evils.”
But even if you see Hillary Clinton as the “lesser of two evils,” the greater of two evils in this case is seriously evil.
It’s frequently the case in a democracy that one votes for someone who’s less than perfect when the alternative is someone who’s far worse. That’s the way our “winner-take-all” democracy is organized. It’s why we end up with two parties.
It’s also why voting for a third-party candidate typically harms the candidate closest in values or ideology to that third-party candidate (remember the election of 2000?).
Voting for someone who doesn’t meet your ideals when the alternative is someone who falls much further from those ideals doesn’t mean you’ve sold out or compromised your principles. You’re just being realistic and practical.
Realism and practicality are critically important now.
The third argument I’m getting is from people who are angry with the Democratic Party for tilting the primaries against Bernie Sanders.
They cite the superdelegates, the primaries closed to independents, and the well-documented biases of Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz in favor of Hillary and against Bernie (memorialized in leaked memos).
“Why should I reward the Democratic Party for its corruption?” they ask.
I supported Bernie Sanders in the primaries and share people’s frustration with the Democratic Party. I also sympathize with their feeling that a vote for Hillary Clinton would somehow exonerate the Party for the perceived unfairness of its primaries.
But anything disgruntled Democrats may do that increases the odds of a Trump presidency – say, making a “protest” vote for a third-party candidate, or not voting at all – doesn’t just penalize the Democratic Party. It also jeopardizes our future, and that of our children and their children.
All of us must continue to work hard for a political system and an economy responsive to the needs of ordinary Americans. The movement Bernie Sanders energized must not and will not end.
But Donald Trump, were he to become president, would set back that cause for decades.
There are only a few weeks until Election Day. My request to those of you who still don’t want to vote for Hillary Clinton: Please reconsider. It is no exaggeration to say the fate of the nation and the world are at stake.
How can you honestly say that we should vote for a woman who has been responsible for the death of thousands of Children and women across the world and will continue to do so if elected, is a pawn of the zionist political propaganda, says downright lies about her underhand behavior, she is almost evil, and will make the USA and the rest of humanity suffer.
A large segment of people is not going to vote for Secretary Clinton for the following reasons: First, her economic policy will not create jobs and reduce unemployment. Her views are consistent with the financiers’ view of job’s export, low wages, and phony fictitious economy creating asset bubbles. She will work to prosper oil companies and the military industrial complex and she will privatize social security and destroy all help that Americans obtain and will provide laws for the financiers to loot people wealth. Second, she is corrupted and become wealthy due to the contribution of banks and derivative financiers. Those financiers think that the American people are lazy and are not interested in working. Third., Secretary Clinton is pro-terrorists and loyal supporter of Israel. She will not undertake a policy for helping US but will spend billions for the support of Israel. Fourth, she is a racist and against humanity and thinks of herself first. She hates Russians, Arabs, Iranians, Chinese and other nationalities. She has ordered the killing of more than a million of people in Yemen, Syria, and other countries. Fifth, if she is elected the country will be at wars in many places and the country will be disintegrated. Therefore, she is a threat and dangerous doe domestic and world peace.