I don't vote Republican - Opinion Piece

[bourbonfan]

m.huffpost.com/us/entry/9349590

Over at The Daily Banter, Chez Pazienza called me an "idiot."

Well, not me personally. His article was about people like me, though, who support Bernie Sanders and will never vote for Hillary Clinton in the general election, no matter who her opponent is. The so-called "Bernie or Bust" crowd. That's me.

The gist of the article is that Hillary will have this thing sewn up between Super Tuesday plus her superdelegates and she's far preferable to a President Trump. So not voting for Hillary equals a President Trump and letting that happen means I'm "a goddamn moron" who deserves not one "ounce of respect" for throwing my "little pouty tantrum" like a "petulant child."

Calling me names is a great way to get me to support the Democrat, bro. But a better way is to use reason.

I've voted Democrat all my life because I hold progressive positions on civil rights, health care, foreign policy, criminal justice and the environment. That gives me plenty of reasons to not vote Republican.

1) I don't vote Republican because I don't want to see more US soldiers dying in the Middle East for regime change.

2) I don't vote Republican because they'll put the same megabanks in charge of Treasury that destroyed our economy the last time they were in charge of Treasury.

3) I don't vote Republican because I've always supported gay people's civil liberties and the Republicans who've barely come around to supporting gay marriage this decade are doing so only because the polling now supports it.

4) I don't vote Republican because they keep telling me they "need more research" to believe cannabis is a medicine.

5) I don't vote Republican because they institute terrible "free trade" deals that destroy jobs and wages.

6) I don't vote Republican because they support the increase of fracking worldwide, an environmentally disastrous policy.

7) I don't vote Republican because they don't believe America can be like every other modern democracy and provide universal health care coverage.

8) I don't vote Republican because they enjoy and exploit the campaign finance shenanigans made legal by Citizens United.

9) I don't vote Republican because they think a $15 minimum wage is too high and at best it ought to only be $12.

10) I don't vote Republican because they endorse and approve of NSA's warrantless spying on American citizens.

11) I don't vote Republican because they created and supported the USA PATRIOT ACT that is used far more against drug "crimes" than terrorism.

12) I don't vote Republican because they believe that "the era of big government is over" and work to destroy welfare.

13) I don't vote Republican because they believe in being "tough on crime" to the point of supporting mass incarceration of mostly black and brown people.

14) I don't vote Republican because they use racist dog whistles like calling black kids "superpredators... that [we have to] bring to heel."

15) I don't vote Republican because they opposed closing Gitmo.

16) I don't vote Republican because they want to cut Social Security, or at the very least, refuse to consider lifting the income cap on contributions to make rich people pay their fair share.

17) I don't vote Republican because people with net worth that requires two or three commas to print don't understand what people like me go through living paycheck to paycheck.

18) I don't vote Republican because I can't stand privatized prisons and they take lots of campaign donations from them.

19) I don't vote Republican because if we're not going to have socialism for the poor, why should I support those who voted to bail out the big banks and refuse to break them up?

20) I don't vote Republican because they supported the bankruptcy bill that made it harder for poor working people to discharge debt, while their hyper-rich friends make use of bankruptcy restructuring all the time.

21) I don't vote Republican because they oppose reinstating the Glass-Steagall Act that would separate investment and commercial banking.

22) I don't vote Republican because they support the death penalty.

23) I don't vote Republican because they vote for stupid things like a border fence with Mexico.

24) I don't vote Republican because they get most of their campaign donations from the big banks, instead of typical Democratic sources like unions.

25) I don't vote Republican because they would lock up Edward Snowden and throw away the key.

Those are 25 pretty good reasons why we Democrats don't vote for Republicans, don't you think?

So why would we vote for Hillary Clinton, the Rockefeller Republican who exemplifies every one of those 25 statements?

If Donald Trump wins the presidency over Hillary Clinton, it's not the fault of people like me who won't vote for Republicans. It's the fault of the Democratic Party for nominating a Republican. For me, the horror of a four-year Trump term is less frightening than cementing in the Far Right / Center Right corporate duopoly in American politics created since Hillary's husband sold out Democratic principles on welfare, crime, race, labor, trade, drugs, and media.

Remember the tale of frogs in the pot of water? You turn the heat up slowly and they'll boil to death, but put them in an already boiling pot and they'll hop out. Donald Trump is the boiling pot and Hillary Clinton is the slow heat. A President Trump in 2016 equals a President Warren in 2020. A President Clinton in 2016 equals a re-elected Clinton in 2020 and the next milquetoast Obama-like speechifier in 2024 who abandons all his talk the minute he's inaugurated (remember Obama's promise to be the most transparent government ever, with live cameras covering debates on public option healthcare? Or closing Gitmo? Or "we're not going to be using Justice Department resources to go after [medical marijuana]"?)

Look, I've made all the arguments you're going to throw at me, Chez. But after Candidate Obama teased me with Hope & Change and left me with drone bombing, torturers and banksters running free, Romneycare, mass deportations, warrantless wiretapping, Trans-Pacific Partnership, and a neocon Secretary of State who now wants my vote, I have changed my mind.

I used to be like you, Chez -- practical, pragmatic. It's a two-party system. It sucks, but that's reality. You have to pick the less evil of the two. What about the Supreme Court?!? I've made all those arguments.

But then I saw what it got me. Picking the lesser of two evils allows the evil to become more evil and entices the good to become less good. Hillary Clinton is to the right of Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon, for gawdsakes! And Ted Cruz or Donald Trump are so far right of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush they can't be seen.

Strange how always picking evil has led to more evil, isn't it?

What I see now at four dozen years old is that any one presidential term isn't going to kill us. We survived eight years of George W. Bush, and though it did us a lot of harm and killed thousands of us, he didn't appoint himself dictator and abolish the Supreme Court or anything crazy. Democracy continued. In fact, he wrecked things so badly white people could even consider voting for an unknown black Kenyan socialist Muslim named "Hussein."

So, as I see it, before my political lifetime, we had Democrats who stood for the poor and voiceless against the Republicans who stood for the rich and powerful. The Democrats I think of as embodying that spirit are Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy, and Jimmy Carter. It was the party of the people vs. the party of business. Labor vs. management.

It was a fine arrangement that provided the kind of balance necessary to create the great middle class prosperity that existed in the mid-20th century.

But since Bill Clinton came up with his "Third Way", our politics have become the party of Wall Street and Tech vs. the party of Wall Street and Oil. Bill Clinton's "the end of big government as we know it" and "3 strikes and you're out" policies drove a stake through any semblance of the Democratic Party representing the needs of the poor and voiceless.

With age I've developed perspective that this isn't about four-year presidential terms, but generational pendulum swings. Republicans and their Tea Party uprising have swung that pendulum as far right as they can because they demanded ideological purity from their candidates. Democrats have allowed that pendulum to swing by not offering solid Democratic alternatives, but caving in to offer Republican Lite alternatives.

It's time for our Tea Party uprising. But we Democrats aren't as hierarchical and authoritarian as Republicans, so it has manifested in different ways. We do Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter. The Bernie Sanders phenomenon isn't about the man as much as him as a focal point for a collective left-wing aching for somebody in power to hear our voices, since we don't have six-figures to hand out in speaking fees to make our voice heard.

Using the specter of President Trump to extort us into supporting Hillary Clinton isn't going to work, because we all understand It's The Rigged System, Stupid! Asking us to support the saner bribe taker doesn't mean much to us because we don't get to pay the bribes, anyway.

As people like you have told me, Chez, Bernie would never be able to get his agenda past the Congress. So I'm supposed to believe Hillary, who is hated in greater number and ferocity by the GOP, would get things accomplished? No, she'll take the same Obama tack of abandoning any real progressive position, starting her negotiation in the center, and caving to most of the Republican pulls to the right, so she can point to an "accomplishment".

And don't even get me started on the trustworthiness numbers for Hillary. Tell me it's all the fault of the right-wing smear machine and I'll shoot it down like sniper fire over Bosnia. You really want to blame a possible Clinton election loss on us when she'd be the least trusted, most hated candidate we've ever fielded, while she's in the middle of a Democratic administration's FBI investigating her over classified materials?

You can call it a "little pouty tantrum," Chez, but I call it finally taking a stand against the continued rightward slide of the Democratic Party. If we keep rewarding the Democratic Party for being less evil, they'll just continue being less good.

[smock]

Someone should tell this guy that Hillary and Bernie voted together in the Senate 93% of the time.

[CheeringCharm]

"If Donald Trump wins the presidency over Hillary Clinton, it's not the fault of people like me who won't vote for Republicans."


Yes it WILL BE. I'm sorry but yes. If all the self identifying Democrats do not come out in the fall in order to vote down a presidential candidate WHO PUBLICLY TALKS ABOUT THE SIZE OF HIS PENIS then it will be on their heads too. 

[eclaires]

Lol, I think more people don't vote for socialists.

[CheeringCharm]

the horror of a four-year Trump term


The true horror imo is that we have no idea what this would look like. None. He could easily shoot his mouth off and damage relations with other countries for years. We can at least count on HRC to conduct herself like a grownup at all times :/

Anyway this is just me personally but I prefer center right, center left. Clinton, Obama. Either way, it doesn't make that much difference. Most Americans fall somewhere in the middle, why shouldn't our leaders reflect that?

[WanderingWinoZ]

Mar 4, 2016 8:01:34 GMT -5 CheeringCharm said:

"If Donald Trump wins the presidency over Hillary Clinton, it's not the fault of people like me who won't vote for Republicans."


Yes it WILL BE. I'm sorry but yes. If all the self identifying Democrats do not come out in the fall in order to vote down a presidential candidate WHO PUBLICLY TALKS ABOUT THE SIZE OF HIS PENIS then it will be on their heads too. 

Yes- Lolz
If the gop can pledge to get behind trump, the freaking liberals should be able to stomach Clinton.

[turnipthebeet]

"A President Trump in 2016 equals a President Warren in 2020."

There's a pretty big promise that I don't think anyone should be banking on at this point.

[CheeringCharm]

"We survived eight years of George W. Bush, and though it did us a lot of harm and killed thousands of us, he didn't appoint himself dictator and abolish the Supreme Court or anything crazy"


Sorry to keep posting in here but this stuck out to me as well. Anything crazy? Like um, fighting an unwinnable war for completely bogus reasons that are still not entirely understood today? Or the rapid dog way the Bush Administration went after people in the media who had the nerve to call them out on it and question wtf was going on? That kind of crazy? Yes we "survived" it but at what cost? That entire tragic episode in our history was completely unnecessary.

You know that saying: when people show you who you are, believe them? Trump is *showing* us right now. And to be honest he scares me more than GWB did, which is saying something.

[ttt]

I don't have enough eye rolls for this.

[eclaires]

Trump is entirely unpredictable, too. Who even knows what he will do. He also doesn't know the first thing about how government works. I'm sure he could do a lot of damage if he put his mind to it.

[smock]

Mar 4, 2016 8:28:27 GMT -5 CheeringCharm said:

"We survived eight years of George W. Bush, and though it did us a lot of harm and killed thousands of us, he didn't appoint himself dictator and abolish the Supreme Court or anything crazy"


Sorry to keep posting in here but this stuck out to me as well. Anything crazy? Like um, fighting an unwinnable war for completely bogus reasons that are still not entirely understood today? Or the rapid dog way the Bush Administration went after people in the media who had the nerve to call them out on it and question wtf was going on? That kind of crazy? Yes we "survived" it but at what cost? That entire tragic episode in our history was completely unnecessary.

You know that saying: when people show you who you are, believe them? Trump is *showing* us right now. And to be honest he scares me more than GWB did, which is saying something.

This is also so fucking dismissive of the people who suffered because of Bush administration decisions. Like, the Iraqis. The soldiers who died in a ridiculous war. Or people harmed by SCOTUS decisions--do you really think Citizens United would have happened if Gore had appointed the vacancies filled by Roberts and Alito? How about Heller? Or other really regrettable cases in the last decade? 

So, just because our country wasn't destroyed, it doesn't matter who you vote for?! What sloppy and frankly selfish reasoning.

[jeaniebueller]

I was reading this and knew instantly it was going to be a hit piece on HRC. 

[aurora]

Well, good for you.

I will ultimately vote for Clinton or Sanders over any of the R options because my fear over stripping rights from women, POC, people who identify as LGBTQ, and other social issues and the loss of life as we know it to climate change are *far* more important to me than whether our President supports a $12 or a $15 minimum wage.

[downtoearth]

I am so sick of these stupid opinion articles from these places... I need to stay out of these b/c they are usually not full or any sources, based in just feelings and are full of crap!

This guy is a marijuana talk radio host - great for him, but fuck if I don't care one bit for what his opinion is about politics outside of marijuana! And if that ended up on my feed, I'd tell my friend the same.


---------------
www.huffingtonpost.com/russ-belville/

Russ Belville

Russ Belville is the Executive Producer of 420RADIO.org - 24 Hour Marijuana Legalization Talk Radio - and the host of The Russ Belville Show, airing live at 3pm Pacific every weekday, with replays at 6pm, 9pm, 6am, & 9am. 420RADIO.org is available via web, TuneIn Radio, Ustream TV, SHOUTcast, and on demand at iTunes, Stitcher, and YouTube. Russ also contributes to HIGH TIMES, Alternet, Salon, National Cannabis Coalition, and The Weed Blog and is a renown marijuana policy expert who has presented at dozens of national drug policy and marijuana business conferences, hempfests, Cannabis Cups, state legislatures, and political rallies. Russ began his marijuana activism in 2005 volunteering with Oregon NORML in Portland, then working for National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws in Washington DC from 2009-2012.

[ESF]

"It's time for out Tea Party uprising."

Because that's worked out so well for the GOP.

[ttt]

Mar 4, 2016 9:34:17 GMT -5 downtoearth said:

I am so sick of these stupid opinion articles from these places... I need to stay out of these b/c they are usually not full or any sources, based in just feelings and are full of crap!

This guy is a marijuana talk radio host - great for him, but fuck if I don't care one bit for what his opinion is about politics outside of marijuana! And if that ended up on my feed, I'd tell my friend the same.


---------------
www.huffingtonpost.com/russ-belville/

Russ Belville

Russ Belville is the Executive Producer of 420RADIO.org - 24 Hour Marijuana Legalization Talk Radio - and the host of The Russ Belville Show, airing live at 3pm Pacific every weekday, with replays at 6pm, 9pm, 6am, & 9am. 420RADIO.org is available via web, TuneIn Radio, Ustream TV, SHOUTcast, and on demand at iTunes, Stitcher, and YouTube. Russ also contributes to HIGH TIMES, Alternet, Salon, National Cannabis Coalition, and The Weed Blog and is a renown marijuana policy expert who has presented at dozens of national drug policy and marijuana business conferences, hempfests, Cannabis Cups, state legislatures, and political rallies. Russ began his marijuana activism in 2005 volunteering with Oregon NORML in Portland, then working for National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws in Washington DC from 2009-2012.

This made me LOL - it explains a lot. I think this guy has smoked a few too many doobies. 

[underwaterrhymes]

I missed the part where he addressed this to Chez Pazienza and spent the better part of the article trying to figure out why the fuck he was calling me Chez.

[ESF]

Also as one of the few here who really does not care if Berners decide to not to vote for Clinton, let me say this:

It chaps my ass when people say Clinton is no different from a Republican and/or Trump. I'm sure the millions of women denied access to reproductive health care would beg to differ.

Listen up Bernie fans:

You want to vote for Jill Stein as a protest vote, rock on with your bad self. But there's a reason some Bernie supported are getting a reputation as irrational whiners, and it's because they set up these false equivalences while ignoring reality. Vote for whoever the fuck you want, but if you do so because you think Clinton no different than Republican in any meaningful way, you actually are a dipshit.

[jojoandleo]

Mar 4, 2016 9:39:00 GMT -5 ESF said:

"It's time for out Tea Party uprising."

Because that's worked out so well for the GOP.

Anyone who praises the tea party as something to aspire to loses allllllll credibility. Like, what?

[heyjude]

Well this Berner is dumb.

[eclaires]

Mar 4, 2016 10:21:22 GMT -5 heyjude said:

Well this Berner is dumb.

I was wondering if this was supposed to convince us of something or if it was bait to force us to state the obvious.

[jeaniebueller]

Mar 4, 2016 9:48:24 GMT -5 ESF said:

Also as one of the few here who really does not care if Berners decide to not to vote for Clinton, let me say this:

It chaps my ass when people say Clinton is no different from a Republican and/or Trump. I'm sure the millions of women denied access to reproductive health care would beg to differ.

Listen up Bernie fans:

You want to vote for Jill Stein as a protest vote, rock on with your bad self. But there's a reason some Bernie supported are getting a reputation as irrational whiners, and it's because they set up these false equivalences while ignoring reality. Vote for whoever the fuck you want, but if you do so because you think Clinton no different than Republican in any meaningful way, you actually are a dipshit.

The Berners who say that truly don't understand his Supreme Court nominations work and the effect of the nomination on the opinions. You would think that Bernie, as Mr anti Citizens United and self proclaimed feminist, would be stressing those points to his supporters. Do you like Scalia, Alito and Roberts? Then by all means vote GOP or throw your vote away.

[bourbonfan]

Mar 4, 2016 10:29:25 GMT -5 eclaires said:

Mar 4, 2016 10:21:22 GMT -5 heyjude said:

Well this Berner is dumb.

I was wondering if this was supposed to convince us of something or if it was bait to force us to state the obvious.

Nah. Just my version of the "Open letter to Bernie Bros" option piece.

[elleblue]

I really appreciated this comment on the article:

I'm a Sanders supporter who will be voting for Hillary if she has the nomination--as I fully expect him to ask me to do. What I see in your comments is just emotionalism and a lack of a political sophistication. Even if Sanders loses this, the primary or the election, he still goes back to the senate and he goes back with a whole lot more power and respect than he had before he threw his hat into the ring. To hand him Trump for president and likely in that case another Repo house and senate ... not a very good way to repay him for putting himself through this on our behalf.

[mrsukyankee]

Mar 4, 2016 11:22:52 GMT -5 elleblue said:

I really appreciated this comment on the article:

I'm a Sanders supporter who will be voting for Hillary if she has the nomination--as I fully expect him to ask me to do. What I see in your comments is just emotionalism and a lack of a political sophistication. Even if Sanders loses this, the primary or the election, he still goes back to the senate and he goes back with a whole lot more power and respect than he had before he threw his hat into the ring. To hand him Trump for president and likely in that case another Repo house and senate ... not a very good way to repay him for putting himself through this on our behalf.

YES.  FUCKING YES!

[scout8]

What annoys me about this "I won't vote for anyone but Bernie in the general" is that they say it as a threat. If your candidate is not in the general, fine, don't vote for someone that you don't like. I don't want Republicans voting for Trump in the general, just because he is the GOP candidate. If someone doesn't want Hillary, then fine, don't vote for her just because she is the Dem nominee. But don't tell us now that if it isn't Bernie, you will stay home. Don't threaten to not vote just so you can have your way now. It is so immature.

[laladypoet]

*yawn*
whatever, bro namath.