An Anti-Trump Electoral Strategy That Isn't Pro-Clinton
An Anti-Trump Electoral Strategy That Isn't Pro-Clinton
I have spoken to many Bernie Sanders supporters here at the DNC in
Philadelphia who find themselves in a bind. For the last year, they have
been volunteering, phone-banking, and door-knocking for a candidacy
premised on certain principles: overcoming neoliberalism, privileging
the concerns of the working class and poor, and shifting to a paradigm
where economic security is regarded as a universal human right directly
guaranteed by the government. Now, they are being asked to support a
campaign that embodies the Democratic establishment they ran against.
They know that, if the next president isn’t Hillary Clinton, it will
be Donald Trump, an authoritarian-leaning billionaire capitalist who
emboldens neo-Nazis, armed xenophobes, and organized misogynists. They
know that ascendant fascism threatens the lives and well-being of their
comrades and that far-right wing government would make organizing to
advance Sanders’s agenda much more difficult. But they are wary of
rewarding Clinton with their support after her team’s paltry concessions
to their movement. Capitulating to Clinton, it seems, would validate
her decision to take them for granted and could therefore neutralize the
energy fueling the “political revolution.”
