[First posted at http://www.politicalstorm.com/bernies-talk-lesser-evil/ ]
The Wall Street Journal just reported that Bernie Sanders told MSNBC that he will vote for Hillary, but later told CBS that he’s not “endorsing” her (a semantic hair split worthy of Bill (“what-is-is-or isn’t”) Clinton himself).
Bernie says that he first needs to hear from Hillary “the things that I think need to be said.” Like her backing “tuition-free public college (she wants ‘debt-free’), raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour (she backs $12) and universal health care (he wants a single-payer system and she doesn’t),” the WSJ reports.
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2016/06/24/bernie-sanders-says-yes-hell-vote-for-hillary-clinton/
“We’re talking,” it quotes Bernie
How might that talk go?
Bernie: Ah, ah, Mrs. Clinton, Mrs. Clinton . . . do you have a moment? I just want to tell you that I’m going to vote for you, don’t worry about that. But before I can endorse you, I want you to back tuition-free public college, not merely “debt-free;” raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, because $12 just doesn’t cut it, especially in Manhattan; and put everybody on single payer government healthcare, like medicare, so we can abolish private health insurance companies altogether. That’s all I want.
Hillary, version 1: Well, Bernie . . . I sorta knew that was your bucket list . . . it’s what you’ve saying out there for about six months, dragging this thing out, long after . . . well, you know. You’ve been saying all that, over and over and over . . . and you lost. I got three million more votes than you. I won. And elections have consequences, Bernie, I once heard somebody say. So thanks for your vote. I’m really entitled to that, don’t you think, and all your supporters, too . . . (in sotto voce: Where else will they go?).
Hillary, version 2: Hey, dear Bernie . . . great to see you, thanks for coming by . . . call me Hillary by the way . . . Sure, I’ll promise that free tuition (why do you leave out the Ivy League schools?), 15 bucks an hour minimum (hey, it’s only $60,000 a year for a working couple), and . . . what was the other thing? . . . oh, yeah, single payer. Definitely, whatever you want. Just tell Debbie to put all that in the platform . . . . Thanks, also, for that endorsement . . . you’ll twitter that out, won’t you? . . . Before the convention, right?
Bernie, you got to excuse me, Bill’s calling from New York about a speaking engagement in Riyadh . . .
Hillary, version 3: Huma, please tell Senator Sanders that Secretary Clinton will get back to him. And text — the health insurance companies — yes, encrypted — not to worry, it’s under control.
Is this your pact with the Devil, Bernie?
What ever happened to her being a captive of Wall Street, Bernie? Breaking her ties to Wall Street isn’t on your wish list. Disclosing what she secretly promised them in those “Shakespearean” speeches she gave, one 1%-er to the others, in private. Do you no longer care about that either (along with her damn emails)?
It’s because she’s the lesser of evils, isn’t that it, Bernie? From the moment she clinched the nomination (sorry to rub it in), her whole campaign’s been about blasting that Other One: “Forget whatever you think of me – THAT one’s even worse.”
The “lesser evil” is not that “Future to Believe In.”
She’s not the future at all, but the epitome of the past. Hillary’s been in at the center of power for about three decades. She’s probably attended more state dinners than anyone but the Queen of England – and, if she’s reading here, she’s probably relishing the comparison. But all of her exalted “experience” and “qualifications” have produced an America whose prosperity is not adequately shared among all Americas, a Government that is less a friend and more an adversary to average Americans, and a foreign policy that has not made America or the world safer. Too many Americans feel the country is going in the wrong direction, that they have been denied their fair share.
That’s Hillary Clinton’s track record. If she were capable of utilizing power to solve these problems, what’s she been up to for nearly 30 years (besides getting rich)?
You ran your campaign to change the ways of electoral politics. To get the big money out of it, to un-rig that rigged system. Hillary’s no agent of that change. She’s totally immersed in that rarified out-of-touch political power class that perpetuates itself with cronyism, connections, insider deals and, of course very big money. Hillary is everything you’ve been campaigning against – all your political life.
Gary Johnson is not running for President as the lesser of evils.
He’s offering the country a fresh, affirmative, positive direction . . . toward greater personal freedom, more individual liberty . . . making Government a friend not an adversary to both average working Americans and entrepreneurial Americans (who are really on the same team) . . . focusing Government on more effectively doing what it needs to do, and less intrusive by not doing what is too much for a Government to do . . . with a disciplined and sensible foreign policy that recognizes our genuine national interests and keeps us safe without military adventure.
Here is an alternative pathway to sharing America’s opportunities and prosperity with the many, not just the few. True, you won’t get socialized medicine, or socialized college or government-controlled wages (but, you know, you won’t get more than lip service from Hillary either). Nor will you get the incipient racism, misogyny, ignorance, bluster and mean-spirited divisiveness of that Other Evil.
You will get a profound, fundamental, historically unprecedented change in how we elect leaders. It will un-rig the system, open it up to the better ideas and better solutions it won’t hear of now.
If that is the future you still believe in, it’s Gary, not Hillary, who will deliver it.