I could say more about Hillary's non progressive record (The Patriot Act! Sexual and reproductive health! a live and let live attitude towards Wall Street!) but there is really no point, Hillary is basically a moderate-to-conservative Democrat, and from a left wing policy position is bad.
But she is far from the worst. to use a fantasy analogy, if she is Sauron, then the Republicans are Morgoth. If she can keep the Republicans from the presidency and Bernie can't, then from a purely tactical point of view voting for her would be the best. That argument is flawed- Bernie can fucking win. What about the Governing argument, that she would be able to implement (somewhat) progressive things whereas Bernie would get nothing accomplished? Contra to popular belief Sanders can wheel and deal with the best of them (this is both to his detriment and credit). Clinton, at her core is a center-rightist, who i'm terrified will make some "grand bargain" and cut the social safety net to pieces, like Obama tried to do. Despite some blemishes (which I mentioned in Part I), Bernie has basically been fighting for the same thing his whole political career, he won't sell us out. It is here that I st profess some self interest, because I am disabled and currently receive social security benefits, I don't want to see them cut.
But there's something else I want to discuss went it comes to Hillary, feminism. Hillary has endured a hell of a lot of sexism, from first lady of Arkansas, to first lady of the United States, to her senate races, to her past presidential race, to her current one. The fact that she's still standing is pretty inspiring. After all white women were considered barely human at the founding of this country (and black women not at all) and now a woman has the best shot of becoming president ever, that's a big fucking deal. When I first encountered this position I thought it was foolish, having a woman president, doesn't outweigh the actual policies of her administration, after all, gender is just superfluous characteristic, if you have differences on policy . That was incredibly privileged of me. I didn't understand the argument that a Hillary presidency would advance the cause of all women. Now I still think soft peddling Hillary's policies in favor of some "Girl Power" narrative is itself privileged, but it basic 'helping Hillary is helping women argument' is pretty powerful.
But is it correct? In a fantastic article, Sarah Leonard, explains why this thinking is flawed. Drawing on evidence from the Nordic countries she shows that simply having women in more positions of power doesn't help achieve gender equality. Instead, government based programs do more to help equalize the field. And when it comes to that, I don't trust Hillary one bit.
Now a few last words. This series was entitled "The Case for Bernie" but it was more like "The Case Against Hillary" and there's a reason for that. I like Bernie, he's a crazy old socialist! The problem is that "likeability" is a incredibly gendered term. It also tells you nothing about people's policies (Barrack Obama seems nice- he's going to cry at his kid's graduation- but he'll also orders a drone strike that kills a large portion of your family). But let me finish with a note praise for Bernie, I'm glad that He's the one bringing socialism back into the national conversation after a sixty-five year absence. He comes from a unique strand of Jewish socialism that been in danger of being erased by history now will never be, he kept the flame alive.
Socialism's back baby, and its never going away.
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