Tornado Alley (PROG)

[arizona1]

If you're thinking of voting for Trump because you can't stand Clinton you aren't thinking very hard

I’m a Bernie Sanders supporter. I have admired him for a long time and have contributed money to most of his campaigns for public office since his initial run for Congress in 1990. In December 2014, I wrote an essay urging his candidacy as a Democrat for the presidency, nearly six months before he declared he would run. I give him money every month. Come June, when Californians finally get to vote in our primary, I’ll be casting my ballot for him. So will many of my friends and political allies, people of all colors.

I am not uncritical of Sanders’ views nor of his campaign. An organization I have been a member of since 1982, the Democratic Socialists of America, has endorsed him (though he is not a member). But DSA, like me, is well to his left on a number of issues. Sanders is, after all, in most matters a social democrat in terms of the policies he espouses. In addition, I have been disappointed at his and his campaign’s stubborn tone-deafness when it comes to matters of racism in 21st Century America. Racism didn’t end when he got arrested for protesting housing segregation in Chicago in 1963 nor when I got arrested for trying register black voters in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1964. This tone-deafness has been a problem with many democratic socialists (and other socialists) for a long time. I have considerable personal experience in this regard. Socialists, democratic and otherwise, have not always been the best friends of American Indians and other indigenous peoples.

I nevertheless consider Sanders to be a far better choice than Hillary Clinton and I plan to vote accordingly, whatever the status of the delegate count on June 7.

It’s pretty clear, however, that Sanders’ likelihood of gaining the nomination is pretty damned small. Obviously, I wish that weren’t the case. But while I can be the loudest of cheerleaders, I’m also a realist and in my life I have been involved in, seen and read about too many political campaigns to fool myself into believing some magical math. And the actual math is just not in Sanders’ favor, just as many of us early supporters, and Sanders himself, figured it wouldn’t be from the get-go.

Yet for somebody who started off cold, stuck in the single digits in nearly every poll, he’s done remarkably well and he’s gotten a chance to deliver his crucial message to millions of people. He’s also done remarkably well showing us the possibilities for winning future contests with small-donor money. And not only presidential races, but all the way down the ballot. Even if he doesn’t get the nomination, his campaign gives us reason for optimism.

What I hope comes out of his candidacy is the same thing I hoped for when I first backed him 15 months ago: a multi-year wave of candidates of all ages and colors who like Sanders’ ideas and want to turn them and their own ideas into U.S. policy. That, plus “street politics” are what it’s going to take to transform our nation. The kind of transformation we need can’t be done from the top down. It has to be from the bottom up. The enthusiasm we’ve seen in the crowds who’ve shown up for Sanders’ speeches, especially from younger people, convinces me that I am not just dreaming the impossible dream in my dotage.

But that’s long-term. Just eight months from now, we’ll all be facing a ballot that looks more and more like Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump.

And as probability becomes clearer, I’ve been hearing and reading people who profess to be leftists or progressives saying they will never vote for Clinton but might instead vote for Trump.

Anybody who does that is a freaking numbskull. Anybody claiming to be on the left who votes for Trump deserves not an ounce of respect. Anybody who thinks putting this billionaire bully into the White House makes any kind of sense has none. And anybody who urges people to vote for him is dead to me.

I have no idea how many actual Sanders’ supporters are considering a vote for Trump if Bernie fails to get the nomination.

I don’t know how many of the people who are saying Trump is a good option for progressives in November actually are progressives themselves, how many are blowhards and trolls, and how many are rat-fuckers who have all along favored Trump and are eager to exploit our division. Too many, whatever the count.

I also don’t have a clue how many actually believe what I personally have heard a few say—that electing Trump would be tactically good for progressives because he would be such a bad president that a majority of Americans would reverse decades of rightward drift in the next election. Seriously? When in history would such an approach have ever worked? We had Nixon. Pretty bad but re-elected. We had Reagan. Really bad, but re-elected. We had George W. Bush. Really awful, but re-elected. Elect-the-bad-guy-so-the-good-guys-will-get-elected-next-time is a tactic utterly blind to reality.

The reality is that Trump is a bad guy—a shallow, truthless, ruthless, racist, sexist, fascistic, narcissistic, demagogic thug pretending to be a populist even though he’s the kind of fellow who would cheat you out of your lunch money if you were in middle school together and laugh about to his pals.

It’s easy enough to view him as nothing but a clown who decided to turn a presidential campaign into another reality TV show starring himself. And I know some people believe that the behavior behind all those names I called him in the preceding paragraph are just his schtick and that his only ist is opportunist. But what may very well have begun as the world’s most expensive prank is deadly serious now. Mussolini was mistaken for a buffoon, too.

Any progressive who actually chooses to vote for Trump is voting for implementing a long, long list of pathetic, twisted ideas, including this:

"Would I approve waterboarding? You bet your ass I would — in a heartbeat. And I would approve more than that. Don't kid yourself, folks. It works, okay? It works. Only a stupid person would say it doesn't work."

Don’t kid yourselves, folks. Donald Trump is dangerous, reckless, remorseless. He’s an enemy of democracy and an enemy of human rights. Any progressive who votes for him or advocates that others vote for him is my enemy.
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/3/4/1495625/-If-you-re-thinking-of-voting-for-Trump-because-you-can-t-stand-Clinton-you-aren-t-thinking-very-hard