I’ll start by saying that I have been a registered Democrat since I first registered to vote a few days after my 21st birthday. For years, I moved my vote around, depending on the race and candidate. I have voted for Republicans for president, though most of the time I lean Democratic.
Before the race got underway, I was enthusiastic about Elizabeth Warren, but she chose not to run. After it got underway, it appeared the choices in the Democratic primary would be Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders. I became an enthusiastic Sanders supporter, and still have one of his bumper stickers on my car. As that race drew to a close, it became obvious that Clinton would be the nominee, running against Donald Trump.
I have pretty die hard liberal political positions. I support abortion rights; I support women’s rights in general; I support LGBT rights, including marriage equality; I support minority rights, including voting rights and civil rights; I support programs to reduce income inequality, including higher minimum wages; I support universal health care.
When I look at the comments made by Donald Trump, attacking immigrants, blacks, Muslims, and other racial and religious minorities, there is no way I would even want to see him as president. He rails against “political correctness” which in nearly all instances means someone wants to denigrate others and not be criticized for it. He shows every sign of being thin-skinned, highly egocentric, authoritarian, and basically dishonest. He appeals strongly to people who are racist, misogynistic, homophobic; and xenophobic. Not all Trump supporters are like that, I know some people who seem quite decent, who support him.
He alienates some of our oldest and closest foreign allies, while cozying up to people like Russia’s Vladimir Putin. It seems that Russians who question or oppose Putin end up dead or in jail, all too often. That is not how this country should operate, but Trump sounds pretty similar, when he bans reporters from his campaign and rallies if they’re critical of him. Trump does not to me represent anything good or great about my country. He represents the basest parts of our history, and I don’t want to see the country turn that way.
Trump has made it clear, though he since equivocated a bit, that he wants to criminalize abortion. He wants to deport all or most undocumented immigrants. He wants to lower taxes on the very wealthy, though he tries to make it sound like he wants to help the middle class. He is misogynistic and homophobic and with a GOP Congress, would roll back decades of progress in equal rights for women, blacks, LGBT, and so many others. Given his hair trigger temper, I can’t be sure he wouldn’t get us into a war. I think Trump as president would be a major disaster for this country.
Some folks have gravitated towards Gary Johnson and the Libertarian party. They speak in terms of freedom, which most Americans would agree is a good thing. The Libertarians are more liberal on social issues than most of the right wing and are non-interventionists in most international affairs. Both of those strike a chord with many folks and I agree with them on those issues.
My problem with the Libertarian platform relates to business and the economy. They are in favor of full-bore laissez faire capitalism, which they say rather explicitly. Under laissez faire capitalism, there would be no governmental interference in business whatsoever. Everything would be based on profits and the choices of the business owners.
Minimum wage laws were instituted because in our economy business owners had far more power than employees with regards to wages. When your economy is made up primarily of many small businesses, it is harder for business owners to squeeze employees and keep their wages down. We are now however in an era of large multinational companies which in many communities exert a great deal of control over wage levels. Workers may have little or no recourse but to accept whatever wages the employer is willing to offer. Libertarians oppose minimum wage laws as restricting their freedom.
Under laissez faire, ideally worker compensation was based on supply and demand. When the demand for workers exceeded the number of workers available for that job, wages would be bid up, and when the supply of workers exceeded the demand, the wages would be pushed down. Individual business owners would set their own wage scales, and since economies are seldom at full employment, there is little incentive for employers to raise wages. Some business owners have believed it in their interests to have higher wages, but often those have been the exceptions, and there is no obligation to do so.
Businesses will often pay workers as little as they can get away with and will fire workers who try to unionize the workforce. Pay is not based on one’s contribution, but rather is based on economic power, and those with the power will reap most of the rewards. Advancement is not necessarily based on merit, but on whatever measure the existing managers choose to use. Managers and business owners would be free to discriminate in employment and promotion based on gender, race, religion, national origin, sexual identity, etc under ideal Libertarianism.
Businesses may not find it in their interests to install worker protections, resulting in things like the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, where over one hundred workers died, or coal mines where many hundreds of miners have been killed, along with others who suffered black lung and similar ailments. Businesses may not find it in their interests to eliminate or reduce pollution of the air, water, or land. Economists refer to these sorts of things as ‘externalities’, where the costs and benefits are not wholly to the same entity.
If I pollute the water that is shared by the community, I get the benefit of not having to pay the costs of cleaning up my waste before I discharge it. The whole community (and any others downstream) pays the cost by having fouled water. This may require cleaning costs to purify drinking water, otherwise it may result in disease from the fouled water. The same can be true for air and land pollution, and such pollution controls are opposed by Libertarians, under the guise of ‘freedom from government interference’.
Markets are not self-regulating, regardless of what capitalist idealists say, but rather are quite capable of distortions based on market power. Supply and demand are not sufficient to control the excesses of laissez faire capitalism. We established that around the end of the 19th century when the robber barons controlled trains, banking, petroleum, steel, and many other industries. A Republican president, Theodore Roosevelt, led campaigns to break up the trusts and monopolies that had taken control of American industry.
Government stepped in to require an end to child labor and establish worker protections. Later, given the number of elderly people living in utter poverty, government stepped in to establish Social Security, and later Medicare. Government established workers compensation laws and funds so people who were injured on the job would not be impoverished. There were also unemployment compensation funds to cover those who were between jobs. These are all worker protections, which average workers insisted on, but which businesses opposed, and which Libertarians oppose still today.
Though I may agree with them on social issues, I am and will be firmly opposed to the Libertarian economic agenda.
For some folks, Jill Stein seems to be a reasonable alternative. Many of her stated positions seem progressive and appear to align with liberal values. I took a little position alignment quiz and it said I aligned with Jill Stein 97% of the time and with Hillary Clinton 96% of the time. That says that strictly in terms of policy positions, there is little or difference between them, at least from my standpoint. Some folks do not trust Hillary, so they feel Stein is a better choice.
I understand them but also look at some other things. Stein has seemed at times to align herself with anti-vaxxers, which is disturbing. The science related to vaccines is very well established. After there seemed to be some links between vaccines and autism, several quality studies were done that made it quite clear that indeed there was no link. She implied there were links between wifi and damage to children’s brains, which again has no scientific evidence.
Stein seems also to have switched positions quickly on Brexit. She seems inclined at times to sign onto conspiracy theories, and had little trouble cozying up to Putin when she visited Russia, condemning American foreign policy in her visit. Her running mate seems enamored of Bashar al-Assad, who has not only killed thousands of his own people but also used chemical weapons on them.
Her campaign seems to be an ego-driven spoiler campaign. She has no chance of winning, the only thing she could do is siphon enough votes from Clinton to let Trump win. If she were truly pushing a progressive agenda, she would be building a ground movement throughout the nation for state and congressional races. To his credit Sanders is working to do that sort of thing. Stein is not.
I confess to be less than enthusiastic about Hillary. She is evasive and makes excuses for her actions, just like Bill did. It is not that either of them are doing illegal things, it is more that they can never bring themselves to say, “I screwed up, I’m sorry, I won’t do that again.” She has ties to big corporations and Wall Street, but every major party presidential candidate for the last 50 years has. It takes tons of money to run for president, and more each time out. The only way you get that money is by sucking up to the folks with big money.
Sanders didn’t do that, but then Sanders fell short of getting the nomination. He never convinced African-Americans that he was on their side. Bill was always very popular among blacks, as was Obama, and Hillary has strong ties to both. For them, it was the devil they knew rather than the one they didn’t. Blacks know they are going to get the short end of the stick, the question is whether they will be hit with that stick, and the GOP seems to want to do the latter.
For me the question comes down to one of which person that I have misgivings about that I vote for. I have misgivings about both Hillary and Stein. But I know Stein has no chance of winning. If enough voters go for Stein, she will put Trump in the White House. I see that as a major disaster.
In the final analysis, I know Hillary is a politician. She supports many of the things I do, in spite of my misgivings. I also know that when there is a grassroots swelling of opinion in a more progressive direction, she is politically savvy enough to follow it. She was not on board with marriage equality, until a majority of Americans were, then she firmly backed it. She did not want to raise the minimum wage as much, until there was pressure on that. She is part way there, and progressive activists by generating popular support can move her further along.
