Voting for Hillary is Cowardly?

I had someone call me a coward, because I will not support Jill Stein, and instead am supporting Hillary. Seriously? First, Jill Stein has zero chance of winning the election. Beyond which, while Hillary is no perfect progressive, neither is Stein.

My first choice for president would have been Elizabeth Warren, but she chose not to run. In her absence, my choice was Bernie Sanders, who I supported with both my money and my vote. Unfortunately, Sanders did not get the nomination. Yes, the DNC strongly favored Clinton, but what would you expect? Clinton has been a Democrat for over 30 years. Sanders was elected and serves as an independent, and only ran as a Democrat for this presidential nomination run.

The simple fact is that Sanders did not get enough support from black voters, latinx voters, and working class voters to win the nomination. While the DNC clearly favored Clinton, the primaries were NOT rigged. As it stands, Sanders and Warren are both supporting Clinton’s presidential bid and are both campaigning on her behalf. Absent any contraindications, that alone is enough to make me support Hillary.

Some folks claim that Stein supports a far more progressive platform. I see no evidence of that. I am on the left wing of the Democratic party, and based on political surveys rank as more liberal than the majority of liberal Democrats. I’ve gone down lists of positions on major issues in this campaign comparing candidates. I do not side noticeably more often with Stein than with Hillary.

Most right wingers and some hard core leftists claim that Hillary is dishonest. When Politifact checked all major party presidential candidates, Hillary and Sanders were two of the top three in honesty. Hillary had slightly more true, mostly true, and half true than Bernie, but Bernie had fewer pants on fire. Frankly, the far right has been accusing Clinton of all manner of things for many years, but has never proven anything of significance.

There is no fact checking scorecard on Jill Stein, but some things seem to be disturbing. She seemed very pro-Brexit, until that turned out to be of some disadvantage, then kind of shucked and jived. She has seemed to support anti-vaxxers, until that caused some stir, and has equivocated on vaccines since. She also appeared to claim that there were health hazards associated with wifi. Neither her vaccine nor wifi positions have any scientific support.

Some people point to Hillary’s changes in positions on issues as a reason to distrust her. To be sure, she shifted on marriage equality, as did Obama and as did many other Americans. She had been a supporter of TPP, then went silent, and eventually came out against it. Obama is still pushing TPP, and until the deal was finalized many people either supported or kept an open mind on it. While she supported a higher minimum wage, she changed her views on how much higher. She also came out more strongly for financial breaks for college students after pressure from Bernie. Only the most doctrinaire and close-minded people never change views on issues. My positions have evolved on issues, including some of the above.

What we find with Hillary, is someone who will shift her positions on issues when there is sufficient pressure to do so. With Sanders and Warren as prominent progressive senators, speaking out, raising awareness, and mobilizing support for progressive issues, there will indeed be pressure on Hillary to stay closer to a progressive line.

My duty is to make sure the agenda of the next president is as closely aligned to a progressive agenda as possible. If I vote for someone other than Hillary, I take a big chance that Trump will win and impose a very anti-progressive agenda. Based on that, I have no hesitations in voting for Hillary.