It is not news that one-time presidential hopeful and Democratic Sen. from Vermont Bernie Sanders has lost his party’s nomination. Now, would-be Sanders supporters are left with a less than progressive alternative, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
No one, especially progressives, are particularly excited about this election. According to an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, Clinton and Republican opponent Donald Trump are the two most disliked presidential candidates in history.
As prevailing as this progressive disillusionment is, so is the anti-Trump rhetoric. Trump’s racist antics, casual misogyny, and general buffoonery are well-known. It is a laundry list of cringe-inducing, blood-boiling, idiotic remarks that is as long as the absurd wall he has proposed to build on the southern border.
A Trump administration would undoubtedly be an international-relations disaster, along with surely unprecedented domestic unrest at home. People are afraid of a Trump presidency, fearing the exploitation and abuse of communities of people of color and LGBTQ.
Thus, the argument thrown toward disgruntled Sanders progressives seems reasonable, being that “a vote for Hillary is actually a vote against Trump.” She seems to be the lesser of two evils, but a vote for a lesser evil is still evil. To claim that Trump would negatively affect marginalized people and Clinton would not is blatantly Eurocentric.
This argument entirely ignores populations in the Middle East affected by the much-criticized and Clinton-endorsed targeted-killing program. The drones used in this program have fired upon hospitals and wedding convoys mistaken for enemy targets in the past.
On the subject of the program’s belligerence, Clinton said in a 2014 interview with The Guardian that “of course anyone who is an innocent bystander, especially a child, who’s caught up in any operation against terrorists, that is a cause of great concern, and it is a cause of real disappointment and regret on our part.”
In 2011, under this program and during Clinton’s time as secretary of State, a drone strike intentionally targeted and killed a 16-year-old American teenager in Yemen because his father was a suspected terrorist. As Clinton’s email scandal unfolds, evidence has surfaced that she was directly involved with the approval of these CIA-led strikes.
On a larger scale, this argument ignores the entire global south. To contend that the neoliberal economic policy that Clinton subscribes to would not continue to subjugate the smaller economies of the world is absurd.
On the domestic front, the Bill Clinton administration was responsible for the mass incarceration of people of color across the nation. Though he was in the Oval Office at this time, Hillary Clinton played a major role in the policy so often loathed by the progressives she needs to secure the presidency. She later admitted her record on mass incarceration as a mistake during a debate with Sanders in March.
The liberal fear of a Trump presidency is very real and just as valid, but to guilt progressive voters into supporting a non-progressive candidate on the basis of social justice is cheap and deceptive. Voters should cast their ballots for a candidate they believe in, not just against a candidate they despise.
So where does that leave the millions of Americans who find themselves always so disappointed each election cycle? Maybe it is time to explore the third parties, because l Green Party nominee Jill Stein and Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson were still in the presidential running.