In the absence of a better option...

Yes, I would vote for Clinton over Trump...but that means that my vote is hers to lose. And she hasn’t done anything to gain it other than not being Donald Trump.

This is what I fear:

Hillary Clinton becomes the Democratic nominee, despite her consistently poling as a weaker Democratic candidate than Bernie Sanders against Donald Trump. Those of us who backed Bernie, most of us anyway, resign ourselves to voting for a candidate we cannot fully support and cast our votes for her, but she proves unable to inspire Sanders supporters to be enthusiastic about her candidacy. She proves unable to inspire the same sort of willingness to evangelize that so defined Bernie Sanders’ campaign. She continues to think that our support, our enthusiasm, our devotion are hers by right. Worse, she builds her campaign on fear, making “If not me, then Trump!” her rallying cry.

The election comes along, and Donald Trump wins.

And Hillary and her supporters blame Bernie’s supporters for the defeat, saying it’s because we weren’t enthusiastic enough.

Well, if that’s what happens then that’s what happens. She may get my vote just by becoming the Democratic candidate, but my enthusiastic support is hers to earn. Or not. And so far, she hasn’t.

And for that matter, my vote is hers to lose; she still might lose it. Hillary Clinton (IMHO) is the sort of person to take the support of all persons Democratic Party as hers by right, without considering that we, the people who she’s relying upon to vote her into office, might feel differently.

If Hillary Clinton wants the support of the millions of people who invested their hopes, their dreams, and their hard-earned money in Bernie Sanders, millions of people who like me believe (still) that he was the better, stronger candidate, then she’s going to have to work at it. If she expects our support to just fall into her lap then she is going to be disappointed. And so are the millions of people in this country who are forced to rely on her to defeat Donald Trump.

That’s the big flaw in Hillary Clinton’s campaign; to be victorious, she has to depend on the support of legions of people who don’t think she’s the best person for the job. Like me.

Much of my lack of faith in Hillary Clinton comes from her lack of faith in democracy. Throughout the primary process she has seemed to rely on superdelegates and shenanigans to carry her to the nomination; her margin in the popular vote was rather slim, and I am far from convinced that it wouldn’t have been different without the media anointing her as the Heir Apparent and proclaiming her the victor long before she’d won anything (she still hasn’t). If her approach to the “democratic process” has been to keep it from being democratic, what does that say for a Hillary Clinton presidency?

Here’s the thing; though I am unenthusiastic for her now, that could change. I do believe that she is capable of becoming a candidate that I can support unreservedly. I believe that she is capable of not only saying the right things but meaning them. So far, I haven’t seen that anywhere in the primary process. I hope that I will see it if she becomes the nominee.

As things stand now, if Hillary Clinton wins the nomination she’ll have my vote but she’ll have to work to keep it. She’ll have to work at not drifting to the right on issues that I care about. She’ll have to work at not being a paid spokesperson for her corporate sponsors. In short, she’ll have to work at not being the Hillary Clinton that, as things stand now, I do not entirely trust.

And I am not alone. I know a good many Sanders supporters who are prepared to vote for Clinton if it comes down to her or Trump, but who can’t bring themselves to support her beyond what they give her in the voting booth. Until November, we are all going to be keeping a skeptical eye on her; if she shows signs of becoming much less of a progressive, then I’m not the only one who’ll be rethinking that vote.

Let me be clear: I want to be able to support the Democratic nominee. Given what’s at stake and the character (or lack of it) of Donald Trump, I am willing to cast my vote on a lesser-of-two-evils basis, and I honestly believe that a Clinton presidency would be far less disastrous than a Trump presidency. That’s what I believe now, anyway. If she gains the nomination and then begins to drift away from the left, as I fear she may, then I may have to revisit the issue of which evil is actually lesser.

The Blues Viking
The opinions expressed here are mine and if you don’t like them you can get your own damn blog.