It's Not Hate, It's Revolution

Ardent supporters of Hillary Clinton are apt to take umbrage at the fact that many who back Bernie Sanders have expressed themselves as unwilling to vote for Secretary Clinton, should she be the nominee.

Clinton loyalists are entitled to their opinions, but their umbrage serves neither their cause nor their candidate.  While there are, without doubt, “Hillary haters” among Sanders’ ranks, I suspect they are rare.  To be sure, a great many Sanders supporters are angry at Secretary Clinton’s increasingly desperate, reality-free attacks on her opponent.  But many of Bernie’s most passionate fans will, no doubt, eat their words and support Hillary, should she win the nomination.

Clinton’s problem lies with those of us who do not hate her – but have no intention of voting for her in November, regardless of her opponent.  There are a lot of us – perhaps millions.  Enough to make it doubtful that Clinton will prevail in a general election against any Republican.

But again, this has less to do with personal animus that it does with long-term thinking, and a determination to continue to work toward a political “revolution” against the corrupt, effete, and dysfunctional system of which Mrs. Clinton is a long-established part.

In general, I find that those who are most supportive of Hillary – and most horrified at those who vow never to support her – tend to think and behave as loyal Democrats.  Their political world-view is circumscribed by the existing two-party system and the binary, left-right "political spectrum" so popular with high-school civics teachers and political science and journalistic types.

But not everyone shares this limited view of the world.

In my case, I see the existing system – not as a two-sided battle between the good guys and the bad guys – but as a duopoly in which the two established parties alternate power, while doing little or nothing to address the realities of the 21^st century.

It is in the interest of both parties to limit political discourse to a handful of issues about which Democrats and Republicans can agree to disagree, while being safely assured of roughly half of the votes of those Americans who still bother to participate.  In its present form, the duopoly assures the Republican Party of control of the House of Representatives – through its greater ability to turn out voters for down-ballot elections and consequent control of congressional district gerrymandering. 

The duopoly assures the Democratic Party of a small, but significant, advantage in the Electoral College.  Because Senate elections tend to go to the winning party in Presidential years, and the party out-of-power in “mid-term” elections, duopolistic control of that body shifts back and forth on a pendular basis.

In order to maintain this process, which assures both major parties of a regular share of power, both Democrats and Republicans rely on the politics of fear – routinely alarming their voting “bases” at the prospect of the other party winning the next election.  In such a system, there is little reason to risk advocating – much less pressing – measures which offer real change.  Safer, by far, to focus on the dangerous things the opposition might choose to do.

Such a system, of course, is entirely meaningless to those whose interests are not part of the regular menu of “issues” served up by the duopoly.  In today’s terms, global climate change – which, in any rational republic, would be among the most pressing issues in every campaign – is seldom mentioned by any candidate other than the “revolutionary” Bernie Sanders.  Since both major parties depend upon the support of fossil-fuel and automobile manufacturers (to say nothing of road-builders and suburban developers), global climate change is given short shrift.

Climate change is but one, pressing example of issues which have no standing in the present duopoly.  When there are only two sides to the political dialogue, alternate ways of constructing political reality are simply not allowed for. There is no forum in which to suggest alternate menus of issues, or alternate ways of looking at the world.

From this perspective, an election between yet another conservative Republican and another moderately liberal, “third way”, Democrat offers no real choice at all. For those who want a meaningful revolution – one which reduces the impact of big money and opens the door to new political parties – there is little reason to prefer one party or candidate over the other.

In 2016, an election between Hillary Clinton and any of the current Republican candidates, offers no possibility of such change.  Thus, it becomes – in terms of those not locked into the two-party world-view – a dreary, but thoroughly unimportant, event.

Put another way, if your goal is to disrupt the present system, the basic goal is to disrupt the present campaign finance system, the system of gerrymandering, and – most important – the two-party duopoly.  An election which offers no possibility of disrupting the present duopoly is, simply, no big deal.   

In 2016 – owing to the campaigns of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders – both major parties seem unusually vulnerable to disruption.  For most young voters – and a few old progressives like me – the Democrats seem the more vulnerable target.

If Bernie Sanders is the Democratic candidate – and the winner in November – there would be a window of opportunity for radically reforming the party from within.  If Hillary Clinton is the nominee, and wins, there will be no such opportunity. 

For that reason, none of Secretary Clinton’s past achievements or personal qualities outweighs the fact that she represents the continuation of a defunct political system.  I don’t hate her.  But I won’t be voting for her.

I hope many others, who are serious about change, will make the same choice.