Whither the Berners?

Now that everybody agrees that Hillary is the Democratic nominee, and Bernie has fired most of his staff, some are wondering what will become of Bernie's supporters — especially the young ones, previously not especially interested in matters political.  Well, it depends, I suppose.

To what extent did their support for Bernie lead those young people to educate themselves on policy matters?  I haven't seen any data, but I suspect that most of the Berners were paying attention to his message and not merely along for the exciting ride.  Hopefully, many went beyond Bernie's campaign materials for their education.  Campaign materials are necessarily simplistic, and the emergence of a new and better progressivism in the USofA requires more than slogans.  Encouraging is that some are speaking of becoming politically involved at the local level, where Democrats (as well as Republicans) are inclined to be hacks beholden only to local special interests.

There is enough sophistication among them so that some will support Jill Stein of the Green Party, but only if they live in a dependably Democratic state.  This year, though, it may be harder to determine "dependability."  I voted for Jill Stein in 2012 and Ralph Nader in 2008, but I have certain qualms about New York this year — and some other states as well — given the general craziness of 2016.

All of us on the left would be a lot happier with Hillary if we could be assured that we won't be seeing yet another "New Democrat" administration like Bill's.  In his enthusiastic pandering to alleged "centrists" who would have been dependable Republicans fifteen years earlier, Bill Clinton did more to set back progressive politics than even Ronald Reagan.  A lot of us are afraid that Hillary will give us more of the same, and would love a strong commitment to true progressivism on her part.

Filing for divorce would be a good start.

Bigly

Donald Tr*mp, now the Republican nominee barring divine lightning strikes and such like, says he will win the November election "bigly."  Yes, he said he'd "win bigly."

I can't say I'm sorry to see the end of the Ted Cr*z campaign.  Cr*z's loss is a loss for the Christianist bigots, the most rabid "conservatives," and the self-righteous haters long the essential "base" of the Republican Party.  The "fact" that Cruz senior was involved in the Kennedy assassination (according to Tr*mp) seemed to have no bearing on the voting — probably because equal numbers of Republicans approved of that assassination as disapproved.

I'm also not unhappy that wolf-in-sheep's-clothing John Kasich dropped out.  The wealthy donors who supported him probably will start giving to Hillary's superPAC — the corporations never had many complaints about the last Clinton administration.

I don't much care for Hillary.  I suppose a lot of that arises from my dislike of Bill, but she's also a lot more of a hawk than Obama has been.  Also, I expect that she'll follow Obama's lead on defending government secrecy and persecuting whistleblowers.  Just the same, I'll vote for her in the general election, and I'm trying to persuade other Sanders supporters to do the same.  Trump is a complete unknown in terms of real policy beliefs, and his ignorance of everything except marketing his own brand makes him especially scary.

I'm also not confident that New York will remain a "safe" Democratic state this time around, so I guess Jill Stein of the Green Party will have to do without me this year.  Okay, I'll say it:

Vote for Hillary: It Could Be Worse!   It could be a lot worse.

President Tr*mp?

I'm beginning to think it can happen.

True, the Donald has very high negatives.  So does Hillary, though, and it will be just as hard to prevent Hillary from winning the Democratic nomination as it will be to prevent Donald from winning the Republican.

Matched in a general election, Hillary will be the Establishment candidate, Tr*mp the "outsider."  Since Americans are justifiably sick and tired of the way their government operates, the "outsider," however potentially dangerous and patently bizarre, has the advantage.  The outcome might surprise a lot of people.

Hillary's disavowal of free trade pacts certainly is suspect, reversing decades of enthusiastic support.  How many of those working class Sanders supporters will switch their allegiance to Tr*mp if their alternative is another Clinton?  Labor will reflexively "endorse" the Democratic candidate, but how well will a former Wal-Mart board member serve Labor's interests, and how many rank-and-file union members will play "follow the leader?"

What will happen if voters, who tend to stick to a single party line on their ballots, fail to return the Senate to Democrats?  Who would Tr*mp nominate to the Supreme Court?  (Nobody has even a vague idea of the answer to that last question.)

Nobody seems to have asked any of the candidates how they might fill jobs like Secretary of the Treasury, chief economic adviser, Chair of the SEC, etc.  Tr*mp, hopelessly ignorant of the actual workings of government, would have to depend on "advice" from the likes of Chris Christie and Jeff Sessions.  Clinton is most likely to return to the charlatans of her husband's "economically successful" administration, meaning more acolytes of Robert Rubin.

Frankly, I think Bernie Sanders is America's best bet, despite the fears of Establishment black, labor, and "liberal" figures.  Compared to Hillary, Bernie is far more likely to win.