October 2015, my first political rally
...Bernie supporters voting for Hillary instead diaries. There’s your tl;dr, go forth and flame in the comments.
The breaking point for me has been watching his campaign the last few days flee northward in an attempt to keep it going off of white folks’ votes. It is as if, having failed to sway black voters in South Carolina, the campaign has gone ‘okay bye’ and went back to what bastions of liberal, alabaster purity remain. It disappoints me. It’s just an impression, and I’m sure that alternate explanations and mythology could be offered up in defense of this move. I could easily be wrong.
However, this place has taught me something about what it means to be an ally. What it means to not just act on my own impulses, but to listen and second-guess myself and check for bias, even unconscious bias. There’s something about Bernie’s campaign that’s not working, the folks in SC didn’t buy it. I am choosing to listen to them.
I still like what he wants to do more; I still don’t trust Hillary overmuch; I’m wondering when the articles will come out looking at her more recent speeches to see how much southern twang she’s inserted into them lately. Much as he panders to whites lately, how much is she pandering to black folks? At the end of the day, though, I’m still faced with two imperfect candidates, looking for the ‘lesser evil.’
Hillary has made, I think, bigger mistakes. She has more to apologize for and more importantly make up for as President. She and her supporters seem...more aware of this, to me, on balance, overall (there are always exceptions). Less convinced of her purity and righteousness. And ultimately both of our candidates are leaps and bounds above any of the Republican candidates.
Drumpf? Really? That’s the GOP’s Frankensteinian monster? Last year I thought it would be Jeb! for sure, and boy was I wrong. It’s almost comical that the likes of Cruz and Rubio and so many others were outclassed, made to appear not extreme enough. But however much Bernie may be relying on white voters to keep his campaign alive, there is a core of white supremacist hatred buoying up Drumpf and the GOP establishment’s actually been obliged to start speaking out against it. Boy that must hurt!
But the choice come November seems abundantly clear. Whichever of ours wins, Bernie, Hillary, maybe they could come together and run as Hillabern (Bernary?) in the fall. Best of both worlds? Will they combine to form Captain Planet? Yeah, probably not but can I still hope? Anyway, my early ballot for the AZ primary goes in the mail today. Best of luck to both of them for Super Tuesday.
