Bernie's Endorsement

Bernie's endorsement today of Hillary Clinton has given me mixed feelings.

On the one hand, I sympathize with being afraid of Donald Trump. He should not be president. He does not represent the majority of Americans' views on many many topics. He's racist, he's quick to jump on people in anger, he's pro-business and won't help most Americans. I don't know what his voters see in him.

But on the other hand, we know that Clinton is racist ("superpredators" need to heel), quick to anger (see how she gets bent out of shape in her NPR interview with Terry Gross when Terry was clear what she meant by her question early on, Clinton jumped to conclusions a bit), pro-business (see her support of the TPP and her bizarre debate answer of supporting banks because "9/11"). On social issues she generally isn't as bad as a Republican, I will admit that, but I overall don't know what voters see in her either.

Obviously, Bernie made the calculation that good change is more likely under Clinton than Trump, and I can't really argue that. But I'm not convinced that Clinton will change anything for the better. Since Bernie has been an outsider -- running as an independent against democrats and republicans -- I had always hoped he'd stay an outsider. If he couldn't push the Democratic party, then he'd go Independent, or possibly with the Greens and Dr Jill Stein.

It's really a difficult decision. But I think overall I can't really support that calculus. Progressives should defeat Donald Trump by #UniteGreen behind Bernie and Jill. That ticket would crush Trump, whereas Clinton is quite a gamble that could actually lose. But, fear of Trump is preventing that from happening, when we could win by staying positive. I hope Bernie isn't giving in to fear of Trump, but with the endorsement, I can't say I'm optimistic he will go independent. I guess we will have to see what happens at the convention.

A future blog post will discuss why our election system needs to change if we intend to stop having elections that are always between a rock and a hard place.