See that kid in the red shirt and baseball cap in the bottom right? That’s me. My name is Anthony. I’m 21 years old. I’m a college student. I’m a committed progressive. I donated to Bernie Sanders. In many ways, I’m the average Bernie Sanders supporter...except that I’m caucusing for Hillary Clinton.
This isn’t a great picture of me. I look...angry, almost. I think this image captured the peak moment I felt the Bern. It’s been downhill since then.
I’ve known about Bernie Sanders longer than most. In my nascent political life, I went on a pursuit of finding progressive politicians to read about, he was one of the first to come up. His voting record, what he said, where he came from...he was like an older version of me. It was only natural I supported him when he announced his presidential campaign, I immediately donated. I bought a bumper sticker. And I went to his speech in my hometown of Portland, Maine. I changed my Facebook profile pic to a Bernie logo. This was summer.
There is roughly a foot of snow on the ground right now. As the weather has cooled, so have my feelings on Bernie Sanders.
It’s perhaps best we start at the beginning.
I was never part of the ‘Anyone But Hillary’ crowd. During Mike Michaud’s gubernatorial campaign, I went to see the Secretary speak on his behalf Scarborough High School. It was amazing. At that moment, I was Ready for Hillary. When she mentioned that her new grandchild shouldn’t be the only one with a leg up on education “Just because she’s the grandchild of a President” I smiled at the person next to me and said “two Presidents.” In many ways, I’ve always been ready for Hillary, even during my most committed time as a Bernie supporter. Her competence, passion and commitment to progressive values was obvious, at least to me. While I felt Bernie was perhaps the more progressive choice, I was more than okay with Hillary carrying the banner into the general election. I welcomed them running together as a liberal ‘dream team’.
I went to a viewing party at a bar for the first debate. It was fun. I thought Bernie did poorly and that Hillary was excellent. Hillary seemed in control, in command, and presidential. Bernie was flustered and distracted. Bernie justified his vote against the Brady Bill instead of acknowledging that it was a mistake, like Hillary did for her vote to authorize the War in Iraq. It stuck in my mind. Since the Newtown Massacre (and make no mistake, it was a massacre), I’ve probably become part of the “radical anti-gun fringe”. Seeing him refuse to even call it a mistake to vote against Brady was shocking to me. But I still thought “eh, what the hell. Bad night. Not used to the spotlight. He’ll come around on guns.”
The next day I perused the Bernie Sanders reddit forum. I was shocked. Everybody who happened to say that Bernie didn’t do well was shouted down, while manipulated online polls (often with people claiming to vote multiple times in the comments) showing Bernie had won the debate were trumpeted. Worse still, there were allegations of a vast media bias in Hillary’s favor. I found that hard to believe...this is the same media that had turned nothing into something with Benghazi and emailgate. They love beating on Hillary.
As time went on, the vitriol spewed by those on reddit and other sites towards anyone who didn’t support Bernie grew worse. It was inconceivable to them that someone with all the information on both candidates would still support Hillary. I began feeling like the Bernie Sanders campaign had left me behind. Anything that didn’t totally preach the gospel of Bernie, that was perhaps not entirely positive, that perhaps treated him like a person running for president instead of the person ordained by God to save America, was decried, the people behind it vilified.
Worse still, I saw white people telling people of color how to vote. “How can Hillary be leading so much among African Americans? Don’t they know Bernie’s policies are better for them?” I don’t know, isn’t it up to them to decide whose policies benefit them the most? Maybe they might have some trouble trusting an old white man from New England?
I decided to take a harder look at Bernie. I first came across Aphra Behn’s wonderful “Looking for Bernie” series on Shakesville. It became clear that the Bernie Sanders portrayed by his supporters and his campaign is not the same person as the real Bernie Sanders. This would have been fine, except for the fact that he is purported to be more “genuine” and “real” than other politicians are.
I also learned that Bernie called for a primary challenge against Obama in 2012. Why would he say that? The last three times an incumbent lost (Ford in ‘76, Carter in ‘80 and Bush I in ‘92) the general election, the incumbent had to stave off a primary challenger; Ford with Reagan, Carter with Ted Kennedy, Bush with Pat Buchanan. Getting into a dogfight in the primary would’ve meant almost certain defeat come November. I wondered why Bernie would try to nuke Obama’s reelection bid.
I compared Hillary’s and Bernie’s policy platforms. I found that, while Bernie had great ideas, he was light on actual plans. The hard numbers weren’t there. Taxing Wall Street to make tuition at public colleges free is a great idea! At what rate will you tax? Would participation be up to the states or the federal government? Would students get direct assistance or only the universities? Would universities have to change the way they operate? Would there be any requirements about the curriculum?
I also had questions about his Wall Street policy in general. He wants to break up the big banks. I thought, ‘Okay, great, except what happens next? I don’t think breaking up the banks will fix everything in this country. Convince me otherwise.’ He never did. His stump speech has barely changed. His ideas still lack plans.
What I found when I looked at Hillary was policies. Actual, in depth policies. Her plan to rein in Wall Street is 5,000 words long, filled with analysis and description of exactly what she’s going to do, how she’s going to do it, and how it’ll help the country. As for Bernie’s plans, we keep on hearing that they’ll be released some time in the future. Iowa is three weeks away. If I were this late on something at school, I’d be expelled.
I found it interesting, too, that so many of Bernie Sanders’ senate colleagues have endorsed Hillary. To me, it shows that they’re ready to fight for Hillary’s platform on January 20th, that she has a better chance of governing than Bernie does. She has the entire party ready to fight for her. Bernie will probably be the one fighting with the party. I can’t see representatives from marginal districts or senators from purple states sticking the neck out for his platform the way they did.
What I found when I looked at Hillary was policies. Actual, in depth policies. Her plan to rein in Wall Street is 5,000 words long, filled with analysis and description of exactly what she’s going to do, how she’s going to do it, and how it’ll help the country. As for Bernie’s plans, we keep on hearing that they’ll be released sometime in the future. Iowa is three weeks away. If I were this late on something at school, I’d be expelled.
I found it interesting, too, that so many of Bernie Sanders’ senate colleagues have endorsed Hillary. To me, it shows that they’re ready to fight for Hillary’s platform on January 20th, that she has a better chance of governing than Bernie does. She has the entire party ready to fight for her. Bernie will probably be the one fighting with the party. I can’t see representatives from marginal districts or senators from purple states sticking their neck out for his platform.
I began to see that Bernie wasn’t the best choice for the job. His flubbing of foreign policy questions, his refusal to delve into details, his campaign’s outright lying about the data breach (untruths about that perpetuated by the campaign still abound). It made me afraid to have him as the nominee, let alone president.
At the same time, Hillary’s depth and breadth of knowledge on any number of subjects, foreign and domestic, her staunchly progressive platform, her commitment to the women’s rights movement, her commitment against guns...there was only ever one choice for me.
All the while, the vitriol from Sanders supporters has only grown. Insinuating that Gabby Giffords’ brain injuries are what made her endorse Hillary, throwing John Lewis and Planned Parenthood under the bus, insinuating that the only reason why anyone endorses Hillary is fear of retribution, insulting Sybrina Fulton, the grieving mother of Trayvon Martin, for having the gall to endorse the candidate with the better gun control record. It seems to have permeated parts of the campaign, too: little digs from the candidate and the campaign (the most recent one is referring to Hillary as ‘The Anointed One,’ which is a level of condescension and haughtiness I expect from Trump) from a candidate who still purports to ‘never attack’.
I respect Bernie. His campaign has an important message, and one that deserves to be heard. But when it comes to making it a reality, he doesn't meet my expectations. Hillary does. On guns, on women’s rights, and on Wall Street.
Everywhere I looked, the facts screamed at me: Hillary Clinton is the progressive choice for president. She has the experience, the tenacity, and the vision to enact progressive policies and push them through a gerrymandered congress with the help of her dream team of advisers (Stiglitz! Binder! Chatterji! Sperling! Krueger!) and the full support of Democratic Party’s elected officials, while Bernie still is yet to release any concrete policy proposals.
For me, it isn’t a choice.