Who’s not a Democrat?
April 13, 2016
The turnaround is here, and the growing momentum behind Bernie Sanders’ campaign should be concerning for front-runner Hillary Clinton’s hopes of clinching the Democratic nomination before the convention in July.
With her 250 delegate lead (not counting superdelegates) expected to diminish as the primaries continue westward, she decided against sitting still and took to the press to deliver some unflattering and unwarranted remarks about her rival. Among the ugliest, her statement that Sanders is not a true Democrat.
Hypocrisy is at its finest in the newly escalated ‘war of words’ for former Secretary of State Clinton. She chose the wrong fight to wage against the self-proclaimed “democratic socialist” Senator of Vermont in suggesting that he be disqualified from the election for a lack of loyalty to the party. If anyone has questionable commitment to the interests of Democrats, it’s going to be the spewer of these accusations herself—the flip-flopper.
Especially visible surrounding the primaries held in Wisconsin last week, international trade was a major issue that was used to reach out to working class voters, both Republican and now Democratic. Presidential candidates sympathized with Wisconsin’s victims of outsourcing under free trade agreements like NAFTA (signed into law during the Clinton administration), and assured their adamant opposition to the currently contested Trans-Pacific Partnership, which would allow companies pack up and ship American jobs over to Asian countries in the name of promoting a global economy for developing nations.
The Badger state alone reportedly lost over 100,000 jobs to corporate greed (over 682,000 were displaced nationwide, the Economic Policy Institute finds), and it would be the same sad story under the TPP with just as many jobs gone. Guess who came out in support of this agreement and stayed that way for five years until the start of her presidential campaign? Well, it wasn’t Sanders, our Democrat in question. He was too busy being against it.
If it weren’t for a contestant as progressive as Sanders, would Clinton ever have needed to change her position to appeal to more Democratic voters? Probably not. And, unfortunately, the inconsistency does not end there.
It’s the same thing with Clinton’s stated inclination to approve the construction of the Canada-Texas Keystone XL pipeline, rejected by President Obama last November. We see the same hesitation to turn away from Republican rhetoric, which in this case was focused on creating temporary jobs at the expense of risking a disastrous oil spill. Again, it was not until about five years later that she finally voiced her opposition to the project, and only shortly after did Obama kill it.
In all fairness, Sanders is certainly not the perfect candidate in this respect. The Vermont Senator was put in a similar situation by coming out in favor of sheltering gun manufacturing companies from liability when their firearms are used in crimes and later switching against it (he still was and is, however, in support of fundamental gun control legislation: stricter background checks and a banning of automatic weapons).
But it just wasn’t Clinton’s position to criticize the far more progressive Sanders for having weak Democratic ties (though he only joined the party in 2015), especially when he has been a major pressuring force to her, albeit reluctant, move to the left. Who knows what other conservative policies she’ll end up supporting next?
The Democratic Party cannot put its faith into a candidate who consistently fails to represent its progressive agenda. The Oval Office is not for Hillary.
