Hillary Clinton supporters need to quit dismissing Bernie Sanders as an annoyance. He’s the one speaking with full-throated, plain-spoken accuracy about American public policy.
But a word of advice to my fellow Sanders supporters: Enough with the Facebook posts implying Clinton is a force of evil. She initiated child health care funding in the 1990s, began her political life after college as an outright progressive, and her Senate voting record is indeed largely progressive. She voted with Sanders the vast majority of the time, arguably voting to Barack Obama’s left when they were both senators.
Let’s all keep our eye on the ball: If a justice such as Samuel Alito replaces Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court, this country is in big trouble.
If Clinton wants to win, she should acknowledge her Iraq vote wasn’t a “mistake.” Her vote to harm consumers in the George W. Bush-era bankruptcy law wasn’t a “mistake.”
She caved on some major issues to seek what she perceived as political advantage. Thus, she lost in 2008. In 2016, she should embrace anew the progressivism that inspired her to get involved in politics.
She needs to reject the absurd secretiveness that led her to create an entirely different web server during her tenure as secretary of state, then delete emails with no independent oversight against the direct instruction of her boss, President Obama. (I imagine this is something Clinton’s most adamant supporters would condemn if any Republican secretary of state did the same.)
Plus, enough with Clinton’s staged encounters with five pre-screened voters and no questions from reporters. Clinton needs to meet the crowds and face the reporters as a renewed, powerfully progressive woman who would make a strong president.
Clinton has done great things for America. She should do this, too.
At the same time, my fellow Sanders supporters need to realize that Clinton has tremendous support among African-Americans, who are pivotal in Democratic primaries and were pivotal to Obama’s 2008 win. Obama had a John F. Kennedy aura. Sanders doesn’t — but he’s often Trumanesque. Does Sanders have a shot? Yes, he has a shot, but Clinton’s a good person overall with major accomplishments, so it’s best for Sanders supporters to focus on the issues Sanders raises, not on attacking Clinton.
I love it when Sanders tells it like it is. I love that he was a damn good mayor of Burlington, Vermont (liberals bring jobs!), and senator (who, unlike some chest-thumping right wingers, got actual results for our veterans). That’s why I’m supporting Sanders for president — that, and he has kept his campaign positive. His supporters should, too. I will.
Don’t let anyone tell you Sanders is not mainstream. He expresses ideas fully consistent with the Kennedys, harkening back to an era when Democrats not only won but when our Democratic leaders were actually loved.
I welcome Clinton flanking Sanders by leading us to the mainstream of the Democratic Party that Sanders so eloquently espouses — the mainstream embodied by Robert F. Kennedy, John F. Kennedy and Franklin D. Roosevelt. But “triangulation?” Triangulation ( Harry Truman said: “If it’s a choice between a genuine Republican and a Republican in Democratic clothing, the people will choose the genuine article, every time.”) can go to hell, and Clinton can send it there. That would be a great public service.
Sanders, meanwhile, can and should disagree with Clinton — on the issues. But if Sanders bases his campaign on an exaggerated disdain for Clinton, that only helps a President Marco Rubio. Sanders is superlative. He espouses a principled positive message.
If Sanders supporters keep at that positive message, we can change America and elect a Democratic president. That president will appoint the next several Supreme Court justices.
If we don’t unite in this cause, our country could become a confirmed plutocracy designed by a handful of selfish billionaires with an encroaching theocracy, with a bone tossed to placate those who want to pull down the rainbow flag and see the Confederate battle flag rise again. Supreme Court justices can make that happen — and prevent it.
We can secure a more perfect union. Bernie Sanders can be the catalyst.
Sean Faircloth is author of the book “Attack of the Theocrats: How the Religious Right Harms Us All — And What We Can Do About It.” A lawyer and former majority whip of the Maine Legislature, Faircloth serves on the Bangor City Council.