Step Aside Hillary Clinton: Why Only Bernie Sanders Can Beat Donald Trump
The DNC has been trying to crown Hillary Clinton the Democratic presidential nominee even before the official start of this presidential election cycle. However, with Clinton’s poll numbers and momentum declining and a possible indictment from the FBI, and with a political record that does not reflect the values of the working class and minorities, Hillary Clinton has become a liability for the Democratic Party. Even before Republicans attacked her at full force, recent national polls show Clinton is barely beating Donald Trump, with much larger margins in favor of Bernie Sanders.
As Sanders himself would say, “Enough is enough.” It’s time to put the country ahead of party politics and big money supporters trying to buy Clinton’s election.
The tide has turned since the first primaries and caucuses, with the Deep South states that favored Clinton already casting their votes, save for Florida. After Tuesday, the map shifts in favor of Bernie Sanders, and his upset win in Michigan was the turning point that showed how the pundits painting Sanders as unelectable were dead wrong. That, combined with a disastrous weekend of gaffes by Clinton and the strength of Bernie Sanders’ message to the poor and working-class, has translated into another huge shift in polls in the states coming up in the next Super Tuesday. Even Clinton’s campaign says the polls spell trouble in Ohio, Illinois, and Missouri, and given that Sanders overcame a 20-point polling deficit in the last week to take Michigan, Florida is also well within his reach.
It’s time for the DNC and chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz to recognize that not only are Hillary Clinton’s chances of winning the Democratic presidential nomination slipping away, but more importantly, a Clinton nomination would be a disaster that hands the presidency to the presumed Republican nominee, Donald Trump. Clinton’s record will not hold up against Republican attacks, and here are the critical points why.
Clinton Email Scandal
Even though Sanders himself defended Clinton in the first Democratic debate against this ongoing controversy, the FBI recently granted immunity to Clinton’s former staff member who set up her email system, and that means a significant possibility of an indictment. While many defend Clinton on the basis that she has weathered many scandals in the past, is it really all unfounded attacks made by Republicans, or is there some truth behind the scandals? It’s looking more and more like there may be substance to this FBI investigation and that subsequent charges may be forthcoming.
Disastrous Trade Agreements Sending Jobs Overseas
As with many campaign issues, Clinton is trying to backtrack now on trade agreements she supported that helped send American jobs and factories overseas, damaging the economy and working class families in this country. Even CNN, which is normally a pretty Clinton-friendly media outlet, cited 45 times Clinton supported the most current trade bill under scrutiny, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, before flip-flopping to say she now opposes it. Clinton’s record of supporting economy-damaging trade agreements is one of many examples where she has sided with corporations and the billionaire class.
LGBT Discrimination and Clinton’s AIDs Gaffe
Speaking of flip-flops, one of Clinton’s biggest was her reversal on gay marriage. Clinton once said that she firmly believed that a marriage was “between a man and a woman” — at least until public opinion swayed her to support gay marriage rights. Now she’s on board and claiming to be a big supporter of LGBT rights. While some in the gay community were quick to forget her betrayal of their most basic rights in the past, Clinton infuriated them this weekend when she complimented former First Lady Nancy Reagan and President Ronald Reagan on their record of “low-key advocacy” for the AIDS crisis of the 80s.
Some people asked how she could’ve made such a shocking factual error, so let me put a theory out there. Clinton was trying to pander to the Reagan Democrats and the LGBT community at the same time, with absolutely no clue that AIDS activism and the Reagans don’t go together. And how would someone who claims to be such an advocate for gay rights be so ignorant of this fact? From a complete lack of knowledge of the history of the gay community, which comes from simply not caring. Well, not caring except for when you want their votes.
No Friend to Other Minorities
While Clinton packaged herself as Barack Obama’s BFF in the South to dominate the African-American voters, people are wising up to the real records between Clinton and Bernie Sanders. While Sanders was chaining himself to a black woman and being arrested for protesting segregation, Hillary Clinton was a “Goldwater Girl” supporting the campaign of presidential nominee Barry Goldwater, who wanted to repeal the Civil Rights Act. While many make excuses for her, saying it was many years ago, it shows yet another instance of Clinton changing her political views to what’s popular among demographics whose votes she now needs, where Sanders has remained consistent his entire life on key issues regarding civil rights. Sanders’ record aside, is there really any excuse for ever supporting a candidate who wanted to dismiss the Civil Rights Act?
While her Goldwater support may have been in the past, her support of the legislation that created mass incarceration of African Americans and Latinos contributed to the United States being the country with the highest rate of incarceration in the world today. She has referred to African-American criminals as “super-predators” and displayed condescending behavior to those who have confronted her on these issues in public. In contrast, when the Black Lives Matter representatives protested at one of Sanders’ rallies, he gave them the mic to let their voice be heard.
As far as the Hispanic community, one of Sanders’ most recent campaign videos makes the case far better than anyone else could that he is the man to fight for the Latino community, documenting his fight for immigrant workers in Immokalee, Florida.
It’s About the Economy, Stupid
When it comes to the economy, Clinton is supported by Super PACs and billionaires, including many banks whose corruption and illegal behavior caused the economic meltdown that resulted in the Wall Street bailout. Clinton only came out in support of a moderate raise in the minimum wage after Bernie Sanders called for a raise to $15 an hour, and she still refuses to release the transcripts of her six-figure speeches to corporations and bankers like Goldman Sachs. While Wall Street bankers may be her friend, one Wall Street insider said that Sanders’ economic plan was the only one that could save the American economy. This isn’t just any Wall Street insider, but Asher Edelman, the man who inspired the character Gordon Gekko in Oliver Stone’s Wall Street and his notorious line, “Greed is good.”
Why is Sanders’ economic plan better than everyone else’s? Edelman points out an economic principle called “velocity of money.” Sanders plan to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour would send a huge amount of cash into the economy, with people spending much more money to boost business profits. What he didn’t mention was that all the extra income translates into more taxes going into offsetting the continuing deficit and to fund programs like free state college for everyone. When “Gordon Gekko” says the Democratic Socialist is the best thing for the party, people need to listen.
Endless Wars and Shady Arms Deals
Most voters know that Clinton voted for George W. Bush’s wars and continues to be a proponent of regime change in other countries, creating destabilization and increasing international tensions. That alone is bad enough, but perhaps a more alarming report is that Clinton Foundation donors got arms deals in return while Hillary was Secretary of State, as highlighted in this International Business Times article.
“The State Department formally approved these arms sales even as many of the deals enhanced the military power of countries ruled by authoritarian regimes whose human rights abuses had been criticized by the department. Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Qatar all donated to the Clinton Foundation and also gained State Department clearance to buy caches of American-made weapons even as the department singled them out for a range of alleged ills, from corruption to restrictions on civil liberties to violent crackdowns against political opponents.”
Clinton wants you to think that her presidency would be an extension of Obama’s, when in reality, it would be an extension of Bush’s disastrous legacy, with endless wars and arms deals filling the pockets of war-mongering billionaires like Halliburton.
The Writing is on the Wall
If elected as the Democratic Party nominee, Hillary Clinton will lose against the Republicans. Bernie Sanders has the momentum and the growing support of the people. There are no skeletons in his closet, and the only (false) attack that that Republicans can throw at him is in regards to the fact that he’s a Democratic socialist, which they have already tried to misrepresent as communist or fascist. Sanders has already explained the difference and will continue to do so, and being a Democratic socialist hasn’t slowed him down one bit in gaining ground on the Democratic nomination.
That’s it. The Republicans have nothing else to throw at Bernie Sanders.
Where Hillary Clinton has fought for the interests of billionaires and corporations, Bernie Sanders has always fought for the people, and that is where the difference lies. Hillary Clinton is a lifelong politician, whereas Bernie Sanders is a lifelong public servant, from his days marching with Martin Luther King Jr. and being arrested fighting for civil rights to fighting for the poor and working-class today. And in case you haven’t noticed, those people are the majority, and they’re waking up and rising up, which is why Sanders is surging in the polls and why Clinton is tanking.
If Clinton is withering now in the face of a clean, issue-driven campaign, she’ll never withstand the brutal attacks by the GOP. Even the majority of her own party thinks she’s not trustworthy but has supported her because they didn’t think they had a better choice. Until now.
It’s time to step aside Hillary Clinton, for the good of the Democratic Party and for the good of the country. We need to clear the way for Bernie Sanders, who can actually beat Donald Trump and truly make America great again.
[Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images]
