Cenk Uyger Of ‘The Young Turks’ Will Vote For Hillary Clinton [Video]

Cenk Uyger, host and founder of the popular online news outlet The Young Turks, stated in a video on Thursday that he will vote for the Democratic Party nominee for president, Hillary Clinton. You can view the video itself below.

The video, taken from the nightly live broadcast of The Young Turks, features Cenk Uyger himself, and unaccompanied by his normal panel of co-hosts, discussing his final decision to personally vote for Hillary Clinton in his state of residence, California.

“There are five days until decision time, so I made a decision,” Cenk Uyger begins. “I am not in the camp that this was an easy decision.”

Indeed, many Americans have not found the decision on who they will vote for in this election cycle an easy one. The Washington Post calls Hillary Clinton and her main opponent, Republican Party nominee Donald Trump, “some of the most unlikable candidates in political history.” A startling reality reported by the New York Times is that during the primary contests, during which Clinton was opposed largely by the insurgent campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders and Trump was among a host of Republican contenders, a full 91 percent of Americans chose not to vote for either one of these candidates. Only 9 percent of the country actually went to the polls during the primary season to cast a ballot for Trump or Clinton, a statistic that gives some credence to the notion that regardless of the outcome of the November 8 election, the majority of the nation will not be satisfied.

Cenk Uyger himself admits and addresses this fact in his video.

“I understand the establishment has laid a trap for us, I’m not unaware of it, I talk about it all the time” Uyger says. “They give you a choice where you couldn’t vote for a monster like Donald Trump. Well played, establishment. Nice job. I wasn’t for Hillary Clinton in the primaries, and my vote does not mean I support everything she does, far from it. In fact, on day one, hour one we plan to protest her.”

Cenk Uyger is referring here to The Young Turks’ planned protest rally at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in Manhattan, New York, where Clinton will be spending election night. The protest centers around Uyger’s signature issue, which is removing big donor money from politics and publicly funding elections.

Uyger rightly acknowledges that many, even in his own audience, would be upset with his decision — and he was correct. Many commenters on the video expressed anger and resentment at Uyger’s choice.

“This whole video is a strawman argument and Cenk knows it. We’re under no delusion that they’ll win and you know it. The fact that you can lie to your audience is very troubling. And for crissake we all know you live in CA, 100% going to Clinton so you don’t have to vote for her you disingenuous pr*ck,” comments Michael Blum.

In another comment, Robby R says, “I live in California. I’m pretty sure it’s not a swing state. I’m voting for Jill Stein. You can rationalize it if it makes you feel better, Cenk. I don’t know of anyone who’s voting Stein and thinks she’s going to win. But I’m voting against war, against the TPP, and against corruption.”

Hillary Clinton is surely embattled, with both recent and old scandals coming back to haunt her in recent days. Cenk Uyger, in his statement, seems reluctant to vote for her, and falls short of calling his statement an endorsement of the candidate. His key reasoning behind casting his vote for her seems to be the narrative that the Clinton campaign itself has been promoting: that a vote for anyone else is a vote for Donald Trump, and Donald Trump is a worse choice then Hillary Clinton.

Considering the statistics, it would seem that Cenk Uyger is similar to many people in the country in that regard. Fearing Trump, they will vote for Clinton, but they will do so without enthusiasm.

[Featured Image by Joe Scarnici/Getty Images]