I thought I would share this article from The Guardian, as it helps illustrate why “our” presumptive candidate depresses the hell out of me.
Clinton is a staunch adherent to a political and economic ideology, neoliberalism, that has systematically hollowed out America over the last 40 years. Anyone who believes otherwise has successfully deluded themselves.
The most poignant line from the article (sic on the UK spelling):
Democracy is reduced to theatre.
We are certainly in for lots more theater until November, and we already know that the primary process was anything but democratic for Bernie Sanders against Clinton’s “Guaranteed by the DNC” candidacy.
But, democratic theater or not, the people have spoken, so all I can say is congratulations to all the Clinton supporters who helped nominate her, and will “enthusiastically”, “joyfully” and “wholeheartedly” vote for her in November. I’ve tried and failed to understand where all the Clinton excitement is coming from, and as of this writing, I’ve officially given up trying.
But do me one tiny favor — please don’t call yourselves progressives. All your Clinton vote will do is perpetuate regressive neoliberalism for four more years, and accelerate our country’s race to the bottom. I suppose in the depressing zero-sum calculus of 2016, that is a better outcome than a Trump presidency… but I’m not entirely convinced of that.
Our Hobson’s Choice seems to be do we want to crash the American plane with an engine failure or by running out of fuel.