Well, this is weird. But hey, it's a weird election year. Due to a deadline that didn't cooperate with this week's big political news, I'm writing to you from the day before the Democratic contests in California, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, and South Dakota. By the time you read this, the voting will be over in those states and Hillary Clinton will have the delegates needed to become the first woman to win the presidential nomination of any major United States political party in—to borrow Ru Paul's preferred term—herstory.
Before anyone accuses me of having rigged time itself in order to declare Clinton the victor of this year's left-dividing Democratic contest, let me just point out that even as I type this, the Associated Press, based on its own canvassing of delegates and superdelegates, has already declared Clinton the winner of the Democratic nomination battle. According to the AP, as of the day before this week's primaries, Clinton had already reached the magic number: 2,383 delegates pledging to vote for her at the Democratic convention in Philadelphia in late July. Barring the collapse of math as we know it, it's over.
Sorry, Bernie Sanders fans (and fanatics). He ran a strong and righteous campaign, but Clinton has beaten Sanders fair and square in the popular vote—she was more than three million votes ahead of Sanders before Tuesday's primaries—and no matter what you think of the role that superdelegates play in the Democratic nominating process, under the terms of that process, she's beaten him fair and square in the race to cobble together 2,383 pledged delegates and superdelegates—just as Barack Obama cobbled together enough pledged delegates and superdelegates to defeat Clinton at roughly this stage in 2008.
Sure, you can say it's not final until July 25 when the superdelegates actually vote. Maybe Sanders himself will keep on saying that until the convention, who knows. But there's an urgency in seeing reality now.
The Republican nominee for president is a bullying, sexist, and baldly racist reality television star who places the rule of law far beneath his own astoundingly narcissistic needs and his frightening proto-fascist demands. Aside from being a terrifying development, this means that this year's presidential contest is about something much more fundamental than American liberalism versus American conservatism.
It's about whether we will elect a president who believes in American democracy. After four decades in politics, there is of course a lot one can say about Clinton, and sure, a fair bit of it is negative. Even so, one can't seriously doubt that Clinton understands the Constitution, believes in the 14th Amendment, and respects the rule of law. When it comes to Donald Trump, one can't seriously argue that he understands, believes in, or respects any of those things—or anything at all, save for his own egotism and will to power.
Most recently, Trump has been on a tear against a federal judge who is presiding over a case against the now-defunct and highly questionable "Trump University." Trump claims the judge—who was born in the United States—is Mexican and therefore out to get him. Trump has also suggested that a Muslim judge couldn't impartially oversee a case involving him, either. Republican senator Lindsey Graham described these blatantly bigoted claims from Trump as "the most un-American thing from a politician since Joe McCarthy." Graham continued: "There'll come a time when the love of country will trump hatred of Hillary."
Graham was speaking to members of his own party with that last line, but this idea should also be heard by any Bernie-or-Bust dead-enders. You don't have to love everything—or even most things—about this deeply troubled country in order to know that in a fight for the American presidency between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, it's essential to fight for Clinton.
