It takes an unbelievable amount of privilege to think there isn't a massive difference between Trump and Hillary. Anyone who thinks it now doesn't matter because Bernie isn't in it, or that they should throw their vote away on a 3rd Party candidate, must be mighty well off.

Duh.

The thing about Clinton and financial regulation is that that President Clinton would sign whatever financial regulation Congress sends to her desk. I can say this because only a Democratic congress would produce such a bill, therefore it would have passed with overwhelming democratic support and therefore Clinton would sign it because she's not going to go to the mat fighting her own party in Congress.

And I would analogize that to the 1994 crime bill the Bill Clinton signed and which people use to attack Hilary Clinton today: just look at the voting record on that law: here's the house votes right here - http://clerk.house.gov/evs/1994/roll416.…. It was mostly Democratic votes that passed it.

The impediment to financial regulation (or other things liberals and progressives want) is not a lack of ardent lefties. Its too many right wingers.

And on that voting record - guess who the 1 Independent AYE vote was.

I'd like to say, reasonably: Dan, go f#ck yerself.

More of Dan Savage's Fair and Balanced(tm) Democratic Primary coverage.

More posts about Bernie? I thought you were no longer worrying about him. What gives?

So sad to a straight white man
feeling guilty about being a straight white man.

Totally agree with the second letter. People want to think that voting is like a Yelp review, just a way to express their feelings and personal identity. But we don't just vote to make ourselves feel happy, as citizens it is our responsibility to be actively informed about politics and to vote to keep monsters out of power whether it be school board of president. I have seen no rational analysis that in any way shows hillary clinton being as much a monster as Trump, or even a monster at all.

In a democracy not getting everything that you want means that the system is working.

Invading foreign countries, destabilizing their governments and propping up dictators friendly enough to the US so that we can essentially steal the natural resources that belong to the people in those countries. Is that not monstrous?

@10: See comments above yours for good examples.

It's always all about me, even when I say it's about you!

Cool, another burn from the Regina George burn book. Your Bernie page is full dude.

This is the progressive movement in a nutshell.

Look at the most recent stats for Bernie supports. Most are already coming around to support (or at least, begrudgingly vote for) Hillary in November, and they're doing so at similar rates that it took Hillary supporters to come around to Obama in 2008.

There are certainly die-hard Bernie or Busters out there, but we should ask how many of them would have voted for Hillary if Bernie had never been in the running? Many would have not voted at all, or voted Green, or some actual socialist party, etc. That is, in the end, I don't think Hillary is really going to lose a lot of voters that she would have had due to Sanders' run.

I agree she is the least bad option among the realistic options for president and thus I'll be voting for her. I would personally council anyone who considers themselves to be on the left to vote for her, holding their nose if need be, I would never deign to lecture or ridicule someone as if they *owe* their vote to Hillary. I think that's counterproductive. Some people you can debate with about their conclusions, and with some it's not worth it. That's democracy, folks.

Ultimately, if Clinton wants more of the Sanders' supporters votes, then she should have to work for it, and if that lurches her campaign further to the left, all the better. If she decides instead to triangulate around the center, then that's her decision too, but her campaign will have to accept the possible repercussions of that. What doesn't make sense is to denigrate the left while simultaneously expecting their unqualified support

@15 "What doesn't make sense is to denigrate the left while simultaneously expecting their unqualified support."

Perfectly said. Thank you.

Reasonable = lining up behind your shitty candidate
Unreasonable = Having standards

Good thing we have squish brains like you to think for us, Dan.

Bernie was my first choice, but I never bought into the Hilary hate and liked her as secretary of state. I'll be enthusiastically supporting her.

Suppose Clinton expressed support for the Orlando shooter. Suppose she asserted that the killing of 50 innocent people was not only acceptable, but appropriate and good. Suppose she vowed unconditional support for the shooter, including funding for more weapons and ammo. Would it still be "reasonable" to vote for her?

Of course, she would never do that... not unless the victims were Palestinian. And, in fact, when the IDF slaughtered 1500 innocent people in Gaza in 2014, including 500 children, Clinton was full of enthusiasm. When Obama expressed concern about the IDF's targeting of schools and hospitals and places of refuge, Clinton criticized him for it. Since then, she has vowed unconditional support for racist psychopath Netanyahu.

1500 innocent people: that's Orlando times 30. 500 children dead; 3000 children wounded, 1000 of whom were maimed for life. And Clinton thought it was the greatest thing ever.... which is why I will never, ever vote for that racist, genocidal monster.

I didn't like Clinton in 08 and I like her even less now. Why am I under some kind of larger obligation to vote for her just because she's come this far? I don't like Bernie and his pie-in-the-sky/conspiratorial "we have momentum"/"this is a revolution" crap. That lost me after several months of support as he started curving down toward inevitable loss. But I'm not voting in favor of a president Clinton either. I don't care how far along she's made it, she is a digusting embodiment of everything wrong with our political system. Trump is a disgusting embodiment of everything wrong with the general conservative electorate.

Might I add that, with Clinton, we're locked into 8 years of shitty politics. Whether it's two full terms of shitty politics from Clinton, or one term of shitty Clinton politics and one term of a shitty Republican's politics, Clinton locks us in to nearly a decade of fucking shit. The next chance we'll have for a good president from the Ds will be in 2024.

Trump...you get four years. He's a one term president, and his stated policies on the economy are far more appealing than Clinton's (if you actually believe anything he says).

I'm this close to flipping from Green to Trump just to get rid of a crappy candidate. That's how much I think a Clinton presidency will suck.

And, yes, I think TPP will be far worse than the Supremes. Clinton is not a viable solution.

Folks, your choices are: 1. Hillary Clinton or 2. Donald Trump. Sorry, there is no #3. This "perfect is the enemy of good" approach produced Trump and the Tea Party, which is and always shall be horrible for the nation. Why does anyone think a progressive version of it will be any better?

@4 - Interesting point about the 1994 crime bill. And like other large, complex legislation, there are many elements of compromise tacked together in it. Civil rights leaders were pushing for the Federal Assault Weapons Ban and for many of the programs providing greater assistance for at-risk inner city youth. Republicans were pushing to expand the death penalty and increase prison spending, among other things. Eventually Bill Clinton went back to civil rights leaders and other advocates and asked them to weigh in, and their consensus was that the compromise was worth it. That's why there are so many Democratic votes for the bill. Sure, there were lots of consequences that turned out to be worse than expected, but it's unfair to blame Bill Clinton, much less Hillary Clinton who didn't even get to vote on it, when civil rights leaders and then-Democratic majority of Congress also didn't foresee them. In a saner world, we would have been able to clean up those problems as they became more apparent. Let's hope we get a Democratic majority in the Senate and the House and have an opportunity to address those problems in 2017. I guarantee if we get that majority that it will be introduced and, if passed, President Clinton will sign.

@21 - No, you're wrong. I don't know what you define as "shitty politics," but with Trump, you get fucking HORRIBLE politics and 25 years of a conservative Supreme Court. I remember Reagan. I remember both Bushes. I could go through and list the Supreme Court decisions that would be different if Gore had replaced William Rehnquist and Sandra Day O'Connor instead of George W. Bush (or even just Rehnquist, under the assumption that O'Connor would not have voluntarily retired with a Democrat in the White House). Supreme Court decisions have powerful, longterm consequences that last generations upon generations. Don't tell me that Trump will be so bad he'll usher in the revolution in four years. Everyone said the exact same thing about George Bush in 2000. There's video of Susan Sarandon saying that in 2000, urging people to vote against Gore, and she's saying the same thing again. Where was our revolution? And even if Trump loses in four years, there's no guarantee that it's a revolutionary that takes him out instead of a moderate. And how much damage will he do in the meantime?

And by the way, I don't think Hillary Clinton is the "least bad" or the "lesser evil." I think there are hundreds of reasons why she isn't evil at all.

I don't know why people this Hillary is so bad on banking regulations! Big banks are not afraid of your "updated and modernized Glass-Steagall." They'd love to have that fight with you, because they know it's a fight you're going to lose.

And you'll lose it because consummers would HATE it. We're a generation who doens't think the kind of cereal you have to pour into a bowl is conveient enough! I like being able to manage my cash and retirement accounts in one bank, and the big banks know it. Further, forcing people to get multiple financial services providers makes people less likely to be proactive about saving for retirement.

Banks want to fight you on Glass-Steagall! What they don't want is for the increased capital requirements in Dodd-Frank to stay in place. They don't want ratcheting those requirements up every year to become as automatic and as popular as per pack cigarette taxes.

Seriously, if I were a single issue voter on regulating Wall Street, I'd still be voting for Clinton.

I'm voting for Clinton, but I'm a little tired of voting for Democrats in every election because they have a gun to our heads called the Republican Party. I'd like to see a Democratic presidential candidate run entirely on their merits rather than the imminent thread of political apocalypse. "She's not Trump" is a pretty sad and shitty argument. Is Clinton horribly unqualified? Of course not, but most of her proposals aren't that good even by incremental standards (half solutions that will be compromised into quarter solutions or even less), and her supporters have a disturbing tendency to ignore little things like the fact that Clinton is very likely to escalate in Syria and has little in the way of a post-Assad plan. The fact the Clinton supporters can basically dismiss these legitimate complaints because Trump is so utterly horrible is basically the political equivalent of a free pass that's as annoying as it is inevitable.

@26:

I'll take a half or even quarter solution over NO solution any day, which is exactly what we'd get from a Trump Administration.

Actually @17, I worry that it’s a bit simpler than that:
~ Agree with Dan = Reasonable & sane
~ Disagree with Dan = Unreasonable & insane

I’m sure if someone went back in time to the year 2000 and just yelled “you are unreasonable and insane!” to all the Nader voters before the election, that they would totally vote for Gore instead - right? I wonder how effective this tactic will be in 2016...

@19
"When Obama expressed concern about the IDF's targeting of schools and hospitals and places of refuge, Clinton criticized him for it."

Anyway, back in the real world, Palestinian terrorists routinely target civilians. Bombs, stabbing, shootings. Been doing it for decades. Non-stop. Busses. Cafes. Airports. Beaches. Children's bedrooms. Wherever they can, Palestinians kill Israeli civilians. They teach their children to do it - popular Palestinian children's shows routinely teach martyrdom, elementary schools put on plays where they execute Israelis, children's festivals have "martyrdom pageants" (google "Eighth Childhood Festival of the Islamic Association in Khan Younes" for a particularly appalling video where a young girl intones; "“Forward, my child, to the duel. You will die as a Martyr (Shahid) and blow up the enemies."). If anything Israel has shown great restraint; if similar routine, unending terrorists attacks happened on U.S. soil and those attacks came from a neighboring state that sponsored them, that state would be a smoldering ruin right now.

So yeah, Clinton criticized Obama because he didn't put the blame where it primarily belongs; on Hamas and the terrorist culture they have created.

@22- I'm not going to shut up about Clinton's flaws even though I'm going to vote for her. Trump might suck worse, but fuck the Democratic primary electorate for saddling us with this shitstorm of an election. Turnout is going to be terrible because it's a competition to see who is loathed least. Sanders is a much better candidate for the Democrats and for the nation.

#29: This is like a perfect example of the hawk wing of the Democratic party. War crimes and carnage are wonderful as long as they're motivated by ostensibly liberal intentions. We care so much about Israeli human rights and secularism that if a couple of schools or hospitals are blown to pieces in defense of those values, all's the better.

But, all legitimate issues like this can just be muted because Clinton's the front-runner god damn it. She's tough on terrorism!

I agree with Sanders on about 95 percent of the issues. I agree with Hillary on about 85 percent of the issues. Clearly she's a monster that has to be stopped.

Cute. One conciliatory post after several which range between outright insulting and slyly snotty and condescending. Not setting the bar too high here, Dan. Still voting for Clinton, though. You could have just been a dick from the beginning.

Not been a dick, rather. Damn you, typing on a tablet!

For the umpteenth-and-second time, elections are not about what you want. Elections are about what we get.

And every moral choice is between the lesser evil and the greater evil. Every fucking one.

@ 36 - Actually, the meaning of "least worst option" is crystal clear and by no means utterly nonsensical.

Best is the superlative of good, so by using "best option", you are stating that it's a good one. Which it isn't.

The "least worst" indicates that the option is not considered good at all, but is the one that will do less harm. Which it is.

@ 37 - Many people thought that about W.

#35: No shit, but a turd should still be called a turd. In forty years we may have ourselves a Hitler vs. Francisco Franco match. One is clearly much worse than the other, so it's a pretty straightforward "lesser of the two evils" situation. On the other hand, who the fuck wants Franco for president? I don't mean that completely seriously and I see your point (democracy is never nice and neat), but there are limitations to the "lesser evil" argument.

While I am voting for Clinton she shouldn't be considered above criticism. The only way the left is going to get anything out of her presidency is from exerting continuous pressure from below. Not by blinding ourselves to Clinton's flaws and defensively coming to her rescue anytime she faces criticism from the left because of fucking Trump.

@37, 39: Many people thought that about Adolf Hitler also.

Vote Libertarian. That's what I do. The right side of history on every topic. Or vote Martian. At least that would be shaking up the status quo. I will not vote for an old person who voted for the Patriot Act and was against gay marriage until fifteen minutes ago.

@37 Can you give me an example of that starting to happen? It can be a little example....anything really that shows Republicans have control of the Party they have thrown.

@30 gets it:

"fuck the Democratic primary electorate for saddling us with this shitstorm of an election"

Exactly this. I will probably hold my nose and vote Hillary if she doesn't tack much farther to the right (my state is blue-violet at worst so I don't have much to worry about), but I've lost a lot of respect for my friends who claim to stand for all the right things but couldn't bring themselves to vote for Bernie when he was polling better than Hillary for the general. For once we had a chance to get it more than 95% right, and they blew it.

As for third parties, don't Nader yourselves. I want Ranked Choice Voting as much as anyone so we can break the two-party deadlock that makes us choose the least right-wing of the candidates instead of somebody actually good. Until we get that, a third-party vote is just pissing into the wind.

Honestly, I still think that everyone is holding a lot of Bernie supporters to an unrealistically high standard.

Remember that, for most of the people reading this, this isn't your first time to the rodeo. For me, I remember pretty clearly the dogged tenacity that Republicans had to get Clinton on anything they possibly could in the 90's(and that is a big part of why I don't trust anything they say about the Clintons to this day), the craziness that was W, etc.

For a lot of Bernie supporters, this is their first election ever or at the very least the first time they threw in with a candidate to this degree. Therefore this is the first time they've gotten a full blast of the awfulness that is the political process(and it really is that bad) and, pretty reasonably, they aren't taking it well.

TL;DR: Cut them some slack. They have it bad enough as it is. Don't gloat. Focus on beating Trump and then hounding Clinton to be the actual center left president we need(as opposed to the solid right candidate she is*).

* And yes, I think she is right. It's just that our options were left(Sanders), right(Clinton) and reactionary(Trump). Yes, Clinton is to the left of Trump. So was Nixon.

Well of course through selection bias you're primarily going to get letters from nutty Sanders-or-die-ers.

The vast majority of us shut up and grumble along without needing to stomp feet over something that's not going to happen. And really, the trolly posts are designed to anger the Naderites of the group.

I'm fascinated to see how many votes Stein gets, alongside Bernie write-ins from the people who weren't old enough to vote against Bush. Polarizing as she is, at least Hillary is more likeable than Gore was at the time of the election. And will definitely pick a more appropriate Dem VP than Lieberman.

@46: Mostly, yes. FORMER Sanders backers that have gotten on board are being chided for the crazy ones, which seems unlikely to benefit anyone. The or-die crowd is going to do what they want anyway, why give them the desperate attention they so desire?

@47 and @48

Yeah. For me it isn't that Clinton is unlikable that worries me as much as the unmitigated(and frankly irrational) hatred that conservatives seem to have for anyone from that family.

They dropped everything they were doing back in the 90's to target Bill Clinton even though he wasn't exactly looking to take over the means of production(for example, drug enforcement efforts under Bill Clinton's presidency actually went up significantly). They have been going after Hillary since she became secretary of state.

My worry is that in order to keep a Clinton out of office Republicans would unite under the devil himself. Honestly, it was going to be an awful presidential year the second that Martin O'Malley dropped out on the Democratic side and John Kasich on the Republican side as those(as far as I can see) were the only candidates that wouldn't cause frenzy on the part of the other side.

Now it's going to be a messy slog to November.

@49: "My worry is that in order to keep a Clinton out of office Republicans would unite under the devil himself"

Every Dem candidate is "the devil him/herself". The media also might tire of the same pathetic Clinton conspiracy theories as "not news", thankfully. To that extent I don't give a shit. Better a stronger candidate who I'm not crazy about, but I respect her ability even as I find her a Wall Street/corporate friendly/pro war candidate. Still more winnable than the anti-science asshats in the Green Party.

The Green Tea Party is alive and well, full of untruths, conspiracy theories, and a hyped up echo chamber all disguised as "principles."

Also - if you're spewing Republican talking points from the 90s ad nauseum or don't understand that national and world politics are made up of shades of grey, why the fuck would I want to give you power? The Green Tea Party isn't any different than their namesake, except they're trying to make people see the world from a fantasy of the left, not the right. You just have to look at this thread (what's good TheMisanthrope?) to see it.

@51: high-five!

@42: Voted that way once, got Dubya. Never again.

"The right side of history on every topic"

States Rights is never the right side of history. But I can imagine what you think the "right side" would be.

Practically selecting the lesser of two evils only makes sense in swing states, in my opinion. When your state is a solid, unwavering red or blue, you might as well vote for whoever you like best, regardless of their odds of winning, since it isn't going to change the outcome.

Also, he's a "strait" white male? Is he a country singer?

@53: If states' rights is a libertarian principle, I'm Mother Teresa.

Sure, you'll find plenty of states' rights nuts (militia conspiratorial types) who identify as libertarians--only because (1) they want to express their discontent with "teh system" by voting for someone other than the main two, (2) they don't understand what libertarian means, and (3) the only other third party with anything resembling traction is the Green Party, and even they have enough perception to realize that isn't their speed.

Libertarian principles put individual rights above all else, and as such, are not on board with states having the "right" to violate their residents' individual rights. I'm a dyed-in-the-wool libertarian, and I'm all about the incorporation doctrine. It makes no sense to say individual rights are inalienable in one breath, and then to say states have the right to trample them in the next. I wrote off Ron Paul completely when he said the incorporation doctrine was "phony."

And I can see cases where states' rights can be a stop-gap measure to liberty when a few states are a bit ahead of the nation as a whole. For instance, back when same-sex marriage was first gaining steam, a state-recognized same-sex marriage was better than none at all. (DOMA could be viewed as a violation of states' rights.) Same with medical and recreational marijuana decriminalization, sanctuary states, etc.

@55: "if states' rights is a libertarian principle, I'm Mother Teresa"

You can self-ascribe all you want. I don't have any respect for the party, it's candidates, and their respect for "rights"* on a national level.

*The general rights they're fighting for always seem to be Property and tax-related, never about actual civil liberties and human rights on a federal level.

Civil liberaties are left to the Bircher states-rights level.

So tired of Clinton described as a war monger. Just what countries did she invade? @11, the person you're describing is George Bush, not Clinton.

@57: The "Third Way" ethos is certainly war-friendly.

@45 you aren't going to "get that". Not by voting in dynasties.