SYNDICATED COLUMN: Why I am #NeverHillary

Hillary Clinton’s coronation at the Democratic national convention is likely but not a foregone conclusion. Since the superdelegates won’t vote until July, and neither she nor Bernie Sanders will arrive in Cleveland with the requisite number of pledged delegates to clich the nomination, there is still the possibility that the party bosses will see sense, internalize the polls that show she’s weaker than him against Trump, and push the superdelegates to support the populist senator from Vermont.

But sense is in short supply in American politics, especially this year. So I’m preparing for the worst: Hillary versus Trump.

It’s one hell of a choice. The more I delve into Donald Trump and his past (to research my biography, which comes out in June), the more scared I get. Nevertheless, there is no way I’ll vote for Hillary. I won’t vote for her if she stops shaking down rich right-wing Republicans for donations. I won’t vote for her if she adopts Bernie’s platform. I won’t vote for her if she names Bernie her vice president. I won’t even vote for her if Bernie invites me to spend the summer with him and Jane in Vermont.

#NeverHillary. That’s me.

There are millions of us.

Many progressives are baffled by this stance. Trump is a threat to democracy, decency, peace and the economy. He acts and talks like a nut. Why not suck it up and vote for Hillary? She’s experienced, steady and presentable. Unlike Trump, she understands the issues. Plus: first woman president! That’s 225 years overdue!

Here is my reasoning.

First, a vote is an endorsement. A vote tells a candidate: “I mostly agree with what you have done.”

I agree with nothing she has done. Most egregiously, she voted to invade Iraq. At the time, everyone knew there were no WMDs. She knew. More than a million Iraqis are dead because of that war of choice, a war no one but especially no Democrat should have supported. I will not, cannot, betray those dead. Casting a vote for Hillary says: “I love that a million Iraqis got murdered.” Or, at minimum it says: “I’m cool with it.” Well, I’m not.

For me, that’s enough. What she did was monstrous. She should be in prison for life.

Do you need more? Really?

  1. Here’s more:

Running a close second behind Iraq are Hillary’s vote to invade Afghanistan (another mistake, unjustified, illegal fiasco that left hundreds of thousands of innocents maimed or dead), and encouraging Obama, as secretary of state, to arm and fund crazy Islamist insurgencies in Libya and Syria, reducing two modern countries to failed states. I can’t let those go.

Voting for a politician also tells them: “I agree with what you promise to do.” There is no indication — none, zero, nada — that Hillary wouldn’t continue her every-war-a-good-war philosophy were she to become president. Unlike Trump, she has never questioned the usefulness, legality or ethics of use of force as America’s go-to approach to foreign policy.

I refuse to throw good blood after bad.

She’s sleazy — a cheater and a liar. I can’t forget how she willfully misrepresented her own take on the minimum wage: she wants $12/hour, but since Bernie’s $15/hour is more popular, she claimed she wanted $15/hour too, but it would be up to the states and cities. Pressed, she conceded she’d “like” $15/hour, but wouldn’t lift a finger to make it happen federally. Incredibly, she still does this.

Then there’s her lie about the auto bailout. Factcheckers call her claim that Bernie voted against it untrue; he voted against bailouts for Wall Street, some of which was attached to aid for automobile companies. Despite being called on this whopper, she still uses it on the campaign trail.

The primary fight against Bernie saw Hillary deploy tactics that went way beyond political hardball. Her allies in the Democratic National Committee schemed to deny Bernie media coverage or a decent debate schedule. They rigged the superdelegate process. They made sure votes and caucusgoers weren’t counted and that voter registrations in Bernie strongholds mysteriously disappeared. Can’t let that go.

I am highly sympathetic with the argument that we need, and that women and girls deserve, to see a woman in the White House. We do; they do. If Hillary Clinton were merely a flawed candidate, the woman thing would be enough for me.

But Hillary is not flawed. She is a monster. A mass murderer. A warmonger.

The fact that she wears bright-colored Doctor Evil suits and has a silly laugh and twinkly eyes and is kinda smart can’t change the fact she has never voted against a war, or apologized for voting for one, or promised not to start any new ones. Her resume can’t cover up for her record: zero sponsorships or votes for a major anti-poverty proposal, and only one vote against a job-killing free trade agreement.

I don’t vote for monsters.

Let Hillary or Trump destroy the world without the endorsement that would be my vote.

(Ted Rall is the author of “Bernie,” a biography written with the cooperation of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. His next book, the graphic biography “Trump,” comes out July 19th.)

24 Comments.

  • The party has moved so far to the right that an unreconstructed Goldwater Girl can get the nod.

    “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice!” will be heard again as she pushes toward the thinkable nuclear war with Russia that Obama is working to foment.

  • Ted, I couldn’t have said it better myself! 🙁

  • Hillary has said that Obama’s biggest mistake was allowing the evil Syrian dictator to remain, when the US had the duty to liberate Syria and make Syria peaceful and prosperous just like the US did to Iraq and Libya. The London Economist lists some myths: that the US did not go in to Iraq and Libya to help the Iraqis and Libyans; and that any of the problems Iraq and Libya still have after their liberation are anyone’s fault but that of the Iraqis and Syrians. I’ve seen that LOTS of places. Plus the evil Syrian dictator has personally killed 3 million peaceful, unarmed protestors, many with poison gas, but Obama STILL refused to do the right thing and liberate Syria.

    Of course, about 3 people believe Seymour Hersh, just because he presented the assassination of Osama, the Syrian use of poison gas, and the way the US Ambassador got killed in ways that contradict the Official Obama/Hillary version, presentations backed by huge amounts of data that were carefully fact-checked by the LRB. As most US/UK media say, George Washington established that the US president can never tell a lie, so (at least in the sense of Thrasymachus) everything the US president says is always completely true until after he leaves office, when suddenly the unequivocal truth MIGHT become a lie (like the vicious attack on a US Navy ship in international waters, or the Iraqi WMD). So, believing the facts he found through very hard work makes Hersh a racist, sexist, tinfoil hat conspiracy theorist.

    The press tells us the the evil Syrian dictator also created the Daesh, by releasing violent jihadists from the Syrian prisons, and we know that is true: most of the Daesh leadership was released from the prison Camp Bucca near Basrah and the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates in ’08 and ’09. So Basrah MUST be a Syrian city, since we can always trust our reliable foreign correspondents like Friedman and Cohen.

    Hillary will remove the evil Syrian dictator as soon as she gets elected. Putin has says he will NOT allow the US remove the legitimate government of Syria.

    Obviously, Putin had better meekly back down. Failure to do so would be unspeakably evil, and Hillary would have to teach him a lesson he’ll not soon forget. Which I’m sure she will.

    And yet, as best I can tell, Hillary is almost certain to win. She has almost all of the African-American vote, the Hispanic vote, and the female vote.

    Trump has white males, and that’s about it.

    When I was a boy, most voters were white, and my mother always asked my father for whom she should vote, and then did what he said (she took me with her into the voting booth, so she did NOT agree with my father and then vote differently). Them days is long gone. I can’t see any possible way for Trump to win the election, and it’s still remotely possible he’ll lose the nomination.But even if the Republican leadership denies Trump the nomination, I still don’t see any way to defeat Hillary in November.

    And then the Syrian War starts in earnest.

    • Yeah, wives just don’t respect husbands like they used to. However, it’s not as bad as you think:

      “Romney won married voters of both genders. He won 53 percent of married women.”

      No matter how dominant an ideology feminism becomes it cannot completely stamp out the biological proclivity women have to defer to their mates. It’s good to be right.

      Mr. Trump will show Hillary that she isn’t anywhere near as smart and tough as she likes to think. And even if somehow he doesn’t, Mr. Putin is certain to…

    • Michael, you can count your – and our ! – lucky stars if the only war that comes down the pipeline in the event Ms Clinton becomes US president is more direct US involvement in the war on Syria. From what I read, I find it hard to escape the conclusion is gunning for bigger game, viz, Russia and China. Perhaps, environmental campaigner that she is/claims to be, she will succeed in putting a stop to anthropogenic global warming by putting a stop to anthropos (and, with a nod to gender equality, women as well)….

      Henri

      • … I find it hard to escape the conclusion is gunning for bigger game … → … I find it hard to escape the conclusion that she is gunning for bigger game …

  • Maybe you don’t “need more,” Ted, but I suggest, that until she proves otherwise, HRC, as first lady & co-president (according to hubby), was, and is, as responsible as hubby for his maintenance of pappy Bush’s “economic” sanction on Iraq.

    WJC presided over ~80% of the timeline of that sanction. As the execrable M. Albright (first woman Sec State) said those sanctions were “worth it,” even conceding the million Iraqis it killed – half of them children.

    This makes HRCìs vote for the Bush Jr resumption of frank war in Iraq all the more hideous. Punishment of a population (sanctions) to induce it to oppose its regime is a war crime AND terrorism — when NOT perpetrated by a government. The first Clinton(s) presidency simply softenend-up the Iraq “target” for the next US regime with a convenient excuse to finish pappy Bush’s “project.”

    One must concede on the issue of qualification/fitness for president: HRC will readily and gleefully murder brown-skinned children as has any US president in our lurid history of continuous mass murder across the globe for the last century+.

    Remember, when another country’s ruler “kills his own people” he/she immediately becomes our enemy because he/she has infringed on our exclusive and exceptional right to kill them ourselves.

    • Meantime, BarryHO is running right along with the BC pack shouting out: “Hey you old white guys (and gals), I’m the most efficient mass-murderer of “high-value” sand-niggers!

      And with the culture of drone warfare that he’s enhanced, that Chicago mob-boss wannabe does have a point.

      DanD

  • Hair Furor mit dem kleinen schwanzstucker may be the evil of two lessers, but if it takes his election to wake the sheeple, then by all means let it happen. I won’t vote for him either, so maybe the race will be decided by who sits it out.

    What the worst that can happen? War crimes? Fucked up economy? Global warming deniers at the highest levels? Fear and loathing directed our way by the rest of the planet? Too late, sheeple – you already voted those into office.

    Our current social/economic direction is completely unsustainable anyway. The sooner it crashes, the sooner we can tackle the job of building one for the future. hmmm, maybe I’ll hold my nose and vote for Trump after all…

  • alex_the_tired
    May 24, 2016 9:45 PM

    Everyone. Read “Grapes of Wrath.”

    I had to walk Ted’s column back and forth in my mind. He left a little out. Mainly, three points.

    1. It isn’t that Hillary lies. It’s that she lies both badly and only occasionally. If HRC had said she was against X or for Y and been lying in each case, that would be okay. I know the CEO of a cigarette company isn’t going to tell me the truth about carcinogens. That doesn’t mean he won’t tell me the truth about, say, solar panel efficiency. But with Hillary Clinton? She lies and tells the truth with equal ease. I can’t trust her because I can’t figure out what she will lie about to advance herself.

    2. A while back, Dan Savage wrote a column about how Hillary was going to have to “walk back” her comment about Nancy Reagan starting the conversation on AIDS in this country. As Savage put it, “I’m literally shaking with outrage as I write this.” Sorry, you don’t “walk back” outrage like that, Dan. Because walking it back means you condone what was done to your dead friends who died by inches, in great pain, and for the most part with very little dignity. What the Reagans did was morally criminal. How AIDS was treated was obscene. There is no defense for it, and any “seasoned” “battle-hardened” “vetted” politician ought to know it. You never, ever allow that level of suffering to become a political talking point open for revision. And when some grubby little egomaniac tries to make electoral coin off of it, you crucify him or her for it.

    3. The endgame for this all plays out the same: Hillary isn’t going to do shit for poor people. Nor is Donald Trump. I only hope that after the election tallying is done, that the next day, people star organizing a DraftBernie2020 campaign. After four years of Hillary “I’m a woman” Clinton or Donald “I’m huge” Trump, I think Bernie Sanders won’t even have to make any personal appearances.

  • What good does a woman president do girls if said woman doesn’t advocate for their interests and the interests of humanity in general? The politics of symbolism – elect a woman, a black, a Latino, insert p.c. choice here – has does little to nothing to improve the lot of the female or minority masses. The number of black politicians has increased tenfold since the late 70s but the social and economic lots of the average black have worsened over the last couple of decades. This includes the past 8 years with biracial black Barry Droneman as president; blacks are worse off economically than they were 40 years ago and can’t point to squat Barry did to improve things for them. So much for voting based on skin color. Same for gender. South Carolina’s woman governor just signed a law banning abortions after 20 weeks but she ain’t about to sign a bill providing free child care or medical care for all these children she’s “saving.” Margaret Thatcher? Reagan in high heels as she broke the backs of labor in the UK – labor that included women and the men who supported wives/families. Neither girls nor anyone else needs a symbolic officeholder to feel proud, self worth, and all that. They need people who will provide a world they can thrive in.

  • It really must be great to be a privileged affluent white male like Ted. He’ll get to self-righteously sit up on his high horse in November and let Trump win the presidency. But unlike the poor, minorities and women, Ted won’t bear the brunt of the damage that Trump and the GOP do to this country. But as a privileged affluent white male, Ted can afford to be selfish and callously disregard the hurt that Trump and the GOP will inflict on the poor, women and minorities. Who cares if Trump appoints 1 or 2 Supreme Court Justices who will overturn Roe v. Wade, Ted’s not a woman. Who cares if Trump and the GOP further gut the Voting Rights Act, Ted’s not African American. Who cares if Trump bars Muslims from entering the country, Ted’s not Muslim. Who cares if Trump and the GOP eliminate or lower the minimum wage forcing millions into poverty, Ted’s not poor or even lower middle class. Allowing someone like Trump get elected when you know better and can do something to stop it, that is truly being a monster.

    • DeathToNeolibBodySnatchers
      June 22, 2016 2:20 AM

      What is it like to go through life with an IQ that doesn’t reach double digits and the inabillty to formulate original thoughts of your own?

      You *do* realize that that entire mass of vomit you just foisted upon the world has only been repeated ad infinitum by every other paid David Brock troll or lobotomized Hillary supporter who can’t conceive of why you, as a mere pod, are complicit in the politics of fear and have a goldfish memory when it comes to the Republican Bogeyman the one-party state trots out every four years but, for those of us who actually *have* frontal lobe activity, we don’t need to exist under the stranglehold of the duopoly.

      Voting against what you fear only brings what you fear.

      Hillary is running on a referendum against Trump because God forbid she run on her own merits of

      -“misplacing” 6 billion dollars at the State Department in 4 years

      -overthrowing a democratically elected President in Honduras to satisfy her wealthy Honduran Clinton Foundation donors and install a military junta that created the highest homicide rate in the world (until recently, when it was eclipsed by El Salvador, *another* country where she supported but did not get directly involved in the coup)

      -aggressively pushing to deport the VERY refugees, includinv children who made the journey to this country (unattended or orphaned by their parents) fleeing the violence from Honduras and other Central American countries destabilized by her actions

      -war crimes colluding with Susan Rice, Samantha Power, and Nicolas Sarkozy to bomb Libya, which had already publicly surrendered its chemical weapon arsenal during the Bush 43 presidency. The invasion was strictly motivated by blood for oil. Qaddafi was going to launch a single-zone currency in Africa similar to the Euro and Sarkozy saw this as a threat to French oil and French influence in North Africa.

      This is completely laid out by Hillary in her emails and cables as leaked and widely and easily availably online through Wikileaks

      And that is just the tip of the iceberg.

      So prattle on with your regressive “left”narrative about “privilege” as you defend the ultimate imperialist and white-feminist bought, sold, and kept alive by the ruling class.

      With her record, if Hillary was a man, she would be detested.
      Look no further than the ruling class white gay men whose shallow examinations of her record extend no further than her evoking some Judy Garland/Gloria Swanson-esque image of being a survivor.

      And NOBODY plays victim better than Hillary. Another indictment of her fraudulent “feminism.”

      Any critique of her record is “sexist.”

      Any questioning of her is met with “Do you want Trump to win?”

      If this woman is so incapable of standing up to scrutiny, if the people who support her engage in such shallow identity politics in their support for her as “She’s a woman!” or “She’s a gay icon!” or “Even though she called us super predators and STILL has never agreed to meet with ANY Black Lives Matter activists, she’s totally the best racial justice candidate!”, why the fuck is she running?

      • Wow! You are a very angry person. You accuse me of posting talking points yet you post discredited RW talking points to make your case. Let me guess, you’re also a privileged white guy who won’t really suffer under a Trump presidency.

    • «It really must be great to be a privileged affluent white male like Ted.» Everything depends upon one’s frame of reference (pace Albert Einstein !), «TheEagle», while surely there are people on the planet who would regard Mr Rall as being «affluent» (and privileged as well), I doubt – without having access to his tax returns – that he’s anywhere near the same league as Ms Clinton and Mr Trump. Perhaps you know better ?…

      I note, moreover, that among the «minorities» you list above, whom you believe Mr Trump will screw over (and presumably, that minority-loving Ms Clinton will do her level best to protect, as with «welfare reform» in the 1990s), editorial cartoonists are conspicuous by their absence. Do you mean to imply that the kindly, tolerant Mr Trump has a special love for that declining tribe, so that they would be protected – and hopefully subsidised – under a Trump regime ? Nor do you take up atheists, one of whom I understand Mr Rall to be – surely they constitute a minority in the US ? Would Presbyterian Donald John Trump deal with this particular minority more kindly than Methodist Ms Clinton ?…

      You might want to consider ignoring those «identity politics» tropes and deal instead with the reasons that Mr Rall adduces for not being willing to vote for Ms Clinton (note that he explicitly states that he would not vote for Mr Trump either) :

      «But Hillary is not flawed. She is a monster. A mass murderer. A warmonger.

      The fact that she wears bright-colored Doctor Evil suits and has a silly laugh and twinkly eyes and is kinda smart can’t change the fact she has never voted against a war, or apologized for voting for one, or promised not to start any new ones. Her resume can’t cover up for her record: zero sponsorships or votes for a major anti-poverty proposal, and only one vote against a job-killing free trade agreement.»

      Henri

      • Doctor Evil suits??? Really??? Comments like that just show that you are more driven by your hatreds than by any common sense. I’m sure you feel so good sitting on the high horse of your principle while the rest of us have to deal with the consequences of a Trump presidency that you help bring about.

      • «Doctor Evil suits??? Really??? Comments like that just show that you are more driven by your hatreds than by any common sense.» It ill-behooves you, «The Eagle», to talk of «common sense» when your reply makes clear that you are so lacking in it as not to note that the reference to «Doctor Evil suits» above was not my own, but rather Ted’s, whom I quoted to make clear the real reasons – i e, rather than the straw men you adduce above – he adduces for refusing to cast a vote for Ms Clinton. While there are no hard-and-fast requirements for participating on a commentary thread like the present, a certain respect for the opinions of mankind would enjoin a modicum of reading comprehension….

        «I’m sure you feel so good sitting on the high horse of your principle while the rest of us have to deal with the consequences of a Trump presidency that you help bring about.» As Josh Billings wrote, «I honestly beleave it iz better tew know nothing than two know what ain’t so.» In what way could I bring about a Trump presidency (in the US) ? As I do not enjoy the franchise in that estimable country, I can hardly help bring about Mr Trump’s elevation (?) to that office, either by voting for him or by voting for some other person than the anointed whom you happen to feel should have the job. It is true that I risk helping to shape some opinions by participating in discussions on these Ted Rall commentary threads, but from what I have hitherto seen, there are very few posters here who would consider voting for Ms Clinton, and I doubt that any of them will reconsider his or her choice due to anything I might have to say….

        Under these circumstances, if the candidate you favour is not sworn in as US president on 20 January next year, the fault will hardly be mine. Perhaps, in that case, it should rather be ascribed to a failure in herself and her campaign, despite all the help she’s getting from fellow neocons and warmongers, rather than blaming «outside agitators» on high horses like myself…. 😉

        Henri

      • Henri, I suspect he overlooked the colon because his head was stuck up it too far.
        😀

      • derlehrer shoots, he scores, and the crowd goes wild!

        Nice one, would you mind terribly much if I plagiarized it?

      • CrazyH, be my ghost. 🙂

      • «Henri, I suspect he overlooked the colon because his head was stuck up it too far.» There do seem to be a plethora of contortionists around these days, mein vererhter Lehrer ; on the other hand, I suspect that’s always been the case….

        Nice to see you back on these threads !

        Henri

  • suetonius17
    May 26, 2016 6:39 AM

    A couple of things. Alex the tired hits an important note that Ted missed, Hillary has done many terrible things, but the Nancy Reagan AIDS comment was both terrible and remarkably telling. When I heard it I almost choked on my drink. And bricer hit something important with identity politics, which have taken over, and destroyed, the left. The history is fascinating, but it’s going a very bad place, just look at what is happening with college students who think they are radical nowadays. A good friend just sat through the graduation at the college I went to, and the student speaker was railing about how badly the school had handled some racist incidents. My friends response was “it’s fine to complain, but he had zero class consciousness, and the moralism was horrifying!” Young people who think they’re “left”‘ have no framework, and no perspective, so nothing good comes from it. Blacks are worse off then they were, despite there being a black president. Etc. Students would rather complain about “micro aggressions” and demand trigger warnings than think about giving power to the workers.

    • That’s what makes so-called «identity politics» so useful for the people who run the show ; so long as ordinary people consider their primary identity to be determined by «race», ethnic origins, gender considerations, etc, etc,rather than by their class role in the economic system, they are unlikely to be able to mobilise enough power to effect significant changes to the status quo. Heads, as they say on Wall Street, I wind, tails you lose….

      Henri

  • hmmm, word is that Killary is considering Elizabeth Warren for Veep.. I might be able to vote for Warren and as a side effect help Killary into the oval office. If she were indicted along the way, then Warren would be our new prez. She could conceivably run for prez herself in ’24 (although she would be getting a little long in the tooth)

    Wonder what other die-hards think.

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