I have to admit that I haven't read the fine scholar of anti-fascism David Neiwert for quite a while, Which is my loss. He's one of the best. While there are people who have supported and do still support Bernie Sanders who I respect and consider friends, I agree with what he said on Facebook about those who won't vote for Hillary Clinton out of alleged leftist principle.
David Neiwert
May 31 at 9:23am
Friends may have
noticed that I have become very cranky of late on the subject of
voting for Hillary Clinton in the general election. Put into simple
terms: If you are a #NeverHillary voter -- or a Trump voter,
which in the end is the same thing -- just unfriend me now. You are
not a friend of mine.
I have spent the
past 14 years trying to warn the public about the proto-fascist
threat coming down the road at us through the auspices of the
increasingly radicalized conservative movement and its official
organ, the Republican Party. I've even published two books describing
this threat -- five and six years before it actually emerged.
During that time,
I've received fair amounts of praise from my fellow progressives for
the work I've done exposing these trends, and lots of pats on the
head. But what I've noticed is that many progressives are only
interested in using this information as a hammer for bashing
conservatives with, rather than taking seriously the underlying
issues it exposes, particularly the progressive abandonment of rural
areas. And I know that, when I'm not around, a lot of these
progressives have been happy to characterize me as an alarmist.
Well, now those
trends have all come home to roost, and that "alarmism" has
proven precisely accurate. The warnings have come true in no small
part not just because conservatives drove their bus over the cliff,
but because many progressives -- especially those in institutional
progressive organizations -- did not take them seriously either, and
took few steps to address the underlying dynamic. And this is
especially true of the leftist ideologues who seem to think that all
you have to do is magically elect a progressive president and
everything will be better, because their failures to keep the ball
rolling in between presidential elections led to the rise of the Tea
Party and the enshrinement of the radicalization of the American
right.
And now these same,
clueless progressives are insisting that -- even with the steam train
of extremist right-wing populism, the historical foundation of all
fascist movements, heading straight towards them in the form of the
Trump candidacy -- their Purity of Essence will keep them from ever
voting for the last remaining politician capable of keeping him from
attaining the presidency.
Look, I support the
Sanders campaign's desire to take their movement into the convention,
since I support most components of their agenda (though not all). I
think progressives need to push the Clinton camp leftward -- not just
now, but after the election too. You'll not hear me disparage the
Sanders campaign and its
But if you can't
understand that a Donald Trump presidency would be an
extinction-level event for American democracy -- and especially if
you are so fanatically blinkered that you think that Clinton and
Trump are actually comparable or similar -- then you have neither
paid any attention to the matters that I've spent the past 14 years
focused on, and/or you simply have no respect for it. You are, on a
very deep level, no friend of mine.
So you can just go
hit that "Unfriend" button now. Because if you don't, I
will get around to it eventually.
Yes, Donald Trump
Could Win the Presidency
The truth of this
election is that nobody really knows much of anything about how it’s
going to go.
PROSPECT.ORG
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"Purity of Essence." Heh. Although a dated reference now, especially to the most rabid Sanders supporters who think history began just after they started noticing.
ReplyDeleteI've been playing with an idea of politics as secular religion, complete with its factions and sects and creeds, and especially the holiness of the vote, which cannot be wasted on the infidel and those not pure of heart. It really is a holiness thing: it must be pure, unscathed, and never sullied by earthly concerns.
I know it's feckless youth and it shows up about once every four years, but sheesh! Grow up! I hear "revolution" and "young people brought into the process" and I remember when 18 year olds got the vote and it was gonna be a revolution!
That led to Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush again....
Yeah; some revolution. But this time they mean it! And they're nones, so they really mean it!
Or something.....