Why I Put Some Ice on That Bern

Alternatively titled: “Why I support Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders”

As a 19 year-old progressive college student with a penchant for supporting LGBT rights, college affordability, and electoral finance reform, my vote this election cycle should be obvious. “There’s only one candidate who’s firmly supported a myriad of progressive issues for their entire life!” my friends would (and still do) say to me. And though this may shock many of my friends that follow me on social media — who I’m sure are more than tired of my… “expressive” posts — I used to be a huge Bernie Sanders supporter.

And yet, not only have I cast my first presidential ballot for Hillary Clinton, but I’ve spent countless hours each week for a period of six months working on her campaign. After a great deal of thought and consideration, I wholeheartedly believe that no one is better equipped to lead this country than her.

Before I continue, let me preface with this: I align with Bernie Sanders on practically every issue. I have great respect for most of his positions, and he’s put forth some very good ones. My aim in writing this is not to be politically divisive, but to definitively outline why I support Mrs. Clinton in great detail. I doubt my reasons will change any minds, but I encourage those of you that don’t see things my way to keep an open mind by reading this. I’m all too aware that my thoughts don’t align with most in my age group (given that they swing toward Sanders), but this is just my opinion and I hope that you respect it.

Before I get into the nitty-gritty as to why I support Mrs. Clinton, I’m going to start outlining a few common complaints I hear and correct them so there aren’t any misconceptions going into this. Let’s take it from the figurative elephant in the room: that Hillary Clinton “isn’t liberal enough.” A quick analysis of her voting record while she was in the Senate proves that just simply isn’t the case. Her second term demonstrated that she was 85% more liberal than all members in the Senate, and 70% of Democrats — more liberal than President Obama, and just behind Elizabeth Warren. Hillary Clinton would be a more liberal president than our current one.

Which brings me to my next point. More often than not, Secretary Clinton gets compared to a Republican because of some of the more prominent blemishes on her record, like her support for the Defense of Marriage Act, for one. Though I’m not trying to excuse that position, many people forget that “her shifting position reflects the personal evolution millions of Americans have made and continue to make with incredible speed on marriage equality. They just don’t have to do it in the crucible of presidential politics…” She wasn’t alone. President Obama and the vast majority of Democrats also disagreed with the notion that same-sex marriage should be legalized at some point. But here’s a key fact about Hillary Clinton that I admire about her: She is capable of acknowledging her previous mistakes; not only that, but she fights harder than ever after doing so.

The issue of LGBT discrimination in America and abroad is a major factor in how I vote. Recently, the Human Rights Campaign chose to endorse Hillary Clinton (which many Bernie Sanders supporters scoffed at). However, upon seeing the lengths that Secretary Clinton would go to in order to prevent and protect this community makes it abundantly clear why they chose to do so. She has put forth the most pro-LGBT policy proposal that I have ever seen in a presidential candidate. Bernie Sanders says on his website that he would be an LGBT friendly president, which I fully believe. However, the specificity of Clinton’s policies really drew attention to me (namely, advocating for the federal Equality Act, removing the ban on transgender Americans from serving in the military, addressing the crisis of transphobic violence that impacts primarily women of color, bailing out jailed LGBT activists abroad, etc.). Hillary Clinton wouldn’t just be “a friendly face” in the White House; she would fight for people like me. I would dare you to find just one Republican that supports half of what Secretary Clinton has proposed for the LGBT community, but I don’t want to have to say “I told you so.”

Don’t ever allow yourself to believe that electing Mrs. Clinton would essentially be electing a Republican. What Republican do you know of that co-sponsored the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act? Or sponsored the Paycheck Fairness Act? Or called out the crisis in Flint, Michigan as “not just an environmental disaster and a health crisis,” but “a civil rights issue”? Hillary Clinton wants to raise the minimum wage, abolish the Hyde Amendment which prevents abortions from being federally funded, and close tax loopholes that would benefit those at the top. Meanwhile, the Republicans want to defund Planned Parenthood and keep believing that climate change is a hoax. Try to picture Secretary Clinton saying either of those things, and then laugh knowing that it would never happen.

Another issue many have with Hillary is that she takes money from Wall Street, making her a “corporate shill.” My question is, why wasn’t this allegation thrown towards President Obama in 2012? One-third of his campaign money was raised off of financial institutions. 20% in 2008. In comparison, Secretary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign has only raised approximately 7% off of the financial district. However, keep in mind that as a senator from New York, Wall Street was effectively a constituent of hers. If one is to accept Senator Sanders’s reasoning behind his vote for the largest pro-gun legislation in decades, (that Vermont is an incredibly rural, pro-gun state and he had to please his constituents), one can also logically conclude the same for Secretary Clinton and her voting record towards Wall Street (which, granted, is still an issue, but an explainable one that both candidates have in one form or another). To deny such a comparison would be to impose a double standard. Critics enjoy pointing at the campaign contributions she received while she was campaigning as a senator (which were significantly larger than they are now), but fail to understand that as a president, Wall Street is a much smaller part of the American constituency. Want to know why Wall Street isn’t giving nearly as much money to her currently? I encourage you to check out her Wall Street plan, which has been hailed by progressives like Elizabeth Warren for being the most comprehensive plan of all three Democratic candidates. She goes beyond just “breaking up banks” and focusing on reviving out-of-touch legislation like Glass-Steagall which would do little in a modern economy and addresses a sector that Bernie Sanders doesn’t provide a solution to in his own plan: shadow banking. And though Clinton’s Wall-Street voting record is largely hands-off, let’s not forget that Sanders voted for the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which blocked federal agencies from regulating credit default swaps, and is largely credited for being the heart of the 2008 financial crisis. Bernie Sanders voted for it. Hillary Clinton’s campaign contributions in no way contributed to the financial crisis. Bernie Sanders’s vote did.

A tried and tested candidate

Responding to some of the attacks levied toward Clinton’s way allows me to segue into a major reason that I support her. Simply put, Secretary Clinton has weathered attacks from Republicans, the media, supporters of other Democratic candidates for president, and others for decades. Despite constant barrages on her image and record, she has stood strong against adversity with confidence and poise to become a powerful role model for women. Could you imagine any other candidate running for president withstanding eleven hours of intense grilling from some of her most bitter rivals without breaking a sweat or losing her cool?

That’s what worries me about Sanders. Republicans and the media are very quiet about attacking him. In fact, Karl Rove’s Super PAC, American Crossroads, and the RNC seem to be defending Bernie’s plans. Donald Trump recently underlined the Republican’s strategy for the primary: keeping mum about attacking Senator Sanders while defending his policies and ripping on Clinton. Sean Spicer, the RNC communications director, tweeted about one of Bernie’s foreign policy answers during a debate and said that they were trying to help him on foreign policy, an issue that lacks strength on. And though I do LIKE many of his policies, I can absolutely guarantee you that Republicans aren’t doing this for the same reason.

They want Sanders, because the sad reality (and yes, it IS sad) is that most Americans are unwilling to vote for a socialist. Now, even though most Democrats feel just fine doing so, the general American populace simply doesn’t at this point in time. Yes, I know that Bernie Sanders is actually a democratic socialist. No, Average Joe Schmoe won’t know that. While Republicans have already unleashed their attack strategy on Hillary, they’re encouraging Bernie to become the nominee so they can eviscerate him with negative ads as soon as he does. They know Clinton is an incredibly strong candidate, and are afraid that she could win the presidency if she gets the nomination. I’m worried Sanders won’t be able to withstand attacks and pressure like Hillary has been able to, and thus negatively impact the party’s chances come November if handed the Democratic nomination.

Now, I can probably guess what some of the Sanders supporters reading this are thinking: “Sanders outperforms Hillary in general election polls, so isn’t he the more electable one?” First of all, general election polls don’t matter this far out. They aren’t indicative of the final outcome that will occur this November, and have a very wide margin of error. But for the sake of a hypothetical, let’s pretend that they do matter right now. The claim that he outperforms Hillary in almost every poll (as he claims) is factually incorrect. Politifact found him to be cherry-picking polls (a la Trump) to support his agenda, and rated that claim false. In fact, a poll recently came out that demonstrated most Americans believe that Hillary Clinton will become the next president, by far outperforming Sanders against GOP rivals. Keep in mind that Republicans, as mentioned previously, haven’t spent a dime to attack Sanders yet, whereas they’ve spent millions on negative attack ads against Hillary on his behalf. Despite this, she finds herself polling in general election match-ups better than Senator Sanders. And the primary hasn’t even begun.

A progressive, but practical policy plan that attempts to push the limit on current political boundaries

I full well understand Bernie’s appeal. Sanders is attempting to cut through the political slog that we’ve endured after hearing of nothing but gridlock and small victories in Congress. So many Democrats that I know grew up with that and are rightly fed up, and thus are willing to take a leap of faith with Bernie Sanders. Here’s why I’m not.

To me, a president’s job is first and foremost to help recommend and prioritize legislation that will reach as many people as possible, with emphasis on the underprivileged. That’s a big job, and it’s one that I know for a fact Hillary Clinton can pick her fights and utilize her time in office effectively.

Let’s examine Bernie’s health-care proposal to see what I mean about priorities and political boundaries. Upon reading the document itself, one sees that it is a general overview on what he plans to propose as president. Yes, there are details on how to pay for the system, but as for the single-payer system itself? It remains unclear as to how the government will administer health care in particular, the extent of the power that states hold over the system, etc. These are real details that, if Bernie is elected president, he will need to spend considerable time on. Put aside the period of time that it would take to iron out each and every detail to create an entirely new system. Think about how long it would take to pass an overhaul on health-care reform under either a Republican-led or divided Congress (with even Democratic leadership publicly coming out against), completely scrap the system currently in place (along with the rules, regulations, and guidelines that exist within it), and work on the transitional problems that will stem from implementing a single-payer system (which we know from the transition to Obamacare, there will be many). Keep in mind that this is only one of Bernie’s proposals (a proposal that he has attempted to pass nine times in the Senate without a single co-sponsor each time). Now try to picture how many other -yes, smaller- problems that we could tackle with the same amount of dedication and time. Maybe you’re willing to support this starry-eyed, idealistic attempt at reforming the entire health-care system for the second time in a decade. I am not.

Mrs. Clinton has, in my opinion, a far more practical approach. Let’s remember that she is a supporter of universal health care, and fought for that before I was born. However, she remembers all too well how incredibly difficult it was to pass the Affordable Care Act in an almost Machiavellian manner, full of coincidences, Republican, and Democratic dissent. However, given that Democrats held a vast majority in both the House and Senate (with 60 votes, enough to prevent Republican filibustering), they were able to pass reform. We no longer have that luxury. Republicans steadily control both houses of Congress. As a fighter for health care reform, Hillary herself knows that the Affordable Care Act is a milestone in and of itself, allowing 18 million new Americans to receive coverage. So instead of just scrapping it and delving into the tireless political debate surrounding health care yet again, she has proposed to correct the fallacies of Obamacare and allow it to reach even more Americans with a lower cost than they are paying now (and without raising taxes to boot!). By lowering the cost of deductibles and prescription drugs, I believe that her agenda has a far greater chance at earning bipartisan approval (because no Republican can argue against lower costs without raising taxes).

Being the president requires you to reasonably take on more than one, five, or ten issues at a time (many of which are unexpected), and it takes real political capital to tackle each. With only eight years at a president’s disposal, spending time and energy on policies that are way beyond the boundaries of bipartisan feasibility heightens the opportunity costs he or she wastes, and prevents them to spend that on a myriad of other issues that may be weighing the country down.

Clinton prioritizes her agenda with inclusive and expansive policy proposals

Hillary Clinton began her 2016 presidential campaign exactly like her very first bid for public office in 2000: with a listening tour. She traveled around Iowa and New Hampshire for the first few weeks after announcing her candidacy in a matter that, in my opinion, deserves respect. No spectacle. Little publicity. Just her, and hundreds of other citizens telling the front-runner who they were, and what ailed them. She didn’t try to interrupt, or overstep. She just listened. Nodded. Scribbled down notes when appropriate. And if this tour ended anything like her first, she came back to campaign headquarters with notebook upon notebook piled with details and policy proposals that aimed to change the lives of the people she just spoke with.

It’s no coincidence that she became the first candidate to bring up and draft policy to rid the country of its heroin epidemic; the listening tour brought stories of heartache and loss from the drug to her attention. When meeting a group of supporters backstage before the New Hampshire Democratic Convention in September, she happened upon a man that had to take his mother who had been afflicted with Alzheimer’s to work because he couldn’t afford coverage. It was no coincidence that she later became the only candidate running for president to develop a plan to cure Alzheimer’s— in history (a move which earned bipartisan praise from Republicans like Newt Gingrich). After holding countless town halls, she spoke to mothers, fathers, and siblings that knew of friends or relatives that had autism; she has since become the only candidate to announce a comprehensive proposal for it.

Do you see a pattern emerging? These are not issues that make national headlines. They won’t generate great applause lines during a debate. But they’re severe problems that keep people up at night. And that’s what I love about Hillary. She holds people at the heart of what she proposes, whether it’s her plan on campus sexual assault, disability rights, K-12 education, or criminal justice reform. She isn’t fighting for a specific ideology, but she’s fighting to make sure every single American feels included in her administration, so that we all rise together regardless of age, gender, race, sexual orientation, etc.

I’ve had the great pleasure of seeing Senator Sanders and Secretary Clinton at many events in New Hampshire, and I can personally tell you that they are vastly different stylistically. She prefers town hall formats, which enables her to move around and take many questions from audience members (whether they be supporters, undecided, or otherwise). Sanders holds bombastic rallies using the same (or very similar) stump speech since the beginning of this campaign (yes, I’ve noticed) and very rarely takes direct questions from onlookers. On occasions where he does take questions? Well, he may limit it to a topic he prefers or feels more comfortable discussing.

The presidency isn’t a job that allows someone to stay safely behind a podium and lecture as if the audience were students to be taught a lesson. What I admire in Secretary Clinton is her ability to listen. When I’ve spoken to her, I felt like she genuinely cared about what I have to say. It’s almost as if I held the power in the conversation, not her. That is what a president is supposed to embody. Someone who not only proposes their own genuine ideas once they take office, but also takes into account the issues that the average citizen faces. They may not be problems that’ll gain massive attention, but they’re problems that break families apart. And by focusing on both the major issues being discussed in this election, and the other issues that aren’t, she succeeds at including millions of Americans that feel disenchanted after watching countless politicians ignore what matters most to them. Hillary succeeds at this like no other, though her more inclusive events and policies. To quote High School Musical, what Hillary has proposed truly makes it feel as if us Americans are “all in this together.”

Let me conclude with this. We’ve seen someone ride to the office of the presidency on the promise of institutional change (supported by many grassroots supporters). Barack Obama rose to prominence because people fell in love with his message of hope and change, and the fact that he would use the bully pulpit effectively to promote a true difference in the way we thought about politics. Swap in hope for anger towards establishment politics, and you have Bernie Sanders, complete with large millennial support. My point is this: We have seen this type of movement before. And the result of that movement…? In terms of strengthening the Democratic Party, President Obama has the worst record of any modern president. We have lost a net total of 13 Senate seats, 69 House seats, 11 governorships, 30 state legislature chambers, and 913 state legislature seats. Republicans now have a complete lock on 30 states. That’s 60 percent. After seven years of seeing Obama fumble with the fact that creating institutional change can’t happen without the help of Congress, voters turned away from Democrats.

Let’s pose a hypothetical. What happens if Bernie Sanders is elected president? Due to gerrymandering, Republicans will retain control of the House; but let’s say that the Senate flips back to a very slim Democratic majority. Sanders will not enjoy the luxury Obama had briefly of an undivided government if he takes office. The House will not pass his grandiose, partisan proposals. He may get gain some small traction in some areas, but my guess is that they will largely sit and gather dust. Don’t forget that Republicans will blast him for any foreign policy missteps given that he is a candidate who has shown very little interest in non-domestic issues.

After growing more and more upset that they aren’t getting the proposals Sanders has promised, the coalition of young people that he would have built up to get elected will become discouraged from voting in the midterms in 2018. And then Democrats will be eviscerated at a local level. That very same cynicism toward the political system that Sanders is tapping into could be what turns his supporters away from him. It’s not like this has no historical precedent to go off of, because this already came to pass in 2010. The young voters that turned out for Obama abandoned him just two years later once his promise to change politics stalled (keep in mind this was even AFTER the Affordable Care Act passed). As a result, many states experienced a shift to the right, and haven’t recovered since.

This time around isn’t completely similar to 2008 though. Sanders has expressed little to no interest in building up the state and local Democratic parties that he would need in order to deepen and support his movement while in office, unlike Obama. Hillary Clinton has already raised $18 million specifically for use by the state parties. Bernie Sanders has not raised any for that purpose. You can’t ask for a political revolution and then take no steps in order to see that revolution through. (And for the record, I guarantee you Sanders has money to spare. He raised around 20 million dollars in the month of January alone, which is roughly 40 percent of what Hillary raised in the last three months).

Now look, I’m a cynic. It’s possible that this scenario won’t come into play. However, there’s a distinct possibility, supported historically, which makes me uncomfortable with supporting Sanders. Prefacing with the fact (again) that I align more with him than Hillary, her policy proposals understand the political boundaries set in stone, and are grounded in reality as a result. They’re more representative of the country as a whole, and include so many more groups of individuals than Sanders’s. She’s faced undying criticism for her entire time in the public eye that he has not ever had to face on a national scale. She’s vastly more prepared to step into the Oval Office on Day 1 of her presidency, constantly showing off her comprehensive knowledge of literally any issue.

By all means, if you’re a Sanders supporter, vote for him without hesitation! As I’ve mentioned previously, my goal in writing this is not to cause tension among our two camps, or shame the other side for supporting a different candidate. I simply wanted to outline my reasoning behind supporting Hillary Clinton, and it’s my opinion. You don’t have to agree with it. In fact, more power to you.

When I step into the voting booth in eight days and cast my vote for who I truly believe will become our first female president, I’ll be voting with not only my heart, but my head as well. I’ll be voting for a leader that knows when to pick her battles, but when she fights she fights like hell. I’ll be voting for the woman that has been fighting for my health care rights, women’s rights, and children her entire life. I’ll be voting for Hillary Clinton.