Democrats could lose the election this November: just watch Hillary Clinton being booed at her own party convention. But, if that happens, it won’t be the fault of Sanders’ supporters. No – the blame will fall on the DNC. They could have played to the future of our country and the economic vision we desire. Instead, they gave us “super-predator” Clinton and milquetoast, pro-banking Tim Kaine.



I had hoped Obama would deliver genuine economic change – but that didn’t happen. Before becoming a journalist, I even moved to Pennsylvania for a couple of months to volunteer for Barack Obama’s campaign. I was enamored by his intelligence and the beautiful ways he wrote and spoke about race. But I was also thrilled (naively) that Obama seemed to get his money from small donors, and that he might break Wall Street’s stranglehold on the Democrats.

I wanted Obama to turn his back on Bill Clinton’s disastrous deregulatory economic policies (that balanced budgets on the backs of the poor) and Hillary Clinton’s debts to finance. But, once in office, Obama offered no break from Clintonism: it was Clinton 2.0, with the veneer of hope that he’d be better on race.

Obama brought in Hillary Clinton to run his state department, hired Bill Clinton advisor Rahm Emanuel to run his White House and charged Clinton-era economists with running his economic teams. And whenever Obama has talked directly about Black Lives Matter, he has failed to deliver on changing police violence. Though his presidency has expanded the racial notion of what it means to be American, it is hard to see how Obama has made life better for Black America today.

Now, eight years after Hillary Clinton failed to win the Democratic nomination, and after 12 million people voted for a Democratic socialist, Clinton and the party have said: “Hey, let’s pick a vice-president who is for banking deregulation!” They want to give us more failed Clinton policies.

Enter Trump. He has unified a rabid, dwindling and angry white electorate, so much so that if the election were held today, 538 predicts he’d win. Trump made a (probably foolhardy) move for Sanders’ voters. Still, those most threatened by Trump’s neo-fascism – people of color, queer people, the poor, workers and those who care about economic inequality - have been abandoned by the Democratic party and its nominee on economic justice.

Trump has no business tapping into his base’s anger for political gain, but he does it anyway. Would a Trump presidency be a disaster? Yes. Would it cause all manner of economic, legal, political and moral crises? Definitely. Would poor people and people of color – especially immigrants, those assumed to be immigrants and Muslims – pay the highest price? Yup. Would a good chunk of Trump voters – even angry white Trump voters – grow to regret their votes? No doubt.

I don’t endorse the demagoguery of Trump. I also know that there are positive aspects to Obama’s record for the marginalized. Similarly, Hillary Clinton has policies that would be better for some American women and LGBT people, though Democrats and Republicans are equally likely to rain terror on people in other countries.

But I don’t know how any of the flaws of Trump can be explained to his supporters, especially when the Democratic party can’t offer an economic vision to their own angry voters. Indeed, the Democrats seem bent on putting up people and policies that will redistribute money to Wall Street and ignore the 99% when their base been screaming at them to stop this.



Americans might not regret casting a vote for Trump until it’s too late. By not being bold and changing its course right now, the Democratic party is increasing the risk of this happening.

