I think I discovered what’s probably the single, biggest difference between Hillary supporters and Bernie supporters who have been lifelong Democrats.
Many Bernie supporters have firsthand knowledge of exactly how one or more of our elected Democrats let us down when they voted in support of their corporate sponsors in opposition to the good of their constituents. Hillary supporters have not. And if you haven’t personally witnessed how money has corrupted someone you truly believed in to fight for you, you can’t see it as a problem.
Though I’ve been let down by a number of my elected officials, the one that hurt the most was Kirsten Gillibrand. By and large, I support what she is out there fighting for. She does a lot of good work, especially when it comes to her advocacy for victims of sexual assault. BUT…
English: United States Senator Kirsten Gillibrand is sworn in by Vice President Joe Biden at the beginning of the 112th Congress with her husband Jonathan and son Theo looking on. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
She sold my son’s education down the river every time she spoke in favor of corporate education reform. She took money from the corporate interests that forced our public schools to waste billions of dollars on high stakes testing materials and a whole new curriculum (with disposable textbooks! buy new every year!) shaped around improving test scores in math and ELA…to the detriment of everything else. I can also “thank” Democrats like Andrew Cuomo and Paul D. Tonko for bringing this nightmare to New York schools.
And Gillibrand doesn’t get a pass for her “protest vote” against the confirmation of John King. It was a vote to save face because he was clearly getting confirmed no matter how she voted.
Gillibrand campaigned as a mom who would always fight for us and our families. But even she wasn’t incorruptible. And she owes her senate seat to Hillary, because she was “promoted” from the House when Hillary was “promoted” to Secretary of State.
We need money out of politics. Immediately.
Bernie has showed that it is entirely possible to run a campaign without relying on multiple large donations from corporate entities and their super PACs. (Yes, I know about the nurses. But if you can’t see a difference in being “beholden” to the interests of nurses who care for patients in our health care system and being beholden to Big Business interests like Wall St and pharmaceutical companies, then the entire point of this is going to be lost on you.) Those of us who have serious distrust of Hillary’s ability to fight for the interests of the people aren’t falling victim to right wing propaganda. We’ve witnessed elected officials we trusted more selling us out because of smaller campaign donations than Hillary has received.
And I have no confidence in a Hillary presidency for any kind of real campaign finance reform. We have no confidence, It would hurt her and all of her DC buddies who are in the same boat. And we’ll never get the change we need in DC until we get the money out of politics. That is why we’re taking this to convention. That’s why we can’t just fall in line. The Democratic Party platform needs to walk the walk when it comes to being the party of the people, because it’s not anymore. This is about so much more than either candidate…it’s about what they each stand for.
