No, I Won't Work for Hillary Clinton: A Response to Robert Reich
Published on
Monday, May 30, 2016
by
Common Dreams
No, I Won't Work for Hillary Clinton: A Response to Robert Reich
by
Jake Johnson
Protesters with the Fight for $15 movement say Democratic presidential
candidates must deserve their vote. (Photo: Joe Brusky/cc/flickr)
I don't know Robert Reich personally, but I greatly respect and appreciate
his work; his voice is an important one in the fight against inequality.
He has, however, repeatedly come down on the wrong side of one crucial
issue, an issue that has serious implications for the future of American
politics broadly, and for the future of the American left in particular.
Last week, Reich published a piece on his blog that reiterated a few nuggets
of advice he offered on his Facebook page a week or so earlier.
While he directs advice to supporters of both Hillary Clinton and Bernie
Sanders, naturally, as a Sanders supporter, I was drawn to what he had to
say to backers of the Vermont senator.
Supporters of Bernie Sanders should, Reich argues, "Be prepared to work hard
for Hillary Clinton if she gets the nomination."
Reich anticipated the backlash he ultimately received, writing that his
advice "may be hard to swallow."
"But swallow it you must," he concluded, "not just for the good of the
Democratic Party, but for the good of the nation."
He was right, of course, to expect strong reactions; I didn't like his
advice, nor did many others. And I don't plan to act on it.
But as I read Reich's appeal, I was overwhelmed not by emotion, and not by a
sense of outrage, but by a sense of déjà vu. I thought: I have heard, and
read, this all before.
Indeed I had. Though Reich words his appeal eloquently and without
condescension, it is the same appeal that has been made by the more crude
apologists of "lesser of two evils" politics over the past several decades.
Matt Taibbi, in an article forRolling Stone published in March, put it his
way: Democrats "have been saying, 'The Republicans are worse!' for so long
that they've begun to believe it excuses everything."
To his credit, Reich correctly predicts this objectionbut he does not deny
its validity.
"I cant criticize anyone for voting their conscience, of course," he writes
of the large number of Sanders supporters who say they will not vote for
Clinton. "But your conscience should know that a decision not to vote for
Hillary, should she become the Democratic nominee, is a de facto decision to
help Donald Trump."
The latter sentence is the crucial one, and the weight of his argument in
favor of backing Hillary Clinton if she becomes the Democratic nominee rests
on its potency. The problem:The claim that refusing to support Clinton "is a
de facto decision to help Donald Trump" is erroneous.
Perhaps unwittingly, Reich is merely rehashingin a new contexta rather old
argument, one that was made most prominently by George Orwell in his screeds
against pacifism in the midst of World War II.
"Pacifism is objectively pro-Fascist," Orwell argued in an essay that
appeared in 1942. "This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war
effort of one side you automatically help that of the other."
As Corey Robin has observed, the Democratic establishment, in an effort to
suppress dissent and silence legitimate criticism of their favored
candidate, has adopted what is effectively a Leninist posture, one that
prioritizes unity and conformity over basic principles that Democrats, in
other contexts, are happy to championall under the guise of protecting the
party and ensuring victory against the other side.
According to Reich, Sanders supporters who don't fall in line behind a
candidate they believe to be part of the problem, not a potential solution,
are objectively pro-Trump: You're either with us, Reich contends, or you're
against us.
But this is a false dichotomy, as Orwell himself would come to recognize in
print a few years later.
"The key-word here is 'objectively,'" Orwell wrotein 1944. "We are told that
it is only people's objective actions that matter, and their subjective
feelings are of no importance. Thus pacifists, by obstructing the war
effort, are 'objectively' aiding the Nazis; and therefore the fact that they
may be personally hostile to Fascism is irrelevant. I have been guilty of
saying this myself more than once."
Orwell was a rarity among political writers, in that he was rather quick to
correct errors in his own reasoning.
"This is not only dishonest; it also carries a severe penalty with it,"
Orwell continued. "If you disregard people's motives, it becomes much harder
to foresee their actions."
Reich, though his intentions are undoubtedly noble, is committing the same
error Orwell criticized himself for making "more than once": He disregards
subjective motives (which are, in the case of Clinton versus Trump, of great
significance) and fails to anticipate how Sanders supporters will act in the
future.
Judging by the polling data, most Sanders supporters view Trump just as
unfavorably as Clinton supporters, and are unlikely to vote for him. But
that is not the concern: For Reich, not actively helping Clintonjust
staying home in Novemberis the equivalent of lending a helping hand to
Trump.
But Sanders supporters have not been sitting on the sidelines; they have, in
fact, been at the front of the line, protesting Donald Trump's inexcusable
bigotry and condemning his phony populism while articulating an inspiring
and inclusive alternative.
This is the point Reich fails to acknowledge: One can, without
contradiction, both refuse to support Hillary Clinton and ardently oppose
Donald Trump. Protests, engagement, organization, and civil disobedience
often make more noise, and force more change, than decisions made at the
ballot box.
Sanders supporters are simply not content to dilute the political revolution
they have started by integrating it into the framework of the Democratic
Party and by placing it within the confines of a Clinton presidency. Reich,
himself, has emphasized the importance of this point.
"I endorse Bernie Sanders for President of the United States," Reich wrote
in February. "He's leading a movement to reclaim America for the many, not
the few. And such a political mobilization a 'political revolution,' as he
puts it is the only means by which we can get the nation back from the
moneyed interests that now control so much of our economy and democracy."
Here, Reich and I agree: A political revolution in the form of various
movements working together to bring lasting change "is the only means by
which we can get the nation back from the moneyed interests."
To work for Hillary Clinton would be to put aside principled stands in
support of campaign finance reform, for instance, or against American
aggression overseas, in favor of a candidate who has repeatedly been on the
wrong side.
So I will continue to support Bernie Sanders and the movement he has sparked
both because I believe it is the right thing to do, and because I refuse to
fall in line behind a candidate who has, in just the past few months,
repudiated basic standards of transparency, belittled those who fight for
ambitious social agendas, turned her back on single-payer health care,
courted Republican donors, accepted campaign contributions from Wall Street
and the fossil fuel industry, and attacked the core argument against the
Supreme Court's disastrous Citizens United decision.
I will also happily join Robert Reich in the fight against Donald Trump. His
ignorance is terrifying and his bigotry is reprehensible.
But I will not endure lectures on how refusing to support Hillary Clintona
candidate who embodies the right turn of the Democratic Party that has had
such devastating effects on the same people Clinton now claims to be
fighting foris, in effect, the equivalent of supporting Trump. It clearly
isn't.
As for Reich's concerns about the future of the Democratic Party, well, I'm
with Michelle Alexander: "I hold little hope that a political revolution
will occur within the Democratic Party without a sustained outside movement
forcing truly transformational change. I am inclined to believe that it
would be easier to build a new party than to save the Democratic Party from
itself."
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Jake Johnson
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No, I Won't Work for Hillary Clinton: A Response to Robert Reich
Published on
Monday, May 30, 2016
by
Common Dreams
No, I Won't Work for Hillary Clinton: A Response to Robert Reich
by
Jake Johnson
171 Comments
Protesters with the Fight for $15 movement say Democratic
presidential candidates must deserve their vote. (Photo: Joe
Brusky/cc/flickr)
I don't know Robert Reich personally, but I greatly respect and
appreciate his work; his voice is an important one in the fight against
inequality.
He has, however, repeatedly come down on the wrong side of one
crucial issue, an issue that has serious implications for the future of
American politics broadly, and for the future of the American left in
particular.
Last week, Reich published a piece on his blog that reiterated a few
nuggets of advice he offered on his Facebook page a week or so earlier.
While he directs advice to supporters of both Hillary Clinton and
Bernie Sanders, naturally, as a Sanders supporter, I was drawn to what he
had to say to backers of the Vermont senator.
Supporters of Bernie Sanders should, Reich argues, "Be prepared to work hard
for Hillary Clinton if she gets the nomination."
Reich anticipated the backlash he ultimately received, writing that his
advice "may be hard to swallow."
"But swallow it you must," he concluded, "not just for the good of the
Democratic Party, but for the good of the nation."
He was right, of course, to expect strong reactions; I didn't like his
advice, nor did many others. And I don't plan to act on it.
But as I read Reich's appeal, I was overwhelmed not by emotion, and not by a
sense of outrage, but by a sense of déjà vu. I thought: I have heard, and
read, this all before.
Indeed I had. Though Reich words his appeal eloquently and without
condescension, it is the same appeal that has been made by the more crude
apologists of "lesser of two evils" politics over the past several decades.
Matt Taibbi, in an article forRolling Stone published in March, put it his
way: Democrats "have been saying, 'The Republicans are worse!' for so long
that they've begun to believe it excuses everything."
To his credit, Reich correctly predicts this objectionbut he does not deny
its validity.
"I cant criticize anyone for voting their conscience, of course," he writes
of the large number of Sanders supporters who say they will not vote for
Clinton. "But your conscience should know that a decision not to vote for
Hillary, should she become the Democratic nominee, is a de facto decision to
help Donald Trump."
The latter sentence is the crucial one, and the weight of his argument in
favor of backing Hillary Clinton if she becomes the Democratic nominee rests
on its potency. The problem:The claim that refusing to support Clinton "is a
de facto decision to help Donald Trump" is erroneous.
Perhaps unwittingly, Reich is merely rehashingin a new contexta rather old
argument, one that was made most prominently by George Orwell in his screeds
against pacifism in the midst of World War II.
"Pacifism is objectively pro-Fascist," Orwell argued in an essay that
appeared in 1942. "This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war
effort of one side you automatically help that of the other."
As Corey Robin has observed, the Democratic establishment, in an effort to
suppress dissent and silence legitimate criticism of their favored
candidate, has adopted what is effectively a Leninist posture, one that
prioritizes unity and conformity over basic principles that Democrats, in
other contexts, are happy to championall under the guise of protecting the
party and ensuring victory against the other side.
According to Reich, Sanders supporters who don't fall in line behind a
candidate they believe to be part of the problem, not a potential solution,
are objectively pro-Trump: You're either with us, Reich contends, or you're
against us.
But this is a false dichotomy, as Orwell himself would come to recognize in
print a few years later.
"The key-word here is 'objectively,'" Orwell wrotein 1944. "We are told that
it is only people's objective actions that matter, and their subjective
feelings are of no importance. Thus pacifists, by obstructing the war
effort, are 'objectively' aiding the Nazis; and therefore the fact that they
may be personally hostile to Fascism is irrelevant. I have been guilty of
saying this myself more than once."
Orwell was a rarity among political writers, in that he was rather quick to
correct errors in his own reasoning.
"This is not only dishonest; it also carries a severe penalty with it,"
Orwell continued. "If you disregard people's motives, it becomes much harder
to foresee their actions."
Reich, though his intentions are undoubtedly noble, is committing the same
error Orwell criticized himself for making "more than once": He disregards
subjective motives (which are, in the case of Clinton versus Trump, of great
significance) and fails to anticipate how Sanders supporters will act in the
future.
Judging by the polling data, most Sanders supporters view Trump just as
unfavorably as Clinton supporters, and are unlikely to vote for him. But
that is not the concern: For Reich, not actively helping Clintonjust
staying home in Novemberis the equivalent of lending a helping hand to
Trump.
But Sanders supporters have not been sitting on the sidelines; they have, in
fact, been at the front of the line, protesting Donald Trump's inexcusable
bigotry and condemning his phony populism while articulating an inspiring
and inclusive alternative.
This is the point Reich fails to acknowledge: One can, without
contradiction, both refuse to support Hillary Clinton and ardently oppose
Donald Trump. Protests, engagement, organization, and civil disobedience
often make more noise, and force more change, than decisions made at the
ballot box.
Sanders supporters are simply not content to dilute the political revolution
they have started by integrating it into the framework of the Democratic
Party and by placing it within the confines of a Clinton presidency. Reich,
himself, has emphasized the importance of this point.
"I endorse Bernie Sanders for President of the United States," Reich wrote
in February. "He's leading a movement to reclaim America for the many, not
the few. And such a political mobilization a 'political revolution,' as he
puts it is the only means by which we can get the nation back from the
moneyed interests that now control so much of our economy and democracy."
Here, Reich and I agree: A political revolution in the form of various
movements working together to bring lasting change "is the only means by
which we can get the nation back from the moneyed interests."
To work for Hillary Clinton would be to put aside principled stands in
support of campaign finance reform, for instance, or against American
aggression overseas, in favor of a candidate who has repeatedly been on the
wrong side.
So I will continue to support Bernie Sanders and the movement he has sparked
both because I believe it is the right thing to do, and because I refuse to
fall in line behind a candidate who has, in just the past few months,
repudiated basic standards of transparency, belittled those who fight for
ambitious social agendas, turned her back on single-payer health care,
courted Republican donors, accepted campaign contributions from Wall Street
and the fossil fuel industry, and attacked the core argument against the
Supreme Court's disastrous Citizens United decision.
I will also happily join Robert Reich in the fight against Donald Trump. His
ignorance is terrifying and his bigotry is reprehensible.
But I will not endure lectures on how refusing to support Hillary Clintona
candidate who embodies the right turn of the Democratic Party that has had
such devastating effects on the same people Clinton now claims to be
fighting foris, in effect, the equivalent of supporting Trump. It clearly
isn't.
As for Reich's concerns about the future of the Democratic Party, well, I'm
with Michelle Alexander: "I hold little hope that a political revolution
will occur within the Democratic Party without a sustained outside movement
forcing truly transformational change. I am inclined to believe that it
would be easier to build a new party than to save the Democratic Party from
itself."
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0
License
