There are no circumstances under which I will vote for Hillary Clinton.
I will vote for Bernie Sanders if he is somehow nominated, though this is extremely unlikely.
I would’ve voted for Elizabeth Warren.
But Clinton? Hell no. That she’d be (very, very) slightly better in some areas (and worse in others) than whatever horror the Republicans throw on the ballot means absolutely nothing to me.
You are not so situated in any fashion that having Republicans in charge of both the national executive and legislative branches would be detrimental to you in a visceral way, so of course “slightly better” means nothing to you.
How often have you voted? I’ve voted in every national election since I was old enough to vote and every local election since I was 21.
That said, the choices being “tire fire” or “stinky meh” almost every single time is aggravating. I’ve never felt strongly enough about a particular candidate to volunteer or a particular party to change my registration to. My volunteer work is to help people to physically vote and that’s something I feel strongly about and I will do it again.
How strongly do you feel about Bernie Sanders? In my state, independents cannot vote in the primary, so if you’re in a state like that, now would be the time to change parties so you can vote for him and tell other people to vote for him in the primary.
Why do you think having a Republican in charge would be substantively different? I’m genuinely curious.
The Welfare Reform Act after all was signed into law by Bill Clinton, which devastated welfare recipients and continues to do so.
I can think of one way that a Republican might be viscerally different for me — the possibility of war with Iran or Russia. Though I think that is equally possible if Clinton wins, and perhaps more so. She has to “prove” she’s tough, after all. Bernie Sanders would probably be able to avoid all that.
I usually vote in each presidential election only and have since 1996. I did not vote in 2012 as I refused to vote for Obama.
About Bernie Sanders, I don’t feel that strongly about him. I doubt he will be able to do 99% of his agenda items due to the intransigence of Congress, which to be fair Obama also experienced during much of his term (though he also squandered his main chance and sold out to the bankers during the largest crisis in modern history when he did not have to do so, and that and the ACA is mainly what makes him a terrible president).
About voting, I don’t think it matters much or I’d do it more. If we really start getting out of hand (Occupy, etc.) the plutocrats will just start killing us en masse.
A Republican would appoint substantively different judges to the Supreme Court and lower federal benches than a Democrat. On the Supreme Court, since appointments are for life, the justices hang around for a long time.
See, I didn’t expect Shrub to be as godawful as he was. He led us into two sinkholes of wars. He received good intelligence which he chose to ignore and failed to stop a huge terrorist attack. He got into office with the help of Supreme Court justices appointed by Republicans (and relatedly, I WILL vote to keep Jeb Bush out of office). He then got to appoint two Supreme Court justices.
You can play counterfactual and say that a President Gore would have behaved in exactly the same way, but I do not believe that.
Citizens United — Everyone voting in the majority was appointed by a Republican. The lone justice who did not was appointed by Ford. Ford, basically the lamest duck Republican.
Shelby County v Holder Everyone voting in the majority was appointed by a Republican.
Italian Colors v American Express Everyone voting in the majority was appointed by a Republican.
Obergefell v Hodges — all of the dissents written by Republican appointees.
Now, maybe you don’t think that ruling that corporations have 1st amendment rights, rolling back the Voting Rights Act, making it more difficult to file class action suits, or gay marriage is important to your life. That’s ok. I actually want the federal government to be able to mitigate the shittiness of various state legislatures somewhat. That doesn’t happen with Republicans controlling all three branches of the federal government.
If voting truly didn’t matter anymore, people wouldn’t be fighting so hard to gerrymander districts and implement new/old restrictive measures to suppress voter turnout.
Fair points. Thanks. I don’t think voting or any of it matters, though. The world even 50 years hence is going to be utterly unrecognizable no matter what we do.
People just have no idea. I don’t even write about it because almost no one believes it (wants to believe it, really) but scientists are whispering it. And they’re right.
What’s going to happen will make the decline and fall of Rome look like a minor party outing.