Arguing the Case for Bernie Sanders Over Hillary Clinton: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bern

Whatever the issues, and whatever the candidates’ actual or seeming positions on them, what it comes down to for me is their focus. When I look at Bernie Sanders, I see one of the most honest politicians we’ve known in decades and a person who deeply cares for people, to the point of making sacrifices for them. He is focused on the needs of the people. When I look at Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, I see someone who often doesn’t seem to care about people, even to the point of sacrificing the interests of the people for the sake of earning more money or ensuring her political future. She is focused on saying what she needs to say to get elected.

As a person who plans to vote for Bernie Sanders, I have found it concerning that people are not really getting the full story about Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, mainly because standard media outlets seem to be focusing for the most part on repeating what Hillary says, without question.

A Campaign of Conflicts

The conventional wisdom is that there's only one democratic candidate for president who is electable and would be effective in office. The problem is, the conventional wisdom is set by the establishment, and in this case, the establishment is Hillary Clinton herself. Whatever she says is treated as fact by those with similar vested interests, otherwise known as conflicts of interest.

For example, several Democratic Party pundits who have been making appearances as guest commentators on network news shows work for companies that are employed by the Hillary Clinton campaign or by PACs that back Hillary Clinton. That might not be a problem, except that they don’t disclose the fact that they are employed by the current Clinton campaign. Instead, they are treated as independent observers, with no or very peripheral mention that they may have been associated with Hillary at some time. This is a classic conflict of interest, when you purport to provide unbiased observations although you’ve actually been paid by the person who you are talking positively about.

Although Hillary herself probably didn’t tell these people exactly what to say, there is an obvious risk of bias, these people are being quoted by the media, and those quotes are being picked up and repeated by the public without knowing the full story. You can find more information on this situation in Lee Fang’s article in The Intercept (https://theintercept.com/2016/02/25/tv-pundits-praise-hillary-clinton-on-air-fail-to-disclose-financial-ties-to-her-campaign/).

This is the same sort of issue that arises around Bernie’s supposed “smear campaign,” as Hillary describes it, regarding the potential for bias in her political statements, decisions, and policies. As Bernie very fairly points out, Hillary has received large amounts of money from various companies, industries, and other special interests, most significantly the finance industry—the top industry donor for her in this campaign. Based on data from the Center for Responsive Politics (https://www.opensecrets.org/pres16/indus.php?cycle=2016&id=N00000019&type=f), as of February 22, 2016, Hillary’s campaign has received more than $18.7 million from the securities and investment industry during this presidential campaign. That amounts to nearly 10% of all the campaign funding she’s received (about $188 million, https://www.opensecrets.org/pres16/).

In the eyes of the law and business ethics, when you are receiving money from an outside interest—regardless of how saintlike you may make yourself out to be—there is a substantial risk that you will make, or have made, decisions in your own interest (that is, your bank account) and/or that of your benefactor, rather than in the interest of your employer—in this case the American people. It is not a “smear,” as Hillary calls it, but the usual assumption in this kind of situation. It’s also one aspect of the law in which the person is, essentially, considered guilty until proven innocent. That is, if you can’t actively show that you consistently make decisions in the public’s interest even when someone else is essentially paying you to make decisions to the contrary, then the courts have to assume the worst.

In stark contrast, Bernie’s largest supporters are in the retirement, education, and health professionals “industries” (https://www.opensecrets.org/pres16/indus.php?cycle=2016&id=N00000528&type=f), and I don’t know if one could “smear” him too heavily for looking out for the interests of retired people, teachers, and doctors and nurses.

Remember the Environment?

In all the hubbub, the media, and many voters, have lost sight of the issue of the environment, an issue important enough that it could render pretty much all other issues irrelevant.

Hearkening back to the CBS democratic debate on Tuesday, October 13, 2015, is one way to bring this issue back to the forefront. According to the New York Times transcript (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/14/us/politics/democratic-debate-transcript.html?_r=1), when asked “What is the greatest national security threat to the United States,” Bernie Sanders was the one who replied:

The scientific community is telling us that if we do not address the global crisis of climate change, transform our energy system away from fossil fuel to sustainable energy, the planet that we’re going to be leaving our kids and our grandchildren may well not be habitable. That is a major crisis.

I’m not saying that Chafee’s (remember him?), O’Malley’s, and Clinton’s responses about the Middle East, Iran, and nuclear weapons were inappropriate, but the fact that Bernie chose one of his first debate appearances to focus on the environment suggests that maybe he considers the environment a priority.

Looking at their overall voting records and statements they’ve made, Bernie and Hillary come out looking fairly similar on the issue of the environment. But, again, looking a little deeper and considering the possibility of there being conflicts of interest in Hillary’s decisions can cast doubt on an otherwise seemingly strong record regarding the environment.

An exposé by Mariah Blake in Mother Jones (http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/09/hillary-clinton-fracking-shale-state-department-chevron#disqus_thread) reveals that during her term as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton “worked closely with energy companies to spread fracking around the globe,” even including sending “a cable to US diplomats, asking them to collect information on the potential for fracking in their host countries.”

The other day, I received an e-mail from the Bernie Sanders campaign stating his position against fracking and mentioning that Hillary is still actively associated with pro-fracking firms. Looking a little deeper, Brad Johnson’s Daily Kos article (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/2/26/1491970/-Bernie-Sanders-Hillary-Clinton-Supports-Fracking-I-Do-Not) reveals that Hillary is still encouraging the expansion of natural gas extraction, while Bernie is busy working on initiatives against it, such as the Keep It in the Ground Bill (http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/11/04/introducing-keep-it-ground-bill-sanders-goes-big-climate).

Flip-Flopping

People make jokes about it—http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/hillary-expected-to-adopt-all-of-sanderss-positions-by-noon—but one of the many stark contrasts between Hillary and Bernie is that Bernie has been consistent in his message, focus, progressive policies, and commitment to social justice for decades. Hillary, on the other hand, has tended to adjust her message for whatever audience she happened to be talking to, or whatever she thinks people want to hear, or whatever she finds out is winning votes away from her and for Bernie, or, one could conjecture, the corporate special interests that pour money into her campaigns or pay for her speaking engagements.

Just during the course of this campaign, Hillary has flip-flopped on several issues, but she has done so in the longer term as well. Usually the difference has boiled down to this: how she voted/acted when she was a senator or secretary of state, and the position she claims now that she’s running for president. Researchers for the “Hillary or Bernie Quiz” (http://www.bernievshillary.org/#/home) have found that, among other examples, Hillary has switched sides on the TPP, the Keystone Pipeline, drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, the deceptively named “No Child Left Behind” Act, the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, and same sex marriage. So far, the biggest inconsistency I’ve noted in Bernie’s position is that, in response to one of the debate questions about gun control, he said “we’re going to have to look into that” instead of stating his previous position.

The Bottom Line

As I said at the beginning, whatever the issues, and whatever the candidates’ actual or seeming positions on them, what it comes down to for me is their focus. Bernie Sanders is focused on the needs of the people. Hillary Clinton is focused on saying what she needs to say to get elected.

Given this disparity, I would be reluctant to vote for Hillary Clinton but confident in voting for Bernie Sanders. I’m confident that when it comes time for any decision to be made as president, Bernie Sanders will always have the best interests of the people of America—not the corporations of America...or the Cayman Islands—in mind, regardless of his level of experience with the particular topic. I’m also confident that he will choose the right advisors to advise him in making important decisions when it comes to things like military action, since he’s not the hawk that Hillary is.

Extra Links List

This post focuses on just a few select issues, but there’s a lot more good information out there, including on the most recent guest post in this blog. To learn more, please check out some of the following links.

Summaries of Bernie’s Strengths vs. Hillary
http://simpleserial.blogspot.com/2016/02/cataloging-bern-reasoned-and-also.html
http://senatorpatjehlen.cmail20.com/t/ViewEmail/r/B81B1E1E49DFBA782540EF23F30FEDED/006C6EEF495CCB742540EF23F30FEDED

Foreign Policy
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/02/bernie-sanders-foreign-poicy-213619
https://theintercept.com/2016/02/12/henry-kissingers-war-crimes-are-central-to-the-divide-between-hillary-clinton-and-bernie-sanders/

Electability Against Republicans
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_sanders-5565.html
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/poll-against-bernie-sanders-donald-trump-would-get-schlonged-20151223
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/h-a-goodman/bernie-sanders-destroys-donald-trump-by-13-points-6-more-than-clinton-_b_8936840.html
http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/poll-sanders-outperforms-clinton-matchup-against-trump-n498076

Working Across the Aisle
https://www.quora.com/Who-would-be-most-able-to-work-with-Republicans-Bernie-Sanders-or-Hillary-Clinton https://www.reddit.com/r/SandersForPresident/comments/32guj6/how_would_sanders_reach_across_the_aisle_if_he/

The Environment
https://newrepublic.com/article/124381/2016-presidential-candidates-view-climate-change
http://www.thomhartmann.com/users/telliottmbamsc/blog/2015/04/one-women-climate-killer-how-hillary-clintons-state-department-sol

Race
https://berniesanders.com/issues/racial-justice/

Chelsea Clinton’s Connection to Corruption and the Finance Industry
http://www.snopes.com/politics/clintons/mezvinsky.asp

A Reminder of Just How Much Money We Throw Away on Military Spending
https://www.nationalpriorities.org/campaigns/military-spending-united-states/