This is the most toxic fact about Hillary Clinton that is almost certainly going to crush Hillary Clinton in the generals. I'm going to be making a thread about this, hopefully tonight. Look, here's the reality --at this point, everyone loses. If Sanders drops out now, if Sanders doesn't drop out now, Hillary is about to lose a substantially vital portion of the Democratic voting bloc (worse still, she is actually in the process of engendering Democrats to vote for Trump).
On trade, Trump would actually be able to outflank Hillary from the
left. She simply has no credibility, there.
There's another piece, also in
Salon , which you may have seen, regarding internecine conflict within the Democratic tent, between Sanders supporters, and the Clintonites. If you haven't seen it, you should check it out, here;
Stop laughing, Democrats! As the GOP goes down in flames, your post-Bernie civil war is almost here - Salon.com
Sanders represents what is now often referred to as the 'Warren wing' of the party, what Jesse Jackson used to call the 'democratic wing of the Democratic Party.' As the aforementioned article demonstrates, these two camps have fundamentally incompatible outlooks, and goals. I used to think there may have been a grain of truth to Michael Harrington's claim that the Democratic party opens the door to those on its left. Before Clinton, and the DLC, I think that might have been true. I just don't think that's possible, anymore. In the past, as much as I oppose the President's policies, I've argued that minimal improvementso were better than nothing, and that no matter how many drone strikes he ordered, or immigrants he deported, the GOP, particularly its completely deranged modern incarnation , was worse. I find it impossible to make that argument, today. I think if the Democratic party, as an institution, is exemplified by a corporatist hawk like Clinton, they deserve to lose. I'm actually starting to think that a Clinton victory might actually be worse, because it would further legitimize the profoundly anti-democratic neoliberal ideology she represents, by shrouding it in a micrometer-thin veneer of faux-progressivism.
My takeaway is, if Sanders loses the fight for the nomination, which looks likely to happen, is that the left has no choice but to abandon the Democratic party, wholesale, and devote itself, entirely, to the arduous, workmanlike task of building an institution which could one day challenge, and, ultimately, defeat it.
Now, I still don't believe that Donald Trump will be the nominee. There will be a brokered convention, John Kasich will be the nominee, and that's going to **** Hillary even worse. If she loses Ohio, and she loses a significant portion of the youth vote, her general election campaign just went terminal.
I concede, as the report from Global Research indicated, that evidence suggests Kasich would be the stronger candidate in the general. (As would Sanders.) However, I don't see how he could possibly get the nomination if he continues to trail Cruz, and Rubio. Cruz is the only one who has actually managed to beat Trump. The obvious course of action is for Rubio to join Cruz as his running mate, and consolidate the anti-Trump vote, and for Kasich to get out of the way. Again, unless we see a Kasich surge posthaste, I don't see how he could overtake Cruz/Rubio.
If Hillary loses Ohio, particularly if it's by upwards of 10 points, that would seem to necessitate a Sanders surge, that could close the gap. Unfortunately, I don't think this is likely.
The only good news there is that the economy will go tits up when a Republican is in office, and they'll take the fall. (Which I think is more than fair, given that they're the ones who sent us down this neoliberal rabbit hole.)
While this is a most anemic economic 'recovery', and I fullyour expect another economic disaster roughly on part with 2008, I don't see how we can be sure it would happen in the next four years. Furthermore, I see no reason why this would be the final straw for neoliberal economics, when the former was not.
I also think it's worth keeping in mind that while crisis can open opportunities for the left, that is a double-edged sword. Poverty, and inequality may push people towards a Sanders, or a Corbyn, but it might also push them towards Le Pen, or Mussolini.