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I got into a bit of a Twitter thing with my old friend Glenn Greenwald. (And I do consider Glenn a friend, even if we don’t agree on everything — he does important work, fearlessly.) Glenn expressed concern that Hillary Clinton is now garnering support from notable Republicans, such as prominent neo-conservative Robert Kagan.
Hillary also recently won the support of Brent Scowcroft, who was the national security adviser under President Ford and H.W. Bush.
Glenn, and other liberals (I received a number of tweets from others), have a problem with that.
As I tweeted, I hope every Republican abandons Donald Trump and votes for Hillary Clinton. And I hope they give her money, and tell their friends to give her money.
Why? Let’s start with this wonderfully succinct tweet from Jon Lipe:
And I’d expand on that:
- More Rs for Hillary ->
- More $ for Hillary ->
- More ads for Hillary ->
- More depressed GOP donations, water-cooler talk, and election turnout ->
- More GOTV (get out the vote efforts on election day) for Hillary ->
- More votes for Hillary ->
- More votes for down-ticket Dems ->
- More Dems in the 115th Congress ->
- More progressive legislation.
You win elections with votes and (in America) money. I want as much as possible of each for my candidates and my party. And short of a modern-day Hitler, I’d be hard-pressed to care where either comes from.
This disdain for GOP votes poses a particularly interesting conundrum for Sanders supporters, as Bernie Sanders himself made clear in late December 2015 that he was interested in wooing Trump supporters — and you really don’t get much worse than Trump supporters:
Here’s more from Buzzfeed:
On the Sunday after Christmas, Sanders made that pitch directly in an appearance on a morning news show.
“For his working class and middle class support, we can make the case that if we really want to address the issues that people are concerned about,” Sanders said. “We need policies that bring us together, that take on the greed of Wall Street the greed of corporate America and create a middle class that works for all of us rather than an economy that works just for a few.”
In New Hampshire, where Sanders remains in the lead according to public polling averages, Sanders campaign strategists genuinely believe they can win over some Trump supporters by speaking to their economic angst.
And Sanders was right then, just as Clinton is now. You don’t win elections by putting stringent purity tests on who can vote for you. Ronald Reagan, when questioned about his supporters, would reply something to the effect of “they’re supporting my policies, I’m not supporting theirs.”
Ironically, Bernie Sanders and his supporters are especially proud of getting non-traditionally-Democratic voters (i.e., independents and even Republicans) to vote for Bernie in the primaries. We kept hearing about how open primaries were better than closed primaries, because open ones permit everyone to participate and support our candidates. This notion that we’re now going to pick and choose which “everyone” we like and which we don’t runs counter to that welcoming message.
Also problematic, how would you implement such a policy? Only voters who have never voted Republican can vote for Hillary (or Bernie, for that matter), and everyone else can take a hike? Or is it okay if you voted for Mitt Romney, but not for Ronald Reagan? Where do you draw the line?
Of course, there’s an ironic side to all of this as well. We keep claiming that Republicans are evil, and we keep demanding that voters stop supporting them, but then when the voters finally listen and support us instead, we get all NIMBY about it.
Which way is it — do we want people to stop voting Republican or not?
Back to my twitter discussion with Glenn Greenwald. Glenn seemed to suggest that Republicans are supporting Hillary because she’s really a (or her policies are really) Republican. I responded that maybe, just maybe, they’re supporting her simply because they know that the alternative, Donald Trump, will destroy their party and their country.
If the shoe were on the other foot, I’d do the same.
Follow me on Twitter: @aravosis — Win a pony! (not really)
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