It Is Support For Hillary Clinton, Not Bernie Sanders, Which Is Hazardous To The Democratic Party

Fox Poll May

Eight years ago Hillary Clinton remained in the race until after the last primary. Now she would clearly like to see Sanders leave the race. Even if Clinton supporters agree that Sanders can remain in the race, they think that it is wrong for Sanders to criticize both Clinton’s views and the manner in which the primary battle has been rigged to favor Clinton.

The media covers this from Clinton’s perspective–at least the corporate mainstream media, and some bloggers who identify more with the Democratic Party than promoting liberal principles. There are exceptions. Trevor Timm tried to set the record straight at The Guardian.

The idea that Sanders, and to a certain extent others on the left, should stop criticizing Clinton because it gives Trump a better chance to win is ridiculous. Do people think that Clinton should get a free pass for the next six months – and potentially incentive to move to the right – on issues like Wall Street, trade, war, foreign policy and others? Just because Trump would be a disaster does not mean Clinton should be immune from criticism, nor does it mean holding her accountable will prevent her from ultimately defeating Trump.

Around this time in 2008, Clinton was still heavily criticizing the inevitable nominee Barack Obama and making divisive statements that make this primary campaign look like a walk in the park. How quickly everyone forgets (or pretends not to remember.) In fact, some of the issues Clinton once criticized Obama for are now the same issues that Sanders hits Clinton on. Clinton supporters had no problem with it then, but are now feigning being offended now.

It’s quite possible to both continue pushing Clinton on important issues and condemn Trump. The American people are smarter than the Clinton crowd is giving them credit for…

I can’t believe Sanders isn’t enthused about the Democratic party! Let’s see: the DNC chair is a vocal Clinton supporter who tried to hide Democratic debates on the worst nights possible for exposure, the committee cut Sanders off from its important voter database, various state party representatives have unfairly given Clinton an advantage in delegate selection processes, the party has a sweetheart fundraising deal with Clinton and they recently changed their rules to accept more money from corporate lobbyists – a practice that Sanders deplores.

Why should running in the Democratic primary stop Sanders from criticizing the party leadership and apparatus? Some prominent Democrats have even insinuated that he never should have ran as a Democrat if he doesn’t like the way the party is run.

Robert McChesney summed up the problem with media coverage (emphasis mine):

Well, it’s been deplorable, even by the standards—and we’ve talked about this in past years. Grading with a curve allowing for bad coverage as a rule, this has been, I think, an all-time low by mainstream corporate media. And NPR, I’d toss right in there.

You know, you have in the Sanders campaign—whatever one might think of Sanders, as a journalist, you’re looking at one of the most extraordinary political stories in decades that’s come along. You have someone who’s galvanized young support on really an entirely different vision of our society like no other candidate, again, in decades. As journalists, you’d think this would be heaven on Earth, this is the greatest story you could possibly ever cover; you’d look to the sky and say, “Thank you for putting me here in 2016.” Yet what we’ve seen is the Sanders campaign has been largely neglected—all the data shows this—barely covered. And the coverage and the framing of it has been largely through the eyes of the establishment for the Hillary Clinton campaign: This guy is a nuisance, he’s a pain in the butt; he’s getting in the way, in front of the real candidate, the presumptive nominee—presumptive going back to the very beginning. And when you see Sanders or one of his surrogates on the air, generally the tenor of the questioning is “What would Hillary’s people want to ask him?” You know, it’s never like “Let’s take these people on their own terms.” So you put it all together, it’s been pretty distressing and the source, I think, of frustration for a lot of people, that they’ve not really had a fair hearing and a fair exposure to people who rely upon cable news networks and the mainstream media to learn about politics.

Sanders has the right to both express his views and expose the corruption of the party leadership. He has actually gone rather light on Clinton in not using the scandals which surround her in the campaign. In contrast, it has been Clinton who has waged a dishonest Rovian-style campaign against Sanders.

It is not even a case of weakening the candidate who can beat Donald Trump, as that would be Bernie Sanders. Multiple polls, including both national and battleground state polls, have shown that Trump has tied up the race with Clinton while Sanders maintains a significant lead. Two new polls out show the same trend. Fox shows Trump leading Clinton 45 percent to 42 percent, while Sanders leads Trump 46 percent to 42 percent. Rasmussen shows Trump leading Clinton 42 percent to 37 percent.

These latest polls, which are even more favorable to Trump than those earlier in the week, could be showing a trend, or could be demonstrating  a house effect for Republicans. Regardless, numerous polls show that Democrats should be backing Bernie Sanders if they want to have the best chance of beating Donald Trump. Plus Democrats should be supporting the candidate who holds liberal principles as opposed to a candidate as conservative as Clinton.