Similar comments from my Millennial children. Let's face it. They are graduating college with crushing debt, have fewer good job prospects and even the good prospects will pay less than what they did 20 years ago. And with Obamacare, they can stay on their parents insurance longer, but after that, they are forced to buy crappy, high deductible insurance. Yes, if Trump wins, we may see Roe v. Wade overturned or curtailed. But if Hillary is elected, we will see more of the same status quo. In short, the Millennials have nothing to lose and would almost rather 'turn-up the fever' than suffer through a permanent flu.

with your daughter too. Lesser of two evils is still....

Too bad the party isn't smart enough. An indictment would change the race quickly. I know many of you don't think it will happen. I think is is possible. We all know that justice in this country wears green glasses (money doesn't talk it swears). However, there is already so much public info of the Clinton email/foundation issues that if she isn't indicted, that's all MSM will talk about through the GE. Unless there is a quid pro quo, MSM silence for the TPP.

I'm with your daughter. I will not vote for Hillary.

I tried to post a similar sentiment over there to diary on "Burnie or bust (that was magically closed to new comments).

It is not my job to rationalize and compromise my deeply held belief's to vote for her.
It is her job, by her words and especially deeds, to curry my favor and win my vote.
I see little chance of the latter happening.

Oops

Hopefully your daughter won't be discouraged by the cries of "you're letting Trump win!" or "you're too young and naive and don't understand how politics work", or "you're going to let the Supreme Court potentially change for generations!" and other nonsense that will inevitably be thrown her way. Entrenched political and corporate power think they can use these arguments to perpetually keep people in line and voting out of fear. To play into these fears is to ultimately vote for nothing to ever change.

Steven D, you have a wise and perceptive daughter. Young people like her give me some hope for the future.

I fully expect that the merits of the lesser-of-two-evils argument in favor of a vote for Clinton will be debated ad nauseam between now and November. FWIW, here is my take.

Yes, great harm will be done if the Republican candidate is elected President. And it can scarcely be disputed that on at least a few issues, such as Supreme Court appointments, Clinton would be at least marginally better. But in my view, all of the benefits of a corporate Democrat rather than a corporate Republican in the White House are dwarfed by the far greater harm that will be done by the electorate continuing to validate a closed, duopolistic political system in which, on the vast majority of significant issues, the two major parties offer merely a distinction without a meaningful difference.

Again and again, the genuinely progressive faction of the Democratic electorate has lined up behind right wing neo-liberals like the Clintons and Barack Obama, and for their support have scarcely been rewarded with so much as lip service attention being paid to the issues that are central to the progressive agenda. Rahm Emanuel's "fucking retards" comment seems fairly emblematic of how the "Democratic wing" of the party is actually perceived by the corporate/DLC faction. Supporting neo-lib Democrats as a means of thwarting the neo-con Republicans is no more than a blueprint for ensuring continued irrelevance for that bloc of voters that embraces Bernie Sanders vision. We can, and we must, do better, and the clock is ticking as never before. To quote Dr. King:

We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood -- it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, Too late."

This comment along the same lines from a facebook friend is also really good:

Steve Justino ·

Works at City Park Law Group

People who argue that progressives are letting "the perfect be the enemy of the good" are minimizing and dismissing, the legitimate concerns of people, like me, who cannot, and will not, support a Corporate Democrat, like Hillary Clinton. She is Wall Street’s candidate in this election, and Monsanto’s, which means, by definition, that she cannot be mine.
For me, Bernie's campaign is, literally, the last stand for the "Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.” If Hillary wins the nomination, it will prove, to me, that in the wake of CITIZENS UNITED, money, and corporate power, cannot be defeated at the ballot box.

“End Corporate Personhood” and “Overturn Citizens United” are not just political tag lines for me. They define what this election is actually about.

It is not a matter of “the perfect being the enemy of the good.” Those analogies are offensive to me. I am taking a well-thought-out, principled, position.

I know that there are significant policy differences between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party - especially on social issues - but those policy differences are the kind of issues that elections are meant to resolve. Sometimes we - progressives - win on those issues, and sometimes we lose. That's politics.

If this election was just about those types of policy issues, you would be right. The decision to vote for Hillary if she is the nominee would be a “no brainer.” But this election is about much more than that.

The issues of “corporate constitutional rights,” and "money = speech" are more important to me. They are existential. They will determine whether, or not, America can establish itself as a true, functional, "small 'd'/small 'r' democratic republic, or, whether we, as a nation, will continue our slide into fascist plutocracy.

On that structural, existential, plain, Hillary is a “dyed-in-the-wool” corporatist, and I won't support her just because she has a (D) after her name. Those are THE most important issues facing America, today, and, there is, quite simply, too much at stake to waste my vote on a corporatist Democrat.

I disagree with the assertion that I often hear, that voting Green is "voting for a Republican by default." Voting GREEN will be voting my hopes, rather than my fears. If the Democratic Party wants my vote, they are going to have to give me a true progressive to vote for. If they don't, and a Republican is elected, that will be the Democratic Party's fault, not mine.

Thom Hartmann has written that it took the first Republican Great Depression to give rise to the Great Prosperity ushered in by FDR's progressive New Deal. I agree, and I think that it is going to take the next Republican Great depression to give rise to the progressive political realignment that NEEDS to happen in this country.

That gives rise to two insurmountable problems – for me – with the idea of voting for Hillary Clinton, and the Corporatist Democratic status quo. Firstly, voting for yet another Corporatist, will literally, be voting for our own death and destruction. Is there any real doubt in your mind that President Hillary will sign the democracy-destroying, environment-destroying, TPP if/when, it lands on her desk? There is none in mine. Hillary has a former Monsanto lobbyist, Jerry Crawford, running her campaign. Is there any doubt in your mind that President Hillary will force Frankenfoods down our collective throats? Again, there is none in mine.

Secondly, when corporate Democrats bail out the Corporatocracy (like they did when they bailed out the big banks in 2008), it prevents the necessary "crash" from happening, and the people don't rise up against the Republican Party, and "run them out of town on a rail."

If the GOP wins the White House, and retains both houses of Congress, in 2016, the Democrats should just step aside, and let the National GOP do to America what Gov. Brownshirt has done to Kansas. Then, as painful as it will be for America, the Democrats needs to let it crash. It may sound harsh, but, I am afraid that it will take a Second Republican Great Depression, for America’s "Tea Party Fever" to break. People need to wake up to the insanity that is “Reaganomics.” Only then, will they be ready to return to the sound, proven-to-be-successful, Keynesian economic policies that gave rise to the Great Prosperity.
A "Bernie v. Any Republican" election will present America with a once-in-a-generation opportunity for the real political realignment that this Country so desperately needs. A "Hillary v. Any Republican" election will be a "status quo" election. "Reaganomics" will continue to be the dominant political/economic philosophy in America, and President Hillary will soften the edges of austerity just enough to prevent that real, necessary, political realignment from ever taking place.

Emphasis added.

to heel: House Democrats Push Back On Obama Plan To Cut Drug Prices

The corruption is too deep to rebuild this party. It needs to be torn down once and for all.

I wholeheartedly agree with her.

However, my biggest fear is that there will be just enough scared voters to put Hillary over the top for the win. THEN, as always, the Dems won't give a damn about people like your daughter or me or any progressive or liberal -- they'll do as they damn please and they'll do whatever it takes to get themselves reelected again, while at the same time setting up their post-congressional time for a lucrative job with the people who gave them money to win their seats back.

I am giving up, truly, except for a small number of tremendous candidates like Bernie, Tim Canova, and a few others.

Well done your daughter.

Personally, I refuse to be driven to vote for a Democrat solely out of fear of what a Republican might do. Fox News has used fear of terrorist/terrorism to drive their electoral successes and spawned the Tea Party to fuel anger driven voting - anger at Obama for taking their guns (not!); anger at illegal immigrants for crime (not!); anger at women for emasculating men (hah!); anger at federal regulation for protecting the environment (we wish!); anger at...

Hillary's major donors are 1%ers with heavy corporate interests. Corporations don't care about social issues. Corporations don't have the capacity to care about women's rights, civil rights, immigration, racism or civil liberties. Social issues are means to distract and divide voters into not focusing on the real interests of corporations - any and all public policy that improves their corporate bottom line. This tells me that corporate Democrats aren't necessarily committed to the social issues they espouse. They use their positions on social issues to separate voters into pro-this and anti-that to avoid telling voters what they promise to deliver to their corporate campaign sponsors.

Hillary has shifted her rhetoric leftwards in response to Bernie's challenge. But the virtual IOUs she owes in return for corporate campaign funds do not differ significantly from most Republican candidates. (Most Republicans, funded by a similar pot of campaign funds, will have similar policy agenda. Trump's agenda seems to be less about increasing the wealth & power of the 1% and more about advancing his ranking within that echelon.)

Republicans and corporate Democrats aren't competing to win elections (their common sponsors win regardless); they are competing to dupe the largest number of citizens to vote for them.

So I agree with your daughter. Be fearless, be courageous, vote with your heart and vote rationally.

Your daughter has her head on straight Steve

Yes, he's rude and crude and often purely obnoxious, and he started out talking the tea-party line. Notice a moderation of that as he got stronger? He even defended Planned Parenthood on a Republican debate stage. Pre-campaign, he was fairly socially tolerant. But, some important stuff:

1. TPP! It elevates the "expected profits" of multinational corporations over human citizens' needs and concerns. If a corporation could make more profit by poisoning us, and a law prevents that, we have to pay them for that "loss." This isn't theoretical, it's already happening, mostly to poor countries, but also to us - even without the expanded corporate power in the TPP. $Hillary worked to support it until she realized she needed to pretend to oppose it. Trump has been arguing against these trade deals for 30 years, since NAFTA (he did it on Oprah, way back, but I don't know the link). The TPP is also the death of any chance to even moderate Climate Change, or to adapt to it.

2. "Regime change" in small countries that put their national interests above the "expected profits" of multinational corporations (these are usually Left regimes, though not always, outrageously supporting their poorer citizens). Trump opposes it, and sounds almost like Bernie on the issue. $Hillary loves it - Libya was the richest country in Africa, with health care and education for its citizens, and after $Hillary's "We came, we saw, he died" (chortle), it's a smoking ruin and a breeding ground for al Qaeda, ISID, etc. Honduras?!!

3. "America First"? Isn't it time to think about what our own people need? What a thought! No, $Hillary wants more invasions and droning of poor countries, and more Wall Street profits. And I suspect she'll want to bring us dissenters "to heel." The TPP also doesn't allow Buy American or Buy Local.