by William Skink

On the eve of Bernie formalizing his capitulation to less-evil Hillary, let’s take a quick spin around the local blogosphere to see what the sentiment is like out there.

First up, Cowgirl. While this post is from the end of June and is about the disunity of Montana Republicans, I was able to get a peek into the wishful thinking of Democrats:

Democrats keep a good sense of what voters care about, and they allow it to exert a pull, a force, on their thinking, their policies, their pronouncements, their speeches, their message. It’s one of the reasons that you rarely see internal divisions in the same extent as what you see among Republicans. Wittich having been convicted of a massive scheme to evade the law, it doesn’t matter. He is a true believer, and therefore welcome to be leader. Winter is coming for the GOP, and it’s going to be cold, dark and lonely.

To be fair, this post was written before Comey enshrined Hillary’s immunity from being held criminally accountable for her recklessness with classified information–much more serious than what Wittich did–but since then, and after losing progressive fights over the platform, there has been nothing from Cowgirl that indicates any of that matters. Cowgirl must be a true believer of identity politics, and therefore Hillary is welcome to be “her” leader.

Moving on, here is a pretzel of a post from “Logic Rules” over at Logicosity, titled Hillary or The Donald: Lack of Integrity Disqualifies Who?????(I hope I got the number of questions marks correct). Let’s see what Logic Rules has to say:

I am no Hillary fan. Guilty or not, her “unforced errors” demonstrate a level of arrogance that is dangerous. But as for governing, I have all the confidence in the world that she will stand for the policies that she endorses: Infrastructure spending, expanding health care coverage, protecting voter rights, and yes, tax the rich.

Those that think Trump is the answer are blind to the fact that this guy lies about everything, and uses standard propaganda techniques to stir the masses.

I don’t even know where to start with this crap. Anyone actually paying attention to Hillary’s record of deceit, corruption and actual policy decisions that have perpetrated death and destruction in places like Libya and Honduras can’t be allowed to let all that pass by using a term like “unforced errors” to minimize Hillary’s long list of treachery. And then, after the bland acknowledgement that those errors demonstrate “a level of arrogance that is dangerous”, to state in the next sentence that “I have all the confidence in the world that she will stand for the policies she endorses” is simply breathtaking. Where the hell is the logic in that, Logic Rules?

The last two paragraphs are even better:

Hillary lacks personal integrity but it will not impact how she performs her executive duties–it’ll only be upsetting when we don’t get all the specifics of what or how she accomplishes them. Trump lacks any integrity, both personal and political, There is no policy that he espouses today that you can expect him to support as President.

And my vote will be cast for who I think can govern best. I’ll do my best to set aside my personal feelings about the candidates’ ethics, and decide based on who will govern most effectively. With Trump, anyone who professes to know what they’ll get is a liar. Unfortunately, one of the worst kind, because they are lying to themselves.

How can anyone claim to know that lacking personal integrity won’t impact performing executive duties? How can anyone ignore the plethora of policy shifts Hillary has enacted when the polling shows she can? And when did ethical concerns stop mattering to a voter’s consideration of who to support for president?

Personally, I don’t think the worst kind of liar is the one who lies to themselves. I think the worst kind of liar is the one who lies to obtain wealth and power. I don’t know if Trump is that kind of liar (he probably is), but I am absolutely certain Hillary is that kind of liar, and so far her lies have proved fatal for far more people than Trump’s.

I saved the best for last. At Intelligent Discontent some Bernie activist writing as “ABC” has a guest post titled The Insurrection May Have Fanned Out, But Will the Embers of Revolution Continue to Bern?

There are a lot of well-meaning, earnest words and sentiments expressed in this post–even a bit of Neoliberal criticism, which I always appreciate–but the crux of the post, at least for me, is how that criticism of Neoliberalism pivots to supporting Hillary over Trump:

We reject the techno-plutocratic world of austerity and free trade in favor of Democratic Socialism; there is neither a duty nor an expectation that we should forget this critical distinction and enthusiastically endorse Hillary. That said, 2016 is exceptional in its proximity to neo-fascism helmed by Con-all Trump. Within the landscape of the status quo there is still room for direct action and political dissent. In Trump’s world, we would have no space to agitate for social democracy. Neoliberalism is far more preferable than Fascism; the two are not even comparable. Thus, those of us who live in battleground states should strongly consider pulling the lever for Clinton while the rest of us may want to either write in Bernie or vote Jill Stein. Regardless of who we choose for president, we must turn out this November in full force in order to elect the most progressive candidates to our local offices.

Yeah, no thank you ABC, I XYZ that you want to zip it up and keep the junk contained, and you’ll probably get your wish of seeing progressives turn out to do that dirty work of bloodying their hands for Hillary, but you mistakenly assume that different terms mean different operating principles behind different political parties.

The trade deals coming–the sovereignty-killing trade deals Hillary’s neoliberal foot soldiers helped kill on the platform level–have a better shot getting pushed through by a Democrat. Another Clinton proved that last century. One of Trump’s greatest political maneuvers has been to get to the left of Hillary on trade.

The terms we throw around may have less relevance as this new form of Corporatism we are just getting a peek at through trade agreements like the TTP emerges to claim a legal authority superseding national sovereignty. Fascism includes government as a part of the authoritarian structure ordering society. This emerging Corporatism suggests eradicating the authority of government, leaving consumers helpless to the whims of profit, power and control.

Let’s say, for example, the people of Dallas decide that as horrible as the Rambo assault on police was, the use of a robot to blow up the suspect is just one dystopian step too far, and they pass a local ordinance limiting the use of robots to non-lethal functions, like remotely detonating bombs.

Those who support the coming trade deals want a future where any governmental limitation on business, like selling bomb-delivering-robots for the lethal disposal of psychotic police killers, can be challenged in a higher, supranational court system.

Fascism might be a conveniently scary term to toss at Trump, but those who have taken a deeper look at the horrors wrought by Neoliberalism understand the success and continuation of the Neoliberal assault is just as dangerous, if not more so for its greater potential for success than last century’s failed Fascist push to rule the world.