PARTY (IMP)UNITY

Integrity is like common sense; everyone thinks they have it but most people don’t. Every mainstream Republican who capitulated and endorsed Donald Trump has no integrity. Jeb Bush did not endorse Donald Trump but that doesn’t mean he has integrity; it means his feelings were hurt. Ted Cruz did not endorse Donald Trump but that doesn’t mean he has integrity; it means he is maneuvering for his 2020 presidential run. Democrats who watched in horror as delegates to the Republican convention lined up to salute a fear mongering demagogue are shaking their heads and wondering, “Will they vote for anyone as long as they are Republican? How bad does someone have to be before they can’t support him? At least we Democrats have integrity.”

Which brings us to Hillary Clinton and her legion of lemmings. She supports the Trans Pacific Partnership, a deal that will make NAFTA look like a gravy train for American workers. That’s ok. She supported NAFTA; even a respected apologist for free trade noted that NAFTA produced a crippling economic crisis for Mexico, not to mention “real collateral damage to blue-collar America. That’s ok. She took $600,000 in paid speeches from Wall Street. That’s ok. She takes campaign money from every big corporation in America. That’s ok. She has called for more militarization in the Middle East including a no-fly zone in Syria, sure to provoke Russia. That’s ok. She won’t even entertain the idea of single payer health care, an idea so radical that almost all of Europe and the developed world have adopted it. That’s ok. She unconditionally supports an increasingly violent and reactionary Israel. That’s ok. In the most important vote in the last 50 years she supported George W. Bush’s transparently obvious lies in authorizing the invasion of Iraq. That’s ok.

Finally, after months of Sen. Bernie Sanders claiming that the Democratic Party had rigged the nominating process to ensure Hillary’s nomination, emails are released proving his allegations true. That’s ok. So it’s time to pose the same question to the sneering Clinton supporters: “How bad does someone have to be before you can’t support them?”

To ignore these most recent email revelations, which open the real possibility that Sen. Sanders could well have gotten the Democratic nomination but for the nefarious and illegal Democratic establishment chicanery, is to lower oneself to the same level as the Trump supporters: support the party, period. That kind of lock-step response is what you would find in a fascist state dictatorship.

To say that she’s not as bad as Trump simply avoids the question. As the Democratic Convention opened to the soliloquys of heavyweights like Sarah Silverman, scolding the Sanders supporters to stop being “ridiculous” and vote for Hillary it becomes apparent that the Democrats’ plan is to have a big party with balloons and celebrities and music and laughs and rely on the incredibly short memories of the American people.

The upcoming victory parade will include a sprinkling of Spanish, (where else can Latinos turn?) with a grudging agreement to raise the minimum wage; a small serving of barbeque (with a similarly small probability of investing in America’s dying inner cities); and a large dose of amnesia-inducing rhetoric about being Strong Together, United for Victory, or whatever memorable slogan the Madison Avenue ad men settle on for the theme of the Clinton-Kaine campaign.

Speaking of the selection of Tim Kaine for Vice-President, there is no need to look further to find out the direction of the Clinton presidency. Not Cory Booker. Not Elizabeth Warren. Not Thomas Perez. Not Bernie Sanders. Not Sherrod Brown. But Tim Kaine? A good ole Southern white man who supports the Trans Pacific Partnership? How bad does someone have to be?