When Hillary Clinton Attacks Trump, Progressives Lose

Hillary Clinton’s campaign has put its focus on the general election and Donald Trump. The real estate mogul has made himself an easy target, and deserves being verbally ripped apart for his comments. But progressives deserve to be heard too, and they risk giving up what they fought for this year out of fear.

How scared of Donald Trump are progressives?

Reuters reported that roughly half (46 percent) of Hillary Clinton’s supporters are voting for her to stop Donald Trump. It was the most popular reason for voting for the candidate followed by her policies (40) and her likability (11 percent).

The Bernie or Bust movement says there’s no way they’ll vote for Clinton. But other people on the liberal end of the spectrum are starting to say it’s time to overlook Clinton’s flaws as a candidate and unite against the Trumpocalypse. The New York Times even went after Susan Sarandon for saying she couldn’t bring herself to vote for Clinton, using Ralph Nader’s presidential bid as an example of how supporting left-wing outsiders can hurt the liberal movement.

It’s ridiculous to blame Bernie or Bust for a frighteningly tight race.

Donald Trump has a very poor favorability ratings, and he’s mired in controversy. This election is the DNC’s to lose, and they’re doing a good job of losing it so far by nominating a generally disliked Hillary Clinton in the middle of an FBI investigation.

More than that, most Bernie Sanders supporters are not Bernie or Bust, they’re progressives who care deeply about issues like social justice and income inequality who will largely vote for Clinton (if they really have to). More could be persuaded, if the candidate made bold moves like disbanding her super-PACs and adopting a Sanders-style grassroots financing model or giving the left ideas to be excited about like breaking up too-big-to-fail banks.

That seems very unlikely.

Instead, the DNC is attacking Donald Trump.

According to ABC News, in Clinton’s latest hits, she called Trump a “loose cannon” in Kentucky, adding that his public statements on policy are “scary, dangerous talk.”

She’s right — Trump’s callous attitude towards America’s allies and nuclear war is reason enough to be concerned without bringing up the numerous times he called for mass deportations or bans on Muslims entering the country.

But Clinton and the Democratic party are creating a boogeyman when they don’t need to. According to the New York Times, the media has already given Trump almost $2 billion in free media this election season – a lot of it bad. If controversy had any adverse affect on Donald Trump’s campaign, he’d be out of politics months ago.

In the meantime, Hillary Clinton is taking more big-money donations, now targeting wealthy conservative donors.

As previously reported by the Inquisitr, Clinton accepted about $2 million from Ted Cruz’s supporter James Simons and his hedge fund. Politico reports that the candidate’s supporters are also going after Jeb Bush’s former big-money backers and worried Wall Street bankers.

The move will alienate Sanders’ supporters, and risks the 69 percent of them who say they’ll support Hillary Clinton come November.

The liberals in the Democratic party deserve something more than fear of Trump or the lesser of two evils. Nominating Bernie Sanders, who polls better for the general election and is currently FBI investigation-free, would be best solution for victory (the same poll that says 69 percent of Sanders’ supporters would move to Clinton, says 79 percent of the other side would move to Sanders if he were the nominee).

Barring that, the Democratic party should willingly make major concessions to fight corporate special interests if they truly believe their own rhetoric about the GOP candidate. Progressives shouldn’t feel guilty about a potential Donald Trump presidency, not if Clinton and the Democrats aren’t willing to make a unifying compromise themselves.

[Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images]