As a college student and a Hillary Clinton supporter, I have spent the balance of more than a few loud arguments explaining to my friends why she is progressive enough to earn their support. But far too often, I have found myself making surprisingly little headway. Many of my friends seem to view Clinton as a corrupt war profiteer who is morally equivalent to Donald Trump. This is no isolated opinion; there are several million people in this country, many of them my age, who find voting for Clinton so painful that they are willing to accept a Trump presidency.
Clinton was the 11th most liberal US senator and has been fighting for progressivism’s most cherished causes since well before I was born, but this truly does not matter to many of her opponents on the left. This pattern is not new; in fact we have seen it play out right across the political aisle. It starts by questioning moderate politicians, challenging compromise and arguing for ever more strident ideological purity.
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It has become clear to me that much opposition to Clinton stems not from policy but from this political inflexibility; the moments when Clinton has done something they disagree with are simply unacceptable to an increasingly ideological and growing faction on both sides of the political divide. For the Republicans, this has meant the Tea Party and a Trumpian right-wing nationalism. For the Democrats, it has meant protests at the DNC and Jill Stein supporters. As democrats, we should learn a lesson from the past: The Republicans allowed ideological puritanism to fester, and now they are the party of Trump.
And so I have come to a realization -- I am finished justifying Clinton’s policies and actions to the far-left -- and I have a message to those voters who refuse to support her: the truth is that Clinton, while a very liberal politician, does not now, nor will ever, embody the ideological or moral purity you so fervidly support. And I am proud to vote for her because of it.
I personally hold exceptionally left wing views; I believe the economy as currently constructed is grotesquely distorted in favor of the wealthy; I believe campaign finance reform to be a moral and democratic imperative; I believe climate change to be a clear and present danger to the American way of life. But while I hold these views, I recognize that I may sometimes be wrong, and that others may be right instead.
Extremists on both sides have failed to realize that there are things more important than policy: namely, the universal democratic values of moderation and compromise. The Republican Party forgot these values, and now they are the party of obstruction and of Trump. But the dangers of unfettered idealism transcend partisanship, and if the American left follows the same path as the Republican Party, the contempt we feel for the radical right may soon become an exercise in hypocrisy.
And that is why we must elect Hillary Clinton, not just to stop Trump from winning, but to prevent the rot that destroyed the Republican Party from spreading -- not despite her flaws, but because of them. Many voters reject Clinton on the grounds of ideological purity, but purity untempered by moderation and compromise is inevitably self-destructive. I don’t agree with everything Clinton has done, and that is how it should be. I will vote for her because she is better, not because I think her perfect.
Voting for Clinton doesn’t just stop Trump; it prevents Trumpism from debasing the democratic party just as surely as it has the Republicans.
