It was only a few short months ago that every liberal I knew was celebrating Hillary's campaign announcement. I cried actual tears of sheer joy in the backseat of my sorority sister's VW Bug as we traveled back from a statewide sorority event, and my social media erupted with lots of "YASSS HILLARY YASSS" and other equally excited sentiments from my leftist friends. However, my Facebook feed has since become decidedly less pro-Hillary. This coincides with increased media attention to the scandals surrounding Hillary, and perhaps some of my friends believe her recent swing to the left in policy positions is not genuine, but I believe the single largest factor in this decline has been the declaration of Bernie Sanders' candidacy.
I have very few complaints about Bernie Sanders. In fact, if ISideWith is to be believed, I agree with him on more issues than I do Hillary. I believe he would be a great president, and I understand his appeal. However, since I live in the real world, there are realities that I have to consider when deciding who I want to be my candidate in a general election: Does this person have his or her priorities arranged how I would like them to be? Even if so, is this person electable? And if he or she is not electable, is his or her running worth it for symbolic purposes and can we afford to make that sacrifice? Unfortunately for Bernie, only one of the two real contenders for the Democratic nomination checks out.
Let's imagine for a moment that Hillary were not up 40 points in composite public opinion polling. If Sanders were to somehow receive the Democratic nomination because of the young and very liberal turned out en masse to vote for him in May, there is virtually no chance of him standing up against any one of the likely Republican candidates unless the old and racist do the same for Donald Trump. The American public is not going to elect a self-avowed socialist to the highest office in the land, regardless of whether or not I kind of like that about him.
Continuing in the hypothetical, let's say that in January 2017 we swear in a Republican president. It's Donald Trump again and there are dementors there just for good measure. We lose a couple members of the Supreme Court to retirement or father time, including queen of my bleeding liberal heart, Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Trump appoints a couple far right wing justices to get nice and cuddly with Scalia. We lose the Affordable Care Act. We lose the hard fought and so recently won right to marriage equality. We lose Roe v. Wade. We lose 50 years of progress because we vote without considering the very real implications of that vote.
Would I love to be young and idealistic? Of course I would. But there is simply too much at stake this time around for me to vote for someone who cannot and will not win in a general election.
This is Hillary's time. She is the most qualified contender in the field, Democrat or Republican. She has raised insane amounts of money almost entirely from donations of $100 or fewer. She is smart, quick, and a force I would not want to mess with. Her candidacy, better yet presidency, would serve as the greatest encouragement to girls, displaying to them that they too have the ability and capacity to become President of the United States. She has worn many hats, has looked fabulous in all of them, and is ready to put on the most sought after hat in the free world. I will not be standing in the way.
