By Robert Reich
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| Trump even tried stalking and physical intimidation during the second debate |
With
due respect, I believe they’re wrong.
Herewith,
their three major arguments and my responses.
Some
claim she’s no better than Donald Trump. “He’s bad, but she’s just as bad,”
they say.
I’m
sorry, but anyone who equates Trump with Clinton hasn’t been paying attention.
Donald
Trump is a dangerous, bigoted, misogynistic, narcissistic megalomaniac with
fascist tendencies. If elected president he could wreak irreparable damage on
America and the world.
Hillary
isn’t perfect but she’s able and experienced. I’ve known her for almost fifty
years and worked with her closely in her husband’s administration. She will
make a good president.
There
is simply no comparison.
Others claim that even if she’s better than Trump, she’s still corrupt, and they won’t vote for the “lesser of two evils.”
But
even if you see Hillary Clinton as the “lesser of two evils,” the greater of
two evils in this case is seriously evil.
It’s
frequently the case in a democracy that one votes for someone who’s less than
perfect when the alternative is someone who’s far worse. That’s the way our
“winner-take-all” democracy is organized. It’s why we end up with two parties.
It’s
also why voting for a third-party candidate typically harms the candidate
closest in values or ideology to that third-party candidate (remember the
election of 2000?).
Voting
for someone who doesn’t meet your ideals when the alternative is someone who
falls much further from those ideals doesn’t mean you’ve sold out or
compromised your principles. You’re just being realistic and practical.
Realism
and practicality are critically important now.
The
third argument I’m getting is from people who are angry with the Democratic
Party for tilting the primaries against Bernie Sanders.
They
cite the superdelegates, the primaries closed to independents, and the
well-documented biases of Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman
Schultz in favor of Hillary and against Bernie (memorialized in leaked memos).
“Why
should I reward the Democratic Party for its corruption?” they ask.
I
supported Bernie Sanders in the primaries and share people’s frustration with
the Democratic Party. I also sympathize with their feeling that a vote for Hillary
Clinton would somehow exonerate the Party for the perceived unfairness of its
primaries.
But
anything disgruntled Democrats may do that increases the odds of a Trump
presidency – say, making a “protest” vote for a third-party candidate, or not
voting at all – doesn’t just penalize the Democratic Party. It also jeopardizes
our future, and that of our children and their children.
All
of us must continue to work hard for a political system and an economy
responsive to the needs of ordinary Americans. The movement Bernie Sanders
energized must not and will not end.
But
Donald Trump, were he to become president, would set back that cause for
decades.
There
are only a few weeks until Election Day. My request to those of you who still
don’t want to vote for Hillary Clinton: Please reconsider. It is no
exaggeration to say the fate of the nation and the world are at stake.
ROBERT B. REICH is Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at
the University of California at Berkeley and Senior Fellow at the Blum Center for
Developing Economies. He served as Secretary of Labor in the Clinton
administration, for which Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective
cabinet secretaries of the twentieth century. He has written fourteen books,
including the best sellers "Aftershock", "The Work of
Nations," and"Beyond Outrage," and, his most recent,
"Saving Capitalism." He is also a founding editor of the American
Prospect magazine, chairman of Common Cause, a member of the American Academy
of Arts and Sciences, and co-creator of the award-winning documentary,
INEQUALITY FOR ALL.
