Hillary and the left

I think the notion that Hilary is an unmitigated disaster, but a bit better than Trump is wrong on more than one level, and especially on matters of democracy, broadly understood. We don’t have to heap praise on her at every moment, but we should avoid as well attaching nothing but scorn to her. Neither one is a good measure of her. She operates in the center of the political spectrum – much like the president – and the defeat of Trump and Republicans down the ticket will take a coalition of center and progressive/left forces – to begin with.

Left and progressive people can’t do it on their own. If they could, they would have done it a long time ago. But here is the problem: Too often I find that people on the left/progressive end of politics, who in their desire to protect their “radical” credentials and popularity, worry too much about being challenged by critics on their left flank. When this becomes their posture, their strategic and tactical concepts become narrow and their assessments of political developments, personalities, and events suffer from one sidedness.