So, unless you’ve been living on the actual moon for the past couple of weeks, you’ve definitely heard that Hillary Clinton (former senator, secretary of state and first lady) is a candidate for the 2016 presidential election—and those of you who were on desert trip have no excuse for not knowing because she announced it on April 12, and we’d been back for an entire day.
But anyway, she’s running, and as you can imagine, the average liberal is pretty excited at the prospect of finally having a woman in office (which, admittedly, is no small feat, given this country’s history).
But when forced to consider the reality of the situation—the fact that both major political parties in this country are ultimately concerned with the wellbeing of the bourgeoisie and preserving the economy’s dependence upon the success of corporate interests, decorated by our own imperialistic foreign policy—we must realize that in the grand scheme of things, Hillary isn’t going to be all that different from any other white capitalist.
And really, I just can’t deal with anyone who pretends to have any interest in the proletariat—that is, I have a hard time believing that Clinton is actually going to repeal the carried interest tax break, especially since her campaign is being funded by an obscene amount of corporate cash. Her populism is so ridiculous; she benefits too much from the system of privilege we have in this country for her to seriously change anything about it, which means that she’s using her new, down-to-earth persona as a strategy to buy votes.
That said, voting for a third party (say, Vermin Love Supreme—yes, that’s the real name of a real person who is running for president) would only add to the likelihood of one of our illustrious Republican candidates getting elected. So, given the prospect of Marco Rubio (who’s totally attending my gay wedding)—or even better, Ted Cruz—ending up in the Oval Office in 2016, I’ve been cornered into supporting Hillary—at least she’s got me covered in terms of marriage equality and believing that women are people.
I’m still living on the prayer that Elizabeth Warren might run, though, because if there’s one thing I look for in a candidate, it’s a shared first name.
-Elizabeth Harrison
