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Why Hillary Clinton Is the Right Choice for Progressives

Clinton offers progressives the best chance to advance our issues and vision for the country—but only if we keep applying pressure and holding her accountable.

Katrina vanden Heuvel

October 11, 2016

US Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.(Reuters / Brian Snyder)

At the second presidential debate, Donald Trump once again played down the recording of his vile comments bragging about sexual assault as “locker-room talk.” But as the fallout from the tape continues, the Republican Party has essentially become a locker room divided, with many members of the red team abandoning their quarterback and scrambling to save themselves.

Each week we cross-post an excerpt from Katrina vanden Heuvel’s column at the WashingtonPost.com. Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.

For some progressive voters who supported Sen. Bernie Sanders in the primaries, however, the latest revelations do little to ease their concerns about Hillary Clinton. They clearly recognize that Trump is—in every way imaginable—egregiously unfit to be president. They know that, on issue after issue, Trump is a bitter enemy of progress. But they also don’t trust Clinton to advance the important causes that Sanders forced into the debate.

This skepticism is understandable, especially after a hard-fought primary battle that left many feeling alienated from Clinton and the Democratic establishment. Yet as The Nation, which endorsed Sanders in the primary, argued in our endorsement of Clinton last week, there are many compelling reasons for staunch progressives to get behind her—not merely as the default choice or the strategic choice but also, on her own merits.

Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.

Katrina vanden HeuvelTwitterKatrina vanden Heuvel is editorial director and publisher of The Nation, America’s leading source of progressive politics and culture. She served as editor of the magazine from 1995 to 2019.


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