US ELECTION: Superdelegates dilemma
By John Scales Avery – Transcend Media Service
There is a real danger that fascism could come to the United States if the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, July 25-28, chooses the candidate that Trump could beat, Hillary Clinton.
Recent public opinion opinion polls show Clinton beating Trump by a narrow margin in the November presidential election, while Sanders beats Trump by more than twice that amount.
Hillary Clinton’s hawkish foreign policy record, her indebtedness to large Wall Street and corporate donors, and her e-mails scandals, for which she might be indicted, could alienate progressive voters and young voters. Without their help, she would be very likely to lose a presidential race with Trump.
Super delegates were introduced by the US Democratic Party in 1984 (the year in which George Orwell’s prophetic book is set). These unelected delegates are party officials, and their purpose is to circumvent the popular will. They are supposed to choose an electable candidate in case the voters choose an unelectable one.
Today, when Clinton is dangerously close to being unelectable, with constantly falling approval ratings, and when Sanders is shown to be very electable indeed and is rising in popularity every day, it is the clear duty of the superdelegates to vote for Sanders.Anything else would be criminal.
What would a Trump presidency be like?
Professor Noam Chomsky of MIT stated in a recent interview that “…today’s Republican Party qualify as candidates for the most dangerous organization in human history. Literally. Just take their position on the two major issues that face us: climate change and nuclear war. They are saying `Let’s race to the precipice’. Let’s make sure that our grandchildren have the worst possible life.’ On nuclear war, they’re calling for increased militarization. There’s been nothing like this, literally, this dangerous, if you think about it, to the species, really, ever. We should face that”.
The contrast between Hillary and Bernie.
They both agree that rapid steps have to be taken to avoid catastrophic climate change. However, Hillary’s sincerity is questionable because of the money that she has accepted from fossil fuel giants.
On the issue of nuclear war, Hillary Clinton would be just as dangerous as Donald Trump. Throughout her political career, she has been a supporter of militarism and war.
By contrast, Bernie Sanders, who is supported by a large majority of the voters in the United States (as opposed to the Democratic and Republican party oligarchs), is clearly anti-war and pro-peace. We know that he is honest because his voting record supports this stance. Incidentally, Bernie’s socialism is almost identical with the New Deal ideology of Franklin D. Roosevelt, a president so popular that he was elected for four terms.
John Scales Avery, Ph.D., was part of a group that shared the 1995 Nobel PeacePrize for their work in organizing the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Peace. He is Associate Professor Emeritus at the H.C. Ørsted Institute, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. He is chairman of both the Danish National Pugwash Group and the Danish Peace Academy and received his training in theoretical physics and theoretical chemistry at M.I.T., the University of Chicago and the University of London.
