The presidential campaign has eight excruciating months to go. It couldn’t be said they bring out the best in people. Just today, in commenting on Bernie Sanders’ support for drone bombing (which he expressed in a March 23rd interview with the LA Times), one of his supporters said, “Nobody is perfect.”
US drone bombings have killed & injured thousands of people in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, & Syria. Somehow I doubt if “Nobody is perfect” would work for them or their grieving families.
Jill Stein is now making overtures to Sanders & even said she would be open to working in a Sanders administration because of their evident ideological & policy affinities on a range of issues like free college tuition & economic inequality. But what about those drones? Shouldn’t they be what you call a deal breaker? Is it possible to provide free tuition & equality with all those bombers to launch?
War & bombing other people to smithereens is just not an issue you can compromise on. It involves not just structural racism but colonialism, barbarism, exploitation, mass murder. There’s no way you can be mealy-mouthed & equivocating about drones & still stake a claim as progressive. If “Nobody is perfect” cuts it as a political defense, then US democracy is in much deeper crisis than it appears. But of course, over half the US electorate doesn’t bother to register or vote because they recognize a travesty when they see one.