Moving forward

Like many Democratic voters, especially progressives, I am torn by the choice I will have to make during the primary season.  My head tells me Hillary is the strongest candidate with the intelligence and fortitude to stand up to what is likely to be a hostile congress after the election.  My heart says Bernie is about a new and populist politics which could propel the country to another level.   The best example of the divide is health care.  Bernie talks about single payer like an evangelist.  Just elect me and it will happen is his mantra.  But after thinking about the bruising battle led by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to get Obamacare passed and the subsequent defeat of the party at the polls, Hillary's plan to protect the progress already made and build on it in the coming years makes more sense.  I see Bernie's supporters as idealists who will be severely disappointed by the sausage making of the legislative process.  Hillary went through this in 1994 and I think she knows how the system works.  Nevertheless, I signed Bernie's petition to appear on the New York primary ballot yesterday and will probably contribute the his campaign.  The prospect of the filth the republicans will throw at Hillary in a general election nauseates me, but I will support whoever gets the party's nod.  To not do so is to endorse the dark vision of a country militarized within, hostile to immigrants and the poor and extorting support from our supposed allies to prop up an increasingly unlikely American empire.