The Narrative of the ‘Lesser of Two Evils’: Is the Left to Blame for Trump?

Leftist purity and its acolytes are protesting against the status quo that they themselves helped create.

“She doesn’t care! Voting for the lesser of two evils; there’s no point!”

Those were the words of Kaleb Vanfosson, the president of the Students for Bernie club at Iowa State University, in reference to then-candidate of the Democrats party, Hillary Clinton. To him, Clinton represented elitism, establishment, and political apathy.
Kaleb was not alone, however. A coterie of prominent left-wing activists also contributed to this narrative, such as Susan Sarandon. Speaking to The Young Turks reporter Jordan Chariton, Susan Sarandon, an erstwhile Bernie Sanders supporter, said, “I believe in a way [Hillary Clinton] is more dangerous [than Donald Trump].” On MSNBC’s All In With Chris Hayes, Susan said, “Some people feel that Donald Trump will bring the revolution immediately if he gets in. Then things will really, you know, explode.” Susan was referring to the Marxist concept of revolution.
Eventually, she campaigned, and voted, for Green Party’s Jill Stein, siphoning votes from left-leaning voters. Unrepentant, she doubled down after the election of President Donald Trump. In an interview with The Guardian, she said, “I did think [Hillary Clinton] was very, very dangerous. We would still be fracking, we would be at war [if she was president]. It wouldn’t be much smoother. Look what happened under Obama that we didn’t notice.”

Not to be outdone, other prominent left-wing figures have expressed similar views. For example, civil rights activist Shaun King said, in a now-deleted tweet, “For me, Bernie and Hillary aren’t two sides of the same coin. They are VERY DIFFERENT. I see Trump & Hillary as two sides of the same coin.” Eventually, to his credit, Shaun King endorsed Hillary Clinton against Donald Trump.
So, what drove so many Bernie Sanders supporters to rail against Hillary Clinton with such fervor?
To many Bernie Sanders supporters, Hillary Clinton embodied everything they hated about Washington. They saw her as a “corporatist,” an “establishment candidate,” and an “elitist” out of touch with “regular Americans.” What’s more, she was seen as a war hawk, responsible for the blunders of American foreign policy.

But Hillary Clinton was not the cause of the Iraq war

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were launched during the George W. Bush presidency. In response to the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration launched a war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, and later against Iraq, under the guise of destroying Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and spreading democracy in the region.
It is true that Hillary Clinton, then Senator from New York, a state whose largest city was attacked on 9/11. voted for the Iraq War in 2003. It was not, however, her decision to launch the war. She was merely representing her constituents who were still reeling from the effects of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Granted, as it turned out, Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. But the narrative of the Bush administration suggested otherwise.
But all of this happened under the Bush administration. The Bush administration ignored the intelligence about the potential terrorist attack by Al-Qaeda, and, in response to it, launched two wars that not only resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of people, including both civilians and US servicemen, but also led to a hemorrhaging of government spending, to the tune of $2.2 trillion.
This hawkish policy was the bone of contention for many anti-Hillary voters. In fact, the idea of anti-interventionism drew a significant number of leftists to support Donald Trump, given that he was outspoken against the Iraq War. What’s more, The New York Times’  Maureen Dowd penned an opinion piece titled ‘Donald the Dove, Hillary the Hawk,’ in which she suggested that Donald Trump was the peace candidate, and Hillary Clinton was the war candidate. Hillary Clinton was also blamed for the NATO-led war in Libya in 2011, even though she had no executive power to launch a war as Secretary of State.

To the best of his ability, President Barack Obama tried to mitigate the effects of the Bush administration policies. But an immediate withdrawal of US troops would have been catastrophic. Given this difficult position, he wasn’t successful at pulling out all of the troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. As a result, Obama was also seen as a “war hawk” and a continuation of the Bush administration.

But how did we get there?

It all goes back to 2000. That year, two major candidates ran for President: Al Gore and George W. Bush.
Al Gore, the Democratic Party’s candidate, advocated for environmentalism, LGBTQ rights (including the reversal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’), a continuation of President Bill Clinton’s successful fiscal policy, and expansion of access to healthcare.
On the other hand, George W. Bush, who was the Republican Party’s candidate, ran on the platform of fracking and oil drilling, expanding military spending, and giving tax cuts to the rich.
Anyone who was left-leaning, or even a centrist, saw that Al Gore was the better choice.
However, even in this case, there were prominent left-wing figures who saw that both candidates were the same.
Michael Moore, the famous documentary filmmaker and leftist activist, said, “A vote for Gore is a vote for Bush. If they both believe in the same thing, wouldn’t you want the original than the copy? Wouldn’t you want Bush? Sirloin or hamburger? Which would you go for?”
Susan Sarandon, in contrast, actively campaigned for Ralph Nader, the Green Party’s candidate at the time.
The election boiled down to the swing state of Florida. Eventually, out of the six million votes cast in that state, Bush won there by just 520 votes, enough to give him the state of Florida and a victory in the Electoral College and therefore the presidency. By comparison, Ralph Nader won nearly 100,000 votes there.

The result? America witnessed the worst terrorist attack on its soil, the launch of two wars that led to the death of many, and the ruination of the roaring economy, leading to a recession the like of which the world had never seen since the Great Depression.
Some people, of course, emerged unscathed, protected by their wealth and privilege. Those included: politicians, the corporate elites, and the wealthy.
And, of course, Michael Moore and Susan Sarandon.

They ordered the dinner, but we got stuck with the bill

The inanity of left-wing purism has created more problems than it has solved. Their goal is to create chaos and “instigate a revolution,” instead of ameliorating the situation. They bank on the destruction of all the progress that has been made.
What happened in 2016 was a repeat of 2000. Far-left activists insisted that both Trump and Clinton were the same. They managed to use their platform to influence the result in favor of the former, a person adored by white supremacists by siphoning left-leaning voters.

In seeking perfection, leftist purity destroys every good we have achieved. To them, politics is nothing more than a game and a hobby. To the rest of us, it’s a matter of life or death.

As a result, we have children of immigrants in cages, DACA recipients being stripped of their status, women losing their right to reproductive care, and veterans living with the physical and psychological traumas they endured from the wars that the Bush administration launched.
And history is replete with examples of how left-wing purism backfires.
For example, the 1930 election in the Weimar Republic saw significant gains of Nazis and communists. German communists said that they’d “prefer to see the Nazis in power rather than lift a finger to save the republic.” As a result, Nazis managed to rise to power, and executed communists left and right.
The 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran was carried out with the help of communists against the Shah. Communists enthusiastically fought against the regime and aided the Islamists. The Islamic revolution claimed it was calling for equality, democracy, and anti-imperialism. Then, when conservative Shia Muslims firmly established control in Iran, they began to squash dissent. Now, Iranian communists live in the luxury and safety of the West—those who managed to escape, at least. The rest were imprisoned and/or executed.
Far-left activists fight for their own demise while believing that they are fighting for the greater good. The reality is that everyone suffers from their action – except for the privileged few who manage to emerge unscathed. Left-wing purists contributed to the rise of George W. Bush and, subsequently, the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. And in 2016, they repeated that narrative, claiming that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were the same.
Like Moses parting the Red Sea, left-wing purists divide the left in such a way that gives way for the right to emerge.
In seeking perfection, leftist purity destroys every good we have achieved. To them, politics is nothing more than a game and a hobby. To the rest of us, it’s a matter of life or death.