As one of the only people apparently still undecided between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders,
I finally sat down and took a look at their campaign websites to do a
comparison. I realize of course that they don’t write their own content
for the websites, so details of their views may not entirely be
reflected accurately, but as president, they will have advisers and
cabinets and more, so I think there is value in seeing the kinds of
staff they surround themselves with.
Overall, they present
themselves in fairly similar ways, with basically the same issues listed
and often discussing and proposing the same or similar things with
almost the same language. Their staff clearly are adding and modifying
content in response to what the other is saying, sometimes even
implicitly referencing what the other said. It does seem to go both
ways.
I didn’t read every section/issue, but I read the same ~1/2
of each candidate’s platform, covering issues like racism, women’s
rights, income inequality/economy, foreign policy, LGBT rights, the
environment, and a few others. Each topic they discuss starts with
showing off their awareness of the background of an issue and then
listing what they want to do as president, often followed by or
including their history on the issue, particularly for Clinton. I didn’t
analyze in fine detail their ideas, but here are the overall broader
differences I saw (focusing on their proposals/”As president I will...”).
1)
Sander seems to spent part of each issue relating it back to the
economy. These things are all interconnected, which is good of him to
acknowledge, but interconnectedness isn’t the same as root cause or
primary cause. I’m not sure if this is what he’s implying by focusing so
much on this. Clinton indicates awareness of some interconnectedness as
well by also repeating her points in multiple, relevant sections.
2)
Clinton talks about transgender rights both in the LGBT section and in
the racism section (attempt at intersectional thinking, or just an
accident?), and includes both issues of police violence and having
accurate gender on official documents. Sanders only specifically
mentions transgender people briefly (though does mention gender identity
together with sexuality) and only focuses on police violence. Neither
mention access to healthcare.
3) Sanders only talks about women’s
issues in regards in reproductive topics (abortion and childcare) and
income inequality, with a brief mention of domestic violence (with the
implication that it’s mostly in the past?). Clinton addresses these as
well as sexual violence and international women’s issues.
4)
Clinton says she will “appoint Supreme Court justices who value the
right to vote over the right of billionaires to buy elections“ while
Sanders says he will “Only appoint Supreme Court justices who will make
it a priority to overturn Citizens United.“ While these sound like
near-identical statements, Sander’s makes me question if he understands
how the Supreme Court works (or of he thinks his supporters don’t). The
justices can’t just decide to overturn a past decision, and if a case
related to it come before them, they have to decide based on the merits
of that particular case - their values matter in how they interpret it,
but I think legally they can’t actually say/decide ahead of time how
they will rule on any particular topic because the specifics of what
comes up can vary and they have to at least be willing to hear out the
argument. Clinton proposes a constitutional amendment to overturn
Citizen’s United, while Sanders proposes nothing else.
4) The
biggest difference, the one place where I saw broad differences between
them: While Clinton doesn’t seem to be pushing for the US to be fighting
more wars, she does indicate a very dominant stance to international
relationships, maintaining the image of the US as the leader of the
world. Sanders is very diplomacy-focused and seems less “us vs them”.
Again,
I didn’t compare all of their positions, and I’m not here analyzing in
depth how their plans would work, but beyond what I listed here, they
seem mostly in agreement on the issues I looked at. I think a big factor
is their history. In my understanding, Sanders has been very consistent
in his positions and has refused to “play the game” of corporate
support, but perhaps this can read as an all-or-nothing
ideological-purity stance, while Clinton has a history of both
progressively...progressing...on issues while taking things in steps or
through compromise, changing the “game” from the inside, which can
seem/be too small or unhelpful or outright harmful.
