Poor Hillary. I voted against her last time, and I probably will vote against her again even though I think she would probably make an adequate President. The reason is that she is choosing the path of cynicism. When Bernie Sanders talked about how all other advanced countries provide health care, education, and child care for their citizens, citing Denmark as an example, Hilary said we aren’t Denmark, we are the USA. In other words, we can’t do it because we are the USA.

One night I tuned in to the Democrats’ presidential debate to see if they had any plans to restore the America I used to know. To my amazement, I heard the name of my peaceful mountain hideaway: Norway. Bernie Sanders was denouncing America’s crooked version of “casino capitalism” that floats the already rich ever higher and flushes the working class. He said that we ought to “look to countries like Denmark, like Sweden and Norway, and learn from what they have accomplished for their working people.”

He believes, he added, in “a society where all people do well. Not just a handful of billionaires.” That certainly sounds like Norway. For ages they’ve worked at producing things for the use of everyone — not the profit of a few — so I was all ears, waiting for Sanders to spell it out for Americans.

But Hillary Clinton quickly countered, “We are not Denmark.” Smiling, she said, “I love Denmark,” and then delivered a patriotic punch line: “We are the United States of America.” Well, there’s no denying that. She praised capitalism and “all the small businesses that were started because we have the opportunity and the freedom in our country for people to do that and to make a good living for themselves and their families.” She didn’t seem to know that Danes, Swedes and Norwegians do that, too, and with much higher rates of success.

That’s not logic – if every other country can do it, we are the exception, we are dysfunctional, and it is cynical to say we can’t do it when obviously it is possible. When Bernie hit her for praising Henry Kissinger, I think we was spot on. Henry Kissinger was a “realist”, a cynic, and he has the blood of millions on his hands. I would listen to arguments about how well-functioning markets could boost retirement savings, restore rational prices to our broken health care and education systems, boost growth and innovation, from Democrats or even from Republicans, but I am not hearing those policies from anyone. Instead, I am hearing intolerance and science denial from the Republicans, which I won’t entertain for a second, and “USA, no we can’t” from Hillary. I like what I’m hearing from Bernie on campaign finance, financial regulation and climate change. So go ahead and sign me up.