This much I know from what I saw today:
Bernie Sanders is a class act. I knew I liked him when he declared his candidacy, and well before. I’ve always respected his progressive consistency and values, and frankly, I would have probably preferred him to win the Democratic primary and run against Trumpenstein. But here’s one thing I know despite my disappointment in the outcome…
For the past eight years, I have grown absolutely tired and disgusted in the way the “leaders” on the Right and much of the Mainstream Media has literally discounted my two votes for President Barack Obama. Citing skewed polls with generic, misleading questioning as a basis to state that “the majority of Americans are not satisfied with the direction America is heading in” and “Republicans in 2010 got sent to Washington with a job to do and that was to stand firm against the President’s radical agenda”. As if the majority of Americans — millions in both 2008 and 2012 — were somehow marginalized and irrelevant because Republicans and generic/anonymous polled citizens weren’t satisfied with the results.
It’s convenient, arrogant and harmfully wrong for Republicans to literally turn their backs on the will of the majority of Americans time and time again simply because the outcome of the election didn’t go their way, and because the agenda and policy priorities of the winner doesn’t match their own. Smaller, more concentrated conservative (and brutally gerrymandered, often) voting blocs don’t get to override the will of the majority — well, shouldn’t anyway — if any sort of workable Democracy is going to succeed. Yet, for the past eight years, I’ve been constantly treated to rhetoric, polling, media accounts and editorial viewpoints that suggest that I was misguided in my voting, and that the agenda and man I voted for must be reigned in and thwarted at every turn to ensure that our country remain moving in the direction they want.
You know and I know that when the Right pulls that kind of cr&p, it’s plain obstructionism and moral arrogance, often swirled with a side of angry talk radio/TV news and topped with a load of BS. It’s convenient and easy “high ground” to take when your radical views and extreme opinions don’t want to be “overridden” by the “will of the people”.
Yet, here we are at the culmination of a long and (in my opinion, at least) productive nomination process with a vocal and almost obsessed group of Bernie Sanders supporters taking the same approach and using the same tactics to justify booing their own candidate, disrupting the attempt to create critical party unity during a highly visable and important Convention, and somehow build erroneous arguments that “the people want Bernie Sanders to be President” the very same day Senator Sanders is scheduled to deliver an important keynote speech at that Convention.
“We have got to defeat Donald Trump. And we have got to elect Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine”— Bernie Sanders, July 25, 2016
It’s pretty cut and dry. Those are Sanders’ words, and his convictions just weeks after coming through a gut-wrenching, passionate and purposeful run for the nomination that fell short. Bernie Sanders gets it. This courageous candidate recognizes full well what Democracy becomes when a losing minority attempts to superimpose its agenda and opinion on that of a group that turned out nearly 3.5 million more votes in an election. That’s the GOP way, and the obstructionist way that’s led to a vacant Supreme Court seat, an impasse on immigration reform, the US economy thrice teatering on the edge of closure and default, and a litany of other failures that stem for Republican petulance about Barack Obama assuming the White House and winning it again on re-election. Are Sanders supporters essentially the same type of radical ideologues coming at it from a different angle? It bears reflection.
I’m not willing to go there. I would have enjoyed seeing Bernie Sanders get the run this fall, and watching the country debate and decide on what can only be viewed as a strongly progressive and left-leaning agenda. I’m not sure any of us would have enjoyed the months of “Socialist” labels and torment against the concept of a progressively pure left-wing agenda, and boy would there have been a fight about that. But I would have welcomed it nonetheless. That said, I’m not willing to marginalize the millions upon millions of voters who had a choice and opted for Hillary Clinton to be the party’s standard bearer in the General Election. It’s wrong by any measure, regardless of what you think or feel about the candidate, her ethics, her Wall Street connections or any number of other “concerns”— real or otherwise portrayed by the media and Right — that make her a less than ideal candidate. The fact is, in a 50 state contest, the people wanted Hillary Clinton to be their nominee, by millions of votes.
As we head into Convention week and then into the campaign stretch, it’s really pretty cut and dry:
The alternative to voting for the candidate that reflects the will of the Democratic Party majority is a radical, conservative Court, leaving no room for progressive priorities that are championed by Bernie Sanders to see the light of day in litigated matters that are decided on by the Courts.
The alternative to voting for the candidate that reflects the will of the Democratic Party majority is a country subjected to a catastrophic tax plan that would destroy social programs and create massive increases to the national debt, while continuing to fill the pockets of the top .001%
The alternative to voting for the candidate that reflects the will of the Democratic Party majority is a radical assault on the rights and status of immigrants, including inciting a virtual national war on those who follow the Muslim faith, complete marginalization of latinos, particularly Mexican Americans, and the furthering of a cultural drive to keep immigrants of all stripes (including citizen children born to immigrant parents in the US) hiding and in constant fear of being sent packing from the US on a moments’ notice.
The alternative to voting for the candidate that reflects the will of the Democratic Party majority is a continued assault on climate science, startlingly dangerous foreign policy, a complete rejection and walk back on gun reform, a devastating reversal of progress made on womens' rights, and — REALLY — think about it for a moment...access to and control over the nation’s nuclear arsenal.
It’s cut and dry, really. Bernie Sanders is a Progressive champion, and his supporters (including myself) must continue to be as passionate for, and involved in, the political process after the election season of 2016 as we were during, to ensure that the policy priorities we rallied around and the political values we fought for are not lost in the status quo of Washington. We must be involved and VOTE in 2018, at all levels of government, for those who are courageous like Senator Sanders to push the country’s moral compass to the left, and to fight for those who are getting lost in the great US money grab of the 21st Century. The loss of a Presidential nomination effort is difficult to absorb when you are so passionately invested in its outcome. As is the incentive to cooperate if you are on the losing side. We need look no further than the night after Obama’s historic election in 2008 to see how easy it is to dismiss the will of the majority and create havoc for the winners in the name of your own beliefs and voting record. I want NO PART of being a part of something like what went down in November 2008. No part of being so rigidly stuck in my own wants and hopes to dismiss and disrupt the fortunes of those who outvoted me and won. Think about it for a second Sanders supporters...were Bernie to have won the nomination, and Hillary’s loyalists were key to his prospects of overcoming GOP “Socialist” labels and fear-bating about a government takeover of our freedoms...would you be accepting of that group of millions of voters turning their backs on us, and abandoning our ability to see him elected simply because of bitterness, distrust or a wave of disgust about “the process”? Or would you be reminding them — rightly —every day that there is a time for debate and there is time when the alternatives call loudly for unity, respect and coalescence around a greater cause than any one candidate?
It’s cut and dry for me. I’m with her. For my children, my community, for those less fortunate than me, for blacks, and Muslims, and women and immigrants of all walks —I’m with her because it’s time, it’s right, and it’s the will of the majority of voters in the Democratic nomination process.
We’ll see tonight, and this week, as to how strongly the masses that supported Bernie in Philadelphia believe in progressive causes and the importance that Sanders himself recognizes and has voiced about defeating an ugly, and callous, opponent who can literally crush any hope for Sanders’ objectives and agenda priorities if elected in November. We will see. If we can’t find unity and see cooperation between the “two sides” coming out of Philadelphia, then it will be really cut and dry come November — the legacy of Bernie Sanders run for President and the future of those things he and his supporters (supposedly) prioritize above all else will have been irreparably reversed, and in my opinion, our nation will be MUCH worse for it.
I won’t be a part of it. I’m with her.