I will keep this very short. i am sure that many people will appreciate brevity at a time like this. I am an aggressive Clinton supporter ( former Obama supporter in 2008), and i think the volume and one-sided slamming has gotten loud enough. Please stop everyone. So here are one or two removed thoughts:
I think the media is on a streak of making much more out of this stuff than there is. Sure Sanders is setting up his supporters for big disappointment by still acting like he has a chance at winning the nomination, and he's tired, frustrated, and speaking from a place of anger, but this kind of stuff is passing. Sanders really wants to win California and bring some kind of mandate to the DNC, but if he loses California and it isn't even particularly close, (and is followed by a D.C. lock out that seems probable; i.e. I don't see him hitting 15% threshold there to get a single delegate), I think that pretty much defangs him, and Sanders will quietly take a break from politics, and then Jeff Merkley and Barbara Boxer will prolly join up with Nina Turner and start working with Sanders on what he wants to get in the convention, and I imagine he will be on board with fully focusing on Trump and downballot races by July.
The incessant bashing is not helpful. That's not going to help making them feel welcome back in the fold. Some of his supporters are Bernie or Bust; mostly of a privileged white vein and maybe some genuinely frustrated young voters. The rest of th Bernie or Bust pool are frequent non-voters, Jill Stein voters, ex Naderites and Perotites like my dad, a life-long protest voter. Its not as big a pool as anyone makes it out to be, and htis kind of ranting about it only drives more people into it. His campaign has been pretty heated, but for them, this end stretch is make or break on how big a mandate they have, and there is naturally a lot of frustration out there on the campaign trail (I suspect the campaigns internal numbers aren't good for California, and New Jersey is looking downright disastrous), so its not fair to judge Sanders by that
.
Now that we've had our rant about the Nevada clusterfuck several times now, can we stop insinuating all kinds of things about what Sanders wants to do to the party, or how badly he is damaging the party without any real proof? It's still campaign time, and he's attacking the primary system (which is screwed up, just not entirely in ways that are to his detriment, and I think he fails to realize that sometime; just look at the primary election results versus caucus results in Nebraska). He's not going after Hillary that harshly, and he's not even preventing her from beginning her general transition to general election mode, especially since her independent super pacs can take up the slack and define Trump early for her.
In the meantime, people need to quit acting like a few more weeks of campaign in New Jersey, New Mexico, and California mostly is going to set Hillary back any. Let's not let one incident make us start harping both Sanders campaign and his supporters nonstop with attacks that they are destroying the party, slash this and that. It's also time to quit letting the loud, vocal, online trolls and asshats in the Sanders campaign being the representative bar for everyone there, not when so many were actually deeply disappointed by how the campaign acted in Nevada, and its rhetoric on superdelegates (wanting to argue they should overturn the will of the people to back a candidate artificially polling better). Let the primary end. The time is not crippling. America's massively bloated campaign cycle is a pure media fiction; and indeed, time and time again its been proven that other than your base partisans, most of the electorate really isn't even plugged into the Presidential campaign until the conventions.
Sanders hasn't behaved well here, but that can be understood. I think we can rant about how Sanders runs his campaign, without impugning all these horrible outcomes that don't seem likely or fair.
So...as a Clinton partisan, can I say, it is not our job to tell Sanders supporters when and how they should settle their ideological differences? Nor to continue to feed a narrative of exaggerated disorder and collapse where there is none? Let them work on their mandate, let them work on promoting the things they want IN THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY’S platform and consciousness. Bashing serves no purpose now. And Nevada was one of Hillary’s most absolutely nasty 2008 states too, and in Bernie’s case, seems to deal with a lot of self-serving manipulation from some of his surrogates. Lets not pretend this is what Bernie’s following wants at the DNC, at the national stage. HE could do a better job as a leader, like always, but lets not roast him over shadow criticisms that more reflect the heat of the moment. So please, can we let Sanders supporters finish their fight, take their reforms to the DNC, and let them know that we will listen to these so that they DON’T HAVE TO BE loud and protest this issues? It isn’t rocket science.
The bashing has been way too intense. Sanders supporters, as a Hillary partisan, I want to give you a hug. As a progressive, I understand what you want. As a progressive, I want much of what you want, i have been frustrated at times with politics, but I also do not want you to leave, either this site or this party. We are in it together, and let us not let our egos and sensitivities get in the way of pushing Hillary to the left (or letting her know its safe to be on the left and that we have her back) and stopping racist, sexist, Republican politics. Please guys, let’s stop bashing each other. Let us get back to the good discussion of the different things we would like to do, let the primary end as it may, and accept the voices of the voters while not forgetting those that disagreed with us.
And please, do not turn these comments into a flame war. AT this point, I would like this to be a peaceful space, a space where we can come together on our common ground. There are enough threads for each camps rants and venting, here let us talk about our common hopes and goals.
Peace everyone.
A,lso, a poll, just for people who treat any disagreement as cause for crippling anxiety.
Update: The Democratic primary still isn’t nasty. Bernie Sander has mostly focused on honest, principled disagreements (as much as I may dislike some of them). His positions are still admirable, and his instincts are sound, something I had respected about him from day one. Blowing things out of proportions does absolutely nothing. Also, my Hillary posting and reommdnation history should be clear, as is my very long posting history, some of it shameful to me now. I am not acting in bad faith, but I want to draw in both sides. Please, please, i wnat us both to engage in what excited me about this primary in the first place, real discussions rather than insults, different schools of liberalism rather than “I have the only answer, or, you are naive.” We can and will do better than that.