If I haven’t made it clear yet, I support Bernie Sanders for the primary season. I’ll be going and putting my vote in on Friday here in sunny and overly warm Texas. This diary isn’t about why Bernie though (on a personal level), it’s about something far more important in this election: snagging those dismayed with the Republican party.
My friend, a former CFO, sort of comfortable in retirement, living in deep red South Carolina talks to me quite often about anything really. We hit on politics, religion, whatever happens to come to our brains for that day. About a year ago, she was having some issues with their discontinued insurance, so I started talking to her about ACA and why wasn’t she on it yet? Took me MONTHS to get her to realize that she’d originally had nothing but catastrophic insurance. I got all the same talking points out of her that I’d hear ad nauseum from the republican side. I never lost my patience with her, just waited it out because I knew eventually she’d have to hit the wall and climb it that represented ACA on her own.
We really started talking about this election ‘round September last year. I was already tuning into Bernie at that point. She was distressed, as a former Republican she said, “I just can’t, I can’t vote for any of them. None of them are going to do what this country needs most: get money out of politics.” So I sort of started pushing her to read up on Bernie… told her I liked his positions and his ideas. This of course led to talks about Hillary. We had many… spirited(?) talks about Hillary. My friend simply wasn’t feeling it, I won’t go into the specifics other than to say she has a severe distrust of Hillary.
This afternoon, her and I were talking and she let it slip “well mom and I are going to go vote in the Dem Primaries here together for the first time”. I asked her about mom being a Republican and she answered, “lifelong, but she feels same as I do”.
I honestly feel Hillary is missing the boat on this, because I’ve found in all my political conversations that once people are educated about Citizens United, they suddenly wake up and realize that this can’t continue, even if they are die hard conservatives. The average person wants money out of our politics, they see the corrosiveness of it and they don’t want it. Moreso, the fact that these two are now going to go vote in the Dem primaries should point out that by pressing this one issue, we can move things forward in a big way.
The bigger issue though that I will point out, while yes they live in deep red South Carolina that neither Dem will carry in the GE, they are the types we need to pull over to hold the WH. I will also say, they are the types that will never vote for HRC... if I can find 2 in South Carolina, how many more are in those purple states who feel the exact same way?
My friend understands with crystal clarity that getting money out of our politics is just as big as the income inequality issue. She says, we can’t get to one though, without getting rid of the other. Her vote, and her mothers vote, is with Bernie. I have others I’m working on in my network via social media and in RL, and I’m in Texas. My neighborhood is primarily Republican (thankfully I own red cars, I don’t stick out so much!), but even my neighbors are starting to take a look at Bernie. Again, once I bring in Citizens United, they tend to think that’s an even bigger issue than any social issues they have.
I will leave you with this final thought: My friend pays close attention to things sent to her, most of her friends are dems while her husbands friends are mostly repubs. She views the DNC with a strong sense of distrust. She uses the “both parties are horrible” statement often with me. If the Democratic Party wants to build, it should be using this primary season to highlight BOTH candidates, not just one. I sent my friend a link about the superdelegates being lobbyists and this is what she sent back to me: “yea the deck is stacked for her”. Is this really what the DNC wants to put forward to potential new party members?
My many many thanks to OPOL and Lieper though for all their great work because it’s kept me focused on all the Bernie facts, so I can talk intelligently with my friends! And sorry for my ramble, just was not an expected conversation to have today!
