Those of us Democrats who supported Bernie Sanders in the Democratic Primaries did so because we strongly believed that his political platform was the correct direction for this country to go in order to save our Democracy, save our environment, save our economy, and save our national sense of decency and humanity. He was the only candidate within the two mainstream parties talking about the most important issues of our times, and proposing solutions that had some chance of affecting a change from the disastrous direction our nation has been running for the past 35 years.
Since the early 1980s, the establishment base of the Democratic party has gradually shifted to the right, until by 2015 it was more conservative than Dwight D. Eisenhower’s GOP. And over the same 3.5 decades, the GOP (under the influence of ever larger campaign costs and the corrupting influence of the uber wealthy’s campaign largess) had shifted so far to the right that it had caught it’s own tail and is devouring our Democracy alive. The plethora of devo legislation has been largely written by the lawyers and schills for the oligarchs themselves (Norquist, Rove, Koch brothers, etc.) who used their PACs and Think Tanks to ram the bad laws down the throats of their bought and sold GOP politicians (and some of the Democratic politicians as well).
Grover Norquist Quotes
“I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.”
Our government’s safety net regulations and programs, protections for unions (the largest source of political power available which supports the rights of working middle class and poor people), most of our Bill of Rights and Democracy itself have all been under attack by the 1 percent wealthiest (driving the bus from the back seat). The non-enforcement of anti-trust laws and incessant push for “deregulation” (from both parties — Bill Clinton signed as much deregulation legislation as Ronald Reagan) has allowed key industries to gobble each other up leaving mostly just a few mega-conglomerate corporations in banking, news and media, energy, agriculture, pharmaceuticals and health care, transportation, and even establishing for-profit prisons and mercenary military forces.
The 1 percent were able to get their bought and paid for candidates elected by unduly influencing the corporate news media and thus overwhelming the “free press” with their own twisted messages, inciting fear and hatred between different groups of people allowing them to “divide and conquer”, catering to the religious extremists who then bully their flocks to vote conservative in support of one or two theocratic issues, and by using financial and other coercion to drum their purchased puppets in the government into line. In some cases the oligarchs were able to use election fraud (primarily via vote flipping) to change the results of elections in their favor, cheating the system and the American people.
All the while, progressives have been telling our Democratic representatives that their ill-advised shift to the right would hurt the Democratic party and hurt our nation. And it did. Perhaps irrecoverably. But we had to keep pushing and pushing and trying to get somebody in the party to listen. The stakes are simply too high to allow the 1 percenter oligarchs to continue their assault on Democracy, the environment, the economy, the health and well-being of the 99 percent, the world’s food supply and natural resources, and the free flow of information.
Bernie Sanders was the first high profile politician to “get it”. And for a very long time, he seemed to be the ONLY high profile politician to “get it”.
Bernie Sanders ran for president on the Democratic party platform largely at the request of the progressive base that supported him throughout the primary process. The progressive wing of the party was looking for SOMEBODY who would listen and represent the best interests of the American Citizens (not just the wealthy campaign donors and lobbyists). Many of us would have liked to have seen Elizabeth Warren run for the top office. But she wasn’t interested in that. Fair enough. Other progressive candidate possibilities were also considered, and progressive voter polls showed that Bernie Sanders running on a Democratic party ticket would bring progressive voters back to the voting booths and recruit a lot of new, younger Democrats. And it did. (I saw a number of the surveys going around before Bernie announce his candidacy, and responded to some of them.)
I have to say that progressive Democrats were rather shocked by the moderate and conservative factions within the Democratic party digging in their heels (on the issues) and insisting on dragging the party’s potential backward, like a rusty anchor with it’s chain wrapped around the party’s throat. Perhaps the corporate media has done it’s job well in reshaping the hearts and minds of the American people so that they cannot see the rising tide of Norquist’s bathtub all around them. Or perhaps the fallout from Citizens United corrupted the majority of established politicians on both sides of the aisle. Whatever the root cause, Bernie supporters were not expecting the extreme level of hostility and condescension coming from within our own party toward the progressive causes. (I daresay a lot of it was fobbed back and forth by both factions, but it was still very distressing and discouraging.) We had hoped for meaningful dialogue on the issues with the establishment Democrats, and instead were offered a hostile divorce. I thought this hostility from the establishment side of the party would evaporate once the primaries were over. But it seems to continue — a legacy of “bad winners” who just can’t seem to help themselves from throwing a few more punches once the opposition is down.
So, the battle should be over now, and yet it is not. The war is yet to be won. But the factions will have a difficult time coming together as one political force as long as the winning camp continues to grind the losing camp’s faces into the ground. Is it any wonder some are finding it difficult to reconcile? Gloating is not the way to win over the hearts and minds of those who were defeated. It only strengthens their resolve to fight all the harder.
From INDY WEEK (NC’s Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill independent news) dated August 03, 2016, an editorial written by Jeffrey C. Billman:
A Week at the DNC: In the Trenches of the Battle for the Democratic Party’s Soul
Before the convention began, I asked Quinn what he thought Sanders's supporters needed to hear. "One word," he replied. "Respect. That's it."
Bingo! Got it in one! [Emphasis mine]
The problem with political conventions trying to show respect for the concerns of the factions whose candidates have lost is that they are political conventions. By the very nature of the beast, there is lots of grandstanding and lip service. But that is not the kind of respect Bernie supporters were looking for nor the kind that would bring many back together. Progressive Bernie supporters want our legitimate concerns for this nation’s future addressed.
The progressive changes to the DNC party platform that arose from the ashes of the primaries is more than just a consolation prize to the losing faction. It was the whole enchilada — not quite as firm and actionable in some areas as progressives had hoped, but a darn good start, with room to improve as we gain speed.
I may not speak for ALL Bernie supporters (because, as with any group, it is comprised of many unique individuals with their own views), but I suspect I speak for many of us when I say that we didn’t support Bernie because he was sexy, or slick, or a great orator, or a known party figurehead, or even somebody we’d “like to have a beer with”. We supported Bernie because of the issues, and because he was on the correct side of most of the important issues for our times. We supported Bernie because he was not beholden to the forces of the oligarchy corrupting and crushing this Democracy. The contagion of Bernie fervor was a non-violent version display of the American people bringing out the torches and pitchforks. We are fed up with the status quo that is killing our country, our planet, and our humanity.
So it is the issues we care about. And having those issues addressed in the DNC party platform has made all the difference in enabling the majority of Bernie supporters to support the Democratic party in November. We may (still) not like the top slot candidate all that much, but we understand the critical need to take back the Legislature and begin the work of bringing the new party platform to fruition. We need to get on with the party faction reconciliation so we can effect the changes we need in our Legislative representation and our state and local governments. We must rebuild the government into a functional entity which serves the American people from the ground up, not from the top down.
Again, from INDY WEEK (NC’s Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill independent news) dated August 03, 2016, an editorial written by Jeffrey C. Billman:
A Week at the DNC: In the Trenches of the Battle for the Democratic Party’s Soul
There's also concern that party disunion could affect down-ticket races. In North Carolina, for example, U.S. Senate candidate Deborah Ross's chances are almost inextricably tied to Clinton's success. If Hillary wins North Carolina—meaning Democrats' turnout efforts were successful and some disillusioned Republicans stayed home—Ross has a chance. Long-shot congressional campaigns—like Mills's race against incumbent Republican Richard Hudson—need Clinton to run up the score. (That's probably less true for Roy Cooper, who can campaign against the unpopular Governor McCrory and the GOP legislature, Mills says.)
There are some Sanders supporters—"third-degree Berners," Quinn calls them—who will never fall in line. But the others are persuadable. And, if the party reaches out to them, they'll all vote for Ross, if only because a Ross victory will help Sanders become chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.
"Don't walk away from this party," Quinn urges them. "This party needs you."
And if they stay in the party, he argues, they'll be able to reshape it from the ground up. "The key is to get participation in every county, every district. What a lot of Bernie Sanders supporters learned is how incredibly accessible it is to participate. If you show up, if you participate, you can do whatever you want."
Well, perhaps not “whatever you want”, but a great deal of what we need. [Emphasis mine] And it would help a lot if HRC supporters stopped trying to convert Bernie supporters with condescending phrases like “third-degree Berners”, “who will never fall in line” and other similar phrases which imply that supporting Bernie was a mistake. It was not. Reconciliation requires that both sides focus on the issues at stake, not the personalities.
I still can’t bring myself to send money to HRC’s campaign fund. But I will hold my nose and vote for her — because a crazed and vindictive Nazi tea-bagger with an itchy nuclear trigger finger in the White House would be the end of this country as we know it (and maybe the end of the planet), and because we can now push the newly approved DNC party platform forward through the Legislative branch with some level of confidence that HRC will support and sign it if she wins in November.
More importantly, I have shifted my focus to the Senate and House races, and the races in my state for Governor, legislative, and judicial seats. I am supporting my Democratic candidates with my wallet, my enthusiasm, my info-sharing, and my votes. These “other” seats are not after thoughts, not unimportant, and most certainly not discardable. We have seen the havoc from a State government run amok here in NC, and in many other states. The direct impact to people’s lives from bad state government is breathtaking (in a bad way) by the depth and breadth of its carnage.
We need to work together to ensure we can take back Congress and as many state governments as possible. We must help put better qualified and saner people onto our judicial benches. No president can achieve much without any support in the other branches of government. And the politics in the state and local governments feed the politics in the federal government (which is why Koch brothers and their various funds are spending to much in state and local elections this year). We need to build up the Democratic progressive gene pool at the local and state levels so that we have qualified candidates to draw upon in the future.
It’s now or never! We must support our progressive candidates. And we must show up at the polls in November and vote, or else all we have gained, and all the potential we have leveraged, will be lost.