As any of you know who have happened upon my posts, I am a Hillary supporter who likes Bernie, but doesn’t think his pie-in-the-sky promises will amount to a hill of beans in the unlikely event he’s elected president. Most of you have let me know in no uncertain and often insulting terms that you think I’m naive, and that I don’t understand that Hillary, and of course Bill, because let’s face it they’re the Bonnie and Clyde of American politics, have been corrupted by the corporate interests that own them. What’s needed you assure me in that way that only smug, millennials can, is new blood and a political revolution that is led by Bernie Sanders.
We can debate how much better and purer Bernie is than Hillary til the cows come home but it isn't going to change the immutable fact that the whole jusitification for voting for Bernie is that he can turn out record numbers of new voters who will carry him through the general election to victory in November.
At the beginning of this primary race, I and probably many others posted that we've seen this before and know how it turns out. Howard Dean supporters (or Deaniacs as we called ourselves) can tell you how strongly we believed that the huge crowds at his rallies and the 3,000 volunteers that descended on Iowa were going to "take America back" in 2004. It never happened. Enormous rally crowds don't translate into people willing or even eligible to go to the polls, they just represent large rally crowds.
If the much lower turn-out at all three Democratic caucuses and primaries held so far don’t convince you I don’t know what will. I suppose it's possible that the reason that we have a lower turnout in this primary cycle is that Democrats would vote for either Bernie or Hillary and don't feel they need to show up to vote until November. That would be nice, but highly unlikely. We need to do something now to turn around this terrifying development.
That's why it is important that Bernie's supporters stop their vitriolic, personal attacks on Hillary Clinton. Honestly, you can support your candidate passionately without savaging Hillary with undocumented, unsourced and vicious innuendos and allegations. It's a complete turn-off to Democratic voters and will continue to dampen our turnout because no one will vote for either candidate. If you don't, we'll be swearing in President Trump on January 20, 2017.