It’s March 15, roughly half the delegates have been allocated, and Hillary Clinton now has a commanding 320-ish lead in delegates. Lots of math has been flying around, but in short, Bernie Sanders does not have a realistic path to the nomination.
The primaries go on, and people should turn out and vote for whoever they feel would best lead our nation. No one is cancelling any elections. Your later vote counts as much as someone else’s earlier vote. But a lot of people already voted for Clinton, and that’s the difference here. (As an aside, I look forward to debating the best ways to reform this bullshit primary system, because it’s all sorts of f’d up.)
This day brings me no joy, or sadness. I have one overriding concern right now: We must face the villain of a lifetime on the GOP side, someone who literally incites his followers to violence while gleefully leading them in a Hitler-like salute. It defies parody. Our number one priority is to keep him as far away from the White House as possible. Our number two priority is flipping the Supreme Court. Say what you will about the Clintons, but they gave us Justices Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Another one of those, and the court is ours. Within the next eight years, another conservative vacancy is likely to open up. We can control the court for generations. Say goodbye to Citizens United and partisan gerrymandering and voter suppression (among so many other things).
That’s it! Anything else good a Clinton presidency might give would be gravy. But beating Donald Trump and taking control of the Supreme Court are the two single most important tasks on our agenda today.
I have written about the site’s new rules, effective today, here and here. But to make it super easy for everyone to understand, let me distill them to their very essence:
1. No spiking the football. We haven’t won shit yet. Everyone can celebrate in November, when we win the White House-Supreme Court combo. And guess what hurts our efforts to unite the party toward that goal? Being a dick to our allies. If you want to be a dick, be a dick to Republicans. They deserve it. Anyone fighting for someone as classy and principled as Bernie Sanders deserves our respect and admiration, because they defied the odds to get this far. They are not the enemy, so anyone that treats them as such will get no mercy.
2. No more malicious criticism of Clinton. So how do we define “malicious” criticism? If your goal is to destroy Clinton, then ciao. If your goal is to make her a better candidate or president, then please proceed. It’s actually not so difficult to determine which is which and not so difficult to stay on the acceptable side of this equation. This has nothing to do with “protecting” Clinton from damage. She’s faced far worse elsewhere. It has everything to do with making this a constructive place for those fighting against the Trumpism conquering the GOP. If you want to get your Hillary hate on, there are a depressingly large number of places on the internet that will be happy to indulge you. This just won’t be one of them. I have no interest in becoming Fox News Annex.
That’s pretty much it. You can still advocate for Bernie Sanders to your heart’s content. You can still criticize Clinton if you are trying to push her to the left or trying to make her a better candidate (and yes, that even includes sober discussions of news events that might negatively impact her candidacy). Ninety-nine percent of people discussing the primary the last few months will be fine. Another one percent will either evolve, or they’ll have to find greener pastures elsewhere. And any Clinton supporter that tries to use these rules to shut down acceptable criticism will face their own sanctions.
In other words, I don’t give a shit what side of the primary divide people came from. The task ahead is too important to indulge in anyone’s stupid victory dance, or someone else’s malicious tantrum.