As much as I can I have stayed out of this Primary squabbling. I don’t like it when my friends fight among themselves. It’s counter-productive, unhelpful and not a little childish. So I have restricted my input to a few comments here and there.
There is no doubt that I have supported the candidacy of Bernie Sanders. If you are liberal, or progressive, then the reasons really do not need explaining to you. If you are not, then I actually don’t care to explain them. I have friends here who have supported Hillary Clinton. They have done so for their own reasons, and I respect their decision even while I disagree. It was never a simple, nor a black and white choice, for many.
Tonight, however, something significant did happen. Tonight Hillary Clinton passed the point where Bernie could go to the Convention with a majority of pledged delegates, and that IS an important metric …. quite unlike the wholly bogus popular vote count so beloved by hypocrites and media alike (maybe they are the same thing). She cannot get there with sufficient to lock-up the nomination, but in reality that no longer matters very much.
So there we have it. After the first round of voting Hillary Clinton will be the first woman nominated by a major political party, for the Office of President of the United States, and that in and of itself is a Very Big Fucking Deal. Please, however insignificant it is in the grand scheme of things, allow this immigrant who has no vote, to add his congratulations to the long list of luminaries who have already done so … some of you were a bit premature, but whatever …
Now to Senator Sanders …
Bernie has ignited a revolution. His campaign, flawed as it might have been, has been historic too. All those fucking lazy, entitled Millennials, shouty, argumentative, inspirational … Please remember they are our future. They are our children and they will choose your nursing home. If you are of an older generation try to remember that you could walk into a job, with benefits, and buy a home at age 21. What many of you then did is spend your lives electing people who took those opportunities away from our kids. If they think Bernie has a message they relate to, then you would be extremely foolish not to listen.
Bernie is, as those around here used to say, Crashing the Gates. Not simply to force them ajar and sneak inside, but wide-open, removed, melted down and turned into plowshares. Bernie’s entire message and campaign has been about the one thing, the single premise this Blog was created to pursue; returning democracy to the people. Reducing inequality, increasing opportunity, removing the stranglehold of corporate interests from our governance and laws. Not incrementally, not by appointing lobbiests and corporate donors to key positions. Not by doing little things, offering a tiny dream to replace the American Dream.
Bernie has been credited with inspiring and involving the very demographic we have long wished would become involved. The young, the future.
He managed that by proposing big ideas, grand schemes, the promise of a better future to a group so freakin’ disillusioned that they care more for the escapism of light entertainment than they do for their own futures … at least we thought so until Sanders showed us we were wrong. We were just doing it wrong is all.
If any one of you sees this primary process as a defeat for Bernie Sanders then what I have to tell you is that you are part of the problem. In this campaign Hillary has reached the line before Bernie. That much is clear, but please do not be tempted to think that, however historic, she will be a President who offers much in the way of greater equality. There is NOTHING in her history that suggests she is any other than a Democrat who believes that capitalism, in its current form, is the better system that merely requires “tinkering with”. Maybe she will prove me wrong. I would be pleased if she did but there is little to suggest that will happen.
To the other Sanders supporters I say this … We need to win in November. We need not just to win, we need to smash the GOP back to the Stone Age, it’s where they feel most comfortable. The Republicans are not just some cozy enemy viewed by comfortable Democrats who can easily live through four years of Trump while bleating on Facebook and in Blogs. GOP governance, in many states, is killing people, impoverishing people, destroying schools, communities and families. Real people without the luxury of a six-figure salary, or any salary, are already desperate and they don’t need your pity, or sympathy, or prayers. They need your VOTES! So whichever side you are on, however disappointed you are that your guy, and mine, didn’t win, you damned well will get your ass to the polls in November and you will vote for our Nominee.
And the fight goes on. The nomination is a process. Bernie is perfectly entitled to keep fighting for us right onto the Convention floor, and I think he should. The Hillary supporters clamoring for him to concede and congratulate Hillary are entirely missing the point. She used every trick in the book to get this nomination. That is what the Party set up and she took full advantage. I do not blame her for that, and you do not get to blame Bernie for doing exactly the same. He is entitled to fight to the first round vote, and he damned well should. His campaign is not about him. It was never about whether or not he was liberal, or grumpy, or shouty … It was about us, our society, the racism, sexism, inequality at every turn. Those things have not gone away and neither should he.
Our job is now to hold Hillary’s feet to the fire, and so is his. She will win that first round vote, but the process the Party set up allows Sanders to fight all the way, and no one gets to criticize him for that lest they want their hypocrisy on display for all to see.
