I have known for a while that Hillary is almost certainly going the nomination. Tonight it is even more certain. Now we as Democratic supporters and progressives, need to figure out how to get back together.
My candidate isn’t winning. Yours is. You are feeling victorious will be energized to battle for the general election. I want to sink into my couch and tune out until January. If you expect us to support your candidate now, then try to understand us.
I have deep reservations about Hillary Clinton that stem from my personal values as a progressive. You obviously disagree, but you should at least understand that my concerns are real to me. I worry that Hillary Clinton represents an establishment that is too cozy with big money. I am still frustrated by the compromises of the last Clinton administration including the welfare bill, the tough and crime bills and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.
I am planning to vote for Hillary Clinton. But I also care very deeply about the issues raised by the Bernie Sanders campaign. I care about single payer healthcare. I care about economic disparity. I care about racial justice. All of these are issues that to me Bernie spoke much more powerfully and with a greater commitment to than Hillary. Again, you are free to disagree. But this is how I, and I suspect many of us, feel.
You need to understand that the issues raised in this campaign are very deep; perhaps deeper and more heartfelt than in any recent campaign. At least to me, I have never felt more urgent about a candidate than I have about Bernie Sanders.
I would like to ask that the gloating stop. The attacks on the core progressive issues behind the Bernie campaign will split the party far more than anything that Bernie is doing.
It is the nominees job to unite the party. It is Bernie’s job (by that I mean the sincere desire of tens of millions of his Democratic supporters) to push these important issues and to make sure that even in losing the nomination, he can continue to give a voice to those of us who care deeply about them.
By supporting Bernie my intention is to push the party to support these progressive values. In a two party system that is the only way to support progressive values.
The worst insult you can give us is to claim that we aren’t Democrats— especially if you are demanding us to vote for this nominee in the general election that we didn’t support in the primaries.