I am really tired of Bernie supporters acting as if they are the only true progressives. It is so arrogant that I can’t justify it even though I know they are butthurt about being on the losing side of a primary.
I have been a progressive activist for almost fifty years. I have spent a good portion of my working life as a professor and psychotherapist doing free labor for progressive causes. As an anti-Vietnam war activist I was jailed and gassed (badly). As a member of the Pledge of Resistance I was jailed along with 500 others in a takeover of Boston’s federal office building as a protest of Reagan’s embargo of Nicaragua. I was part of the Liberty Union Party in Vermont in the early ‘70s where I worked with others, including Bernie Sanders. My first active involvement is a presidential campaign was canvassing for McGovern in Vermont. Yeah, it was a disappointing outcome. In later years I helped found a progressive criminal justice policy coalition. I have taught in prisons, volunteered with the UFW, and participated in many other areas of progressive action. And I have raised three children who share the values of me and my wife and they act on them—impressively.
So here’s my request: stop acting like you’re holier than everyone here who thinks Hillary Clinton is a better presidential candidate than Bernie Sanders. I started out supporting Bernie, watched the debates and had to change my mind. Clinton’s breadth and depth of knowledge, her policy positions, and her history as a champion of the rights of women and people of color brought me around. I know, YOU DON’T AGREE!! You may think Bernie is leading a revolution. I don’t think revolutions are started with a presidential election. I think the most powerful position in the world needs someone with great knowledge and experience and the temperament and maturity to handle stress and great opposition. I think Clinton is better than Sanders on all these dimensions.
If you say you have to leave Dkos because it is no longer a site for progressives, OK. leave. But spare us the Goodbye Bad Corporate Whore posts. In the future when you need to leave a party, organization or, FFS, an internet site, you might want to do so with a little more humility and grace.