Let me preface this by pointing out a few things.
1. I support Bernie Sanders for President. I intend to vote for him in the California primary regardless of who is the nominee, presumptive nominee, superdelegates, or even if the Republican party was melted into a puddle of goop.
2. Nothing gets me atop my steed of self-righteousness than hypocrisy, ignorance, cognitive dissonance, echo chambers, double-speak from double-thought, privilege masking as martyrdom, and a lack of context. Essentially, anytime someone is wrong on the internet. Clearly, I live a frustrated life.
3. I like to combat the above with reality, fact, context, understanding, compassion, and, most importantly, a relentless amount of knowledge-bombs.
So, the point of this post is to get out a few of the insane things being spouted by my fellow Bernie supporters that I cannot stand. They make us look foolish, hurt the cause, and ultimately contribute to worsening progressive causes, both among liberals and the nation at large.
Take noted activist Angie Aker, for instance, www.facebook.com/…
This is a person who says they support Bernie Sanders but in the same breath would undo everything he works for. Bernie has stated quite clearly that Democrats are 100 times better than the GOP, even on our worst days and their best. Moreover, Bernie is running as a Democrat to avoid splitting the party, to avoid the same disaster in 2000 that saw Bush win the Presidency (with the help of some election fraud and the Supreme Court) because Nader sapped Gore’s base.
Yet, Ms. Aker states, quite clearly, that she won’t vote for Hillary if she becomes the nominee. At first it went from not voting at all to then writing in Bernie on her voter form. Basically, doing EXACTLY what Bernie has tried to prevent from happening.
Ms. Aker has argued that her conscience refuses to allow her to do otherwise, even with the prospect of a Trump or other Republican president. Even despite dozens of her own close friends and associates telling her, in no uncertain terms, the damage such actions would have upon the country and them personally. Like to immigrants. To People of Color. To women. To religious minorities. To the poor. To the middle-class. To students. To those with special needs and/or disabilities. To the elderly. To union workers. To teachers. To public servants. To LGBTQ communities. To almost every single person in this country. To the world at large. People will die if Trump or another Republican becomes president. Literally die. And this is a woman who has dedicated her life to progressiveness, to making our country better. Yet here her fanaticism to Bernie Sanders has robbed her conscience of even a scintilla of rational perspective, among other things. Her apparent privilege precludes even considering that she might actually be doing the wrong thing, as so many Bernie supporters have mistakenly rushed into it seems.
But it’s not just that — Ms. Aker, along with many of my other fellow Bernie supports stated quite clearly that we would not split the ticket, that we would remain committed to the Democratic nominee regardless of the primary outcome. Hillary supporters said much the same thing.
So, that leaves this about-face not just dangerous, but disingenuous. A betrayal. A shameful lie played upon our fellow progressives.
Yet, when confronted, Ms. Aker and those like her would call us the enablers, the hostage-takers, the saps, and spew endless vitriol at us for daring to question her actions and her beliefs that would led to not just the destruction of our country, but potentially the whole world under, say, a Trump presidency. She says “fuck you,” that we are what’s wrong with this country even as she’s laying out the gas and breaking out the matches to burn our nation to the ground.
The irony is so thick you can almost choke on it.
Bernie supports like Ms. Aker would hold the country hostage if they don’t get their way. They think it’s better that someone like Trump becomes president than another Democratic nominee, or just Hillary, become president. And they tell us we just have to accept it. We just have to deal with it because they won’t change course. They don’t care what we say. They’re going to do it anyways. And they’re gonna mock and insult us while they do. You know who talks like that? Hostage-takers. Abusers. Bullies.
And that’s what they are being, hostage-taking abusive bullies, sticking their fingers in their ears while loudly yelling when we try to interrupt their insanity, “nah nah nah, can’t hear you!” Of course, if you make even a little success in being heard above the din, the ban-hammer will be dropped. Or you’ll be unfriended. Or blocked. Or ignored. Or reported. Or anything, anything, other than actually listening to a little rationale thought that, just MAYBE, life is a little more complex than they think.
Ms. Aker and those like her take it even further. They perpetuate myths and lies about Hillary Clinton as if suddenly these die-hard progressives were Fox News talking-heads. Meanwhile, they conveniently ignore well-reasonedcriticismof Bernie that would make him a better candidate.
They cry foul about superdelegates (even though Hillary is still ahead even without superdelegates) and then *crickets* when Bernie’s campaign is proposing a win by using superdelegates themselves!
They tell us to be thankful Bernie hasn't Nader’d the Democrats even while they plan to Nader the Democrats themselves in direct opposition to Bernie’s own statements on the issue!
They play creative math to show how Bernie can still win the nomination even despite the fact that almost all studies show that Bernie has no realistic path to the nomination given our proportional primary system. (Unless we allow superdelegates to decide for us, which my fellow Bernie supporters and I have said is not democratic. We have to stand by that when it works for us just as much as when it doesn’t.)
People like Ms. Aker are the exact kind of zealot that we deride on the Republican side, Tea-Baggers, neocons, the Moral Majority, etc. They are the polar opposite in ideology but the same in action and intention. They don’t care about a coalition — they care about winning, about being in control, about purity. They call us the Big Tent Party but what they really want is an echo chamber where no one challenges their hypocrisy, their ignorance, their cruel privilege, and their abusive, bullying as well as hostage-taking. But even worse, they refuse to see it and instead call out to us as The Bad Guys. They refuse to see the damage they are willfully inflicting upon our party, our cause, and possibly our nation.
This isn’t what Bernie Sanders stands for. This isn’t what being a progressive, a liberal, a Dem, or even a Green is all about. We are not the party (parties?) of fools. We are supposed to be better than this. We need to rise up and act like adults. We need to wake up and take our place in this Democracy not with a whimper and back-stabbing but with a shout and an embrace. I can think of no better time than around the Ides of March for a party to be faced with this kind of existential moment, to consider carefully who we want to be in our political life.
I encourage my fellow Bernie supports to really consider what I’ve posted here. To actually sit down and think through the consequences if you don’t vote for the Democratic nominee, not just for yourself personally but your family, your friends, your neighbors, your coworkers, your entire world. Our entire world. Are you really comfortable playing ostrich with your head in the sand while others play with matches and gasoline all around you? Are you really comfortable in accepting lies and fanatics over reality and community? And if so, then why are you still pretending that you’re a progressive? Why are you even here?