2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: To Bernie Sanders Supporters [View all]gcomeau
(5,764 posts)I have been here since 2004. In EVERY election up until this one I have been the one making your argument.
This election it is, I'm sorry, not enough.
The difference is in previous elections we had no viable progressive alternatives on the ticket. No serious real progressives were ever allowed out of the fringe or broke a few percent nationally so every year I was right there with you. Be realistic! Who can get elected is who can get elected! It's not the party's fault the only options we have are centrists or people pulling the party to the right, we can't let the freaking GOP have the White House!
But this is the year. A progressive candidate with UNASSAILABLE credentials as a champion of our policies. Who has spent his entire life fighting for everything we want. And who can fucking WIN. GE polling show him as the *strongest* candidate running.
And the party establishment did everything in it's power to line up against him and box him out so Mrs Walking Personification Of The Status Quo could get it. In the insurgency anti-establishment election year. Shoving a centrist candidate down our throats who is further to the right than our current president.
And here's the bottom line. We've been going along with the "come on guys, at least they're not a Republican" excuses every year because the hope was always held out that eventually we would get a true progressive back in once we had one that was viable. But if the party establishment won't let that happen this year of all years... when every single star is aligned to make that successful... then the answer to when the Democratic Party will permit a progressive presidential candidate to be nominated is NEVER. Not unless things change.
And us all obediently falling in line knuckling under to the repeated-every-election threat that if it's not a little right it's a lot right so come on guys and hop on the "move a little right" bandwagon? That's changing squat. The only way this changes is if there are consequences.
So be it. Let there be consequences. If Sanders isn't the nominee I'm sitting this election out. Early on I was going to try to support Clinton if she was it, but after the continued flat out attacks on things like Single Payer fuck that. My voice will not be lent to supporting the anti-progressive. I will not be complicit in the continued corruption of the Democratic Party. I'm going to be sitting silent on the sidelines waiting to find out which of two bad options happens, and I'm honestly not sure which one is worse. A GOP presidency (whether it's Trump or not) will be fucking horrible for 4-8 years. But a Clinton presidency almost certainly means a continued rightward slide of the Democratic Party into GOP Jr for the next fucking 50. And which of those is worse? You tell me? Because I really don't know. But something has to change because I'm tired of the best case scenario being a bad one.
So the Democratic Party can reform, or it can kiss my support goodbye. It still has a slim chance to do the right thing by the convention. If not, see ya.