2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Why does the HRC campaign do self-sabotaging behavior like this? [View all]Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)We would recognize(as the Obama campaign did)that we need partner to them in order to create the conditions for victory in the fall and real change after that. We wouldn't cut off our noses to spite our faces.
After all(despite the smears)Bernie is just as committed to the issues HRC is progressive on (women's rights, choice, LGBTQ issues, and that's pretty much it), so we would have no problem incorporating those themes even more broadly into the fall campaign.
Why is it such a big issue to you that Bernie has called the party corrupt? A lot of Democrats call the party corrupt every single day. Why shouldn't Bernie have said that? He wasn't attacking you or me as individuals, Nance-he's attacking DWS(the most conservative, ineffectual person we could possibly have running the DNC)and the Beltway insiders.
Even if you don't think the process was rigged against him, can you truly say what we have is a clean party leadership? Why do you take what he says about the party so personally? Can you really, honestly tell me you haven't ever said it yourself?
And yes, a very small group of progressives support HRC(almost entirely on the belief that she is more "electable" . Fine. You can't really expect me to believe that even most of those folks think she would do anything bold or transformative as president. I get it that she's competent, but, given her thirty years crusade(since she helped found the DLC)to drive the left OUT of this party, why would you expect her to actually(unless forced to by something close to a general strike)to even try to do anything the rich didn't like? Or ever support labor against the bosses? Or choose peace instead of war?
All I'm saying is, the Sanders movement(not the 'bros, who had nothing to do with the actual campaign)was the major force for change in this campaign...the only campaign that cared about the poor and the powerless. What is the harm in keeping the spirit of what Bernie and his supporters have fought for alive in this party? Why sneer at the very idea of that?