2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: I've gotta say this. [View all]RiverNoord
(1,150 posts)Do you really mean that everyone who votes for Democrats is in that group?
If you did, really did, you'd have backed Bernie Sanders from the start. The mainstream media practically has a gag order on speaking his name, he doesn't have the power base of an ambitious family containing an former two-term United State President, has faced a national party machine that has planned meticulously for a Clinton nomination, and most Americans had never heard of him a year ago. Yet, his candidacy has motivated millions of people in ways that Hillary Clinton's campaign hasn't come close to, and he has come remarkably close to claiming the Democratic nomination for the Presidency.
That is the way to win the White House. Energy like that shouldn't be squandered, it should be warmly welcomed into the Democratic party and harnessed to shape the party into the dominant American political force of the future. Hillary Clinton does not generate anything like that sort of energy among her supporters. No Democratic candidate for the Presidency during the past century, at least, has. And the Democratic Party machinery is so deeply interwoven with Hillary Clinton's campaign that it, for selfish reason, will gladly squander all of that energy if it means Hillary Clinton becomes President. That's not a win for the Democratic Party - it's a win for a group of people who don't care how they get Clinton into the White House and aren't really interested in the long run.
On the other hand, a lot of Democrats simply do not want Hillary Clinton to be the President of the United States. I really will not be able to bring myself to the act of actually casting a vote in favor of her becoming the President. You can argue with that position all you want, but you can't ignore its existence as a fact. You don't have to agree with people like me in order to acknowledge that our positions are real. And its existence ought to educate you as to the state of affairs within the Democratic Party today.
If Hillary Clinton becomes President of the United States, I know I won't be one of the people in whose hands the White House is kept. For a Democrat like me, the entire premise of your assertion that a Hillary Clinton presidency will keep the 'WH in our hands' is deeply flawed. Even if you are exasperated by such a position, don't pretend that it doesn't exist or that it is isolated and irrelevant.