Has Bernie officially joined the Democratic Party yet?

[Ken Burch]

90. I didn't "fall in love" with anybody.

Last edited Sun Aug 23, 2015, 12:17 AM - Edit history (1)

I just deeply respect someone who calls for what most of us in this party, this country and this world want. There's nothing inappropriate in that.

And Obama(who I supported twice)wasn't the candidate of the rich, but under the influence of Rahm, he pretty much always deferred to them. That's the only reason we still have troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, that's the only reason he demobilized the Obama movement by reducing its function to electioneering and nothing else, that's the only reason he's fighting harder for corporate-drafted trade deals than heever did for healthcare and card-check.

Obama made things better, and he's a historic figure just for getting elected, but he squandered the chance to permanently realign American politics and move us towards a negotiation-based relationship with the rest of the world rather than our arrogant, imperial-minded approach to global life.

As to Bernie, he hasn't spurned our party as much as he came to the conclusion that you couldn't be a true progressive and have a long-term future in it. Look at how many toxic compromises Hubert Humphrey was forced to accept over the years, look how disgracefully Eugene McCarthy and his supporters were treated in Chocago, look at how McGovern was lead-piped by the party regulars just for winning the nomination fair and square, look how Jesse was shat upon in '84 and '88, look at how totally disregarded Paul Wellstone was in the Nineties by our party's leaders. Bernie made the choices he made to keep his soul and to do something that mattered-and none of his choices ever actually harmed our party. Why hate a guy who's only crime is committing truth?

If he'd made the choices your candidate made...the decision, over and over, that electoral politics was the only thing that matters,that "just winning the election" was worth giving up half or more of what you believe in, that activists and the powerless deserve no respect while corporations and bankers should get constant deference , nothing Bernie could have done after making those choices could ever have meant anything. He'd have reduced himself to hanging out in Davos with Bono.

If you don't want people like Bernie to keep their distance from this party, why don't you actually try working to make this party a place they can wholeheartedly trust? A place where ordinary people, activists, and the dispossessed are given at least as much of a hearing as CEO's with big checkbooks?