'Bernie or Bust' is not a tantrum [View all]

[hellofromreddit]

Personally, I still intend to vote for Hillary in the GE if she gets the nomination. I wonder how many will angrily reply before reading even this far.

We should recognize where BoB comes from.

Many of the Sanders voters are new democrats (myself included) who are not strongly connected to the party. My beliefs align quite well with the stated democratic platform, but I've been on the short end of plenty of policies from both major parties and feel zero affection for either one. I know I'm not alone. Arguments to the effect of "We just need a majority of democrats," with no specific end-game don't carry a whole lot of sway with my crowd. Remember when the democrats got a supermajority and proceeded to do none of what they said they'd do with it (hence the 'shellacking' in 2010)? Many older voters remember, and many younger voters know only today's do-nothing congress. So the vague promise of a democrat in office leading to a brighter future for some undescribed reason simply does not impress without some specifics.

Clinton doesn't inspire. Clinton's campaign, at its core, has no actual message. Sure, first female president sounds like a good symbol, but the rest of the campaign is primarily "I'm not." Not Trump, not conservative, not a republican, not not not. No "we", and no indication of what role the rest of us could play in her presidency. On its own that can't inspire any voters who haven't already decided to vote for her. So the rest of the message is to fear the alternative. To voters suffering now, watching their lives slide downhill now, and knowing tomorrow will be worse, it's hard to get super excited about somebody promising to be marginally unterrible.

Obama ain't that great. I don't think he's a bad president, but he has some real flaws and people who bring them up aren't doing it out of spite or whatever. He's the president; those flaws matter. Whistle blowers have been persecuted and the government is too secretive. Drone strikes kill civilians. Murdering our own citizens because they're deemed terrorists without a trial is frightening. Deporting families is unconscionable. Wall street was never prosecuted and our economic recovery is so lopsided it might as well not have happened for most people. We're still fighting endless, unofficial wars. He never did find his comfortable pair of shoes. You're telling people pissed off about any of that mess that Hillary will keep the gravy train rolling?

The DNC is awful. It was obvious since before Sanders began his run that the DNC would collude with Clinton. Sharing field offices with her campaign staff, the back-door money hose, DWS immediately turning on the Sanders campaign after the data breech, and of course, the super delegates pre-pledging by the hundreds. Euphemize it all you want, the corruption is as brazen as can be.

Hillary supporters are just mean. "We don't need your vote." "We don't want your vote." "Aww, no unicorn for you." "It's math." "Feel the math." "It's math, stupid." "That's where the boys are." "You aren't a real democrat." "Grow up." "Get over your tantrum." "Stop acting like a spoiled brat." "We're gonna need more foil." "You're wasting your time." "You're wasting your money." "You're losing." "You hateful/sexist/racist BernieBros." Who on Earth would have a positive response to any of that shit? Attacking voters is a no-go.

The accusations that Sanders has been negative are hollow. In fact, just about every criticism against Sanders has been dishonest to some degree. From Capehart's ham-fisted swiftboating to "where was he on healthcare in 1994?" to our seagulls screaming about his speaking at the Vatican, all of it has made critics look like damn fools and by contrast made Sanders look even better to his supporters. So fresh negative attacks on Sanders now go nowhere fast.

If there's ever an election for a protest vote, this is it. Both parties are deeply fragmented, so no matter how this election turns out, nobody will have that much power. Odds are looking pretty good that we'll even witness the death of a political party. And Sanders is the strongest outside candidate in many years. Lots of voters will be giving a big fat middle finger to the two major parties, so the reasoning goes: "One more can't hurt." All the fuckyous in the world won't bring them back to you.

The only effective option for reducing BoBs (assuming you want to) is to honestly confront what they complain about and show them where the solutions to those problems fit into the party and the Clinton campaign. So far I haven't seen even an attempt.

Why will I vote for Hillary? I'm a pragmatist like Sanders. Fight and push like hell for the best possible option, and when the fighting and pushing is done, work with the best available option. Sanders is the best possible option for me. Hillary is currently a better fallback option than a protest vote, but lots of folks supposedly "with her" are working awfully hard to reverse that balance.