2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Forget Sanders and Clinton for a moment. This is a symbolic schism that has been long brewing [View all]Gothmog
(147,047 posts)I live in the real world where I have to fight with real conservatives on real issues. You have to deal with realities in the real world. You may be happy with Sanders being a socialist but I have to deal with people who do not share your understanding of the term and concept. My county chair is a really good guy who may be more liberal than I am but he was really offended when he was attacked by a local paper for merely attending a Sanders event. This man gave Battleground Texas and Wendy Davis a ton of money last year (more than I gave last year) and also help fund my county's operations and his feelings were hurt by these attacks. The fact that the attacks are stupid does not really matter in the real world where you are dealing with real voters.
I can tell you right now that I believe that Sanders would hurt many down ballot candidates in Texas if the GOP and the Kochs spend $400 million on negative ads on the term socialism. I fully understand the correct definition of socialism and I understand that many of Sanders' positions are somewhat mainstream but it would take a ton of money to educate voters as to such facts and I do not see that Sanders will have the resources to do this. I also know that Sanders' programs will not truly cost $17 trillion but the explanation of why that number is wrong will be too complicated to get across to most voters without a very very strong advertising budget. The WSJ did a good job of poisoning the well and the effort to get the truth out may well be futile for most voters.
I believe in working within the system to change things. For over 20 years, I fought the battle with the Boy Scouts of America for years on the gay rights issue and we reached a very strong accomodation in my council (one of the largest in the US) on this issue that has now become the official policy of the BSA. It helped that I and my friends had sufficient contacts on the board of the United Way to encourage the Council to see reason but that was working within the system. Today, the BSA has come around. I do not apologize for working within the system. Change may come slower than you like but change is possible.