2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Hillary Haters Face Reality Voting For tRump [View all]JCanete
(5,272 posts)What can be provided in your opinion? What Bernie was offering may have been political fantasy but it was not mechanical fantasy. And you know what? Everything in a deadlocked congress is political fantasy. The only way to get anything passed is to give up somebody's lunch to the people carrying the water of large corporations, whether those people be members of the GOP or our own blue dog Dems. The only way to get something good is to take something bad.
So we might as well demand the "fantasy." The fantasy is something that can actually change people's lives, not stick a bandaid on their scrapes. The fantasy is something that can actually rally the people to push on government to take back what has been pilfered from the commons. Without that kind of movement at the bottom, I don't care how easy it is for big corporations to swallow tepid, wonky legislation, because they are only going to let that shit happen if they have to, and the Democrats aren't giving them a compelling reason why they have to.
Why not hold the DNC and the establishment responsible for not working with Sanders pre-convention? Their arrogance that they could entirely bury him and his policy message by trying to paint him as a bitter self-serving laughing stock(some of which you are still peddling), cost them an earlier reconciliation. For fucks sake, the only reason Sanders ran was to effect change on the democratic platform. It would have all been for naught had the DNC gotten their way. If you believe, like I do that this is the kind of change our nation desperately needs, then that isn't self-serving, it is why we funded his campaign and why we voted for him in the primaries. He had momentum and capital and instead of respecting that, the establishment simply tried to close the doors and turn their back. If there was still rancor going into the GE that cost Clinton votes, then that blame lies squarely at the feet of the party and our candidate. Why can't you admit that? Hell, they eventually adopted much of Sanders platform in the end anyway, albeit begrudgingly, so I ask you, what did they gain for that earlier cold shoulder?