2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: David Brock apologizes for the way he treated Bernie in the Campaign! [View all]bravenak
(34,648 posts)See, I do not expect anybody to see the world through my eyes and I also do not think my way of thinking is the only way or the best way. I am ideologically closer to Bernie thn I am to Hillary. I was certainly rooting for him until Netroots. My thing is this; to him, and his supporters, ideology matters more and he matters most. Regardless of what happened at netroots, I had hoped he would use that experience as a tool to learn how to build a coalition.
I, for one, am not comfortable with supporting people or movements that will stamp all over my personal heroes like John Lewis and Delores Huerta. I am an african american latina. To know that a movement that is supposedly left will call people who almost DIED for MY RIGHTS sellouts and uncle toms is fucking offensive. When has Bernie or any of them EVER almost DIED for my right to vote and organize? Never. Respect. They have none.
Respect is the issue. No matter how great ones ideas are, they must still know how to connect with wide swathes of the democratic party in order to achieve any goals set forth in our platform, without completely offending more than half of a particular group. If latinos and african americans and women age thirty five and older feel disrespected and mistreated, nothing will be accomplished. Just like people get personally offended when we call Bernie and themselves out on their tonedeafness, we also have the right to be offended when he calls our party corrupt and out of touch; not only is he wrong, but he is also hypocritical. He calls us out of touch when he failed to touch or connect with the minorities in the democratic party. And no, I am not calling him racist. I am saying he failed to connect and never fixed it.
The fact that minorities, gays, women older than thirty five and many others, to the tune of four million surplus votes, choose somebody who he thinks is out of touch and his supporters think was unable to foment enthusiam, should be a wake up call to the progressive left. If she was such a failure, what does it say that he could not even get close to the numbers SHE pulled in?
I know many think that us blacks and mexicans and gays and old ass ladies of thirty five an older do not matter, and that we would have fallen in line if the nomination had gotten pulled from her and given to him even though she won by four million votes. But they are wrong. If he could not connct with us in the primary, why the hell would we give a damn what he says now after how nasty the bob movement has treated us and our heroes? Like what? Abusing us and treating us like shit because she lost my winning three million more votes than the winner is somehow going to make Bernie MORE appealing? Politicians have to forgive and forget. They must work together. We regular people often will hold a grudg over the smallest things. And this was no small thing.
Until I see some acknowledgement from his side that the treatment of african american and latinos was wrong and will never be repeated, and that we are not going to have a bunch of white upper middle class progressive men and women calling Black and latino civil rights legends sell outs and niggers and wetbacks if they do not choose him, then I will continue to despise everthing he says he stands for and him too. I lost my respect and trust for the progressive left this cycle and my side-with page says 'YOU SIDE WITH JILL STEIN!'. If I, a pretty much radical leftist marxist am pissed off and anti BS, then there is a fucking problem that ignoring my calls and the calls of others will not fix by simply blaming Hillary or ignoring it, or blaming David Brock or pretending Berniebros is a myth.
Why do you think he could not get Corey Booker to sit down and come to an agreement on an amendment? Respect. He has none for us. He showboated to get attention to his pet issue, and completely forgot that he needed votes way more than he needed praise from his following. They will praise him no matter what so he wasted his time and let the amendment fail because he decided to finger point and play 'look at me' rather than sitting down with dems to COMPROMISE. He could have added drug protections and gotten it passed. We may only be 13% of the population but we fucking vote and are reliable voters unlike white men when it comes to democratic politics. And we are tired of hearing him tell us our color dont matter and political correctness is bad and that we use identity politics and that sucks too. Everything he says sounds like a snipe against us 'identity groups' that are harmed when political correctness gets thrown out and whose color ACTUALLY DOES MATTER AND AFFECTS OUR VOTES.
And we got threatened with Trump about Billion times this cycle. Well, they promised us that if we chose her then we would get Donald. (I actually bookmarked some from some of du's long time progressive members.) Nothing else they can threaten us with from here on, they got what they wanted. If they force their guy on us next time we will get the same result.
You do not see Hillary supporters trying to pump he up and push he on any of you anymore. So why do we have to get the peron she beat so badly pushed on us? If they want the primary to end, they have to stop campaigning. We are already done. Just waiting for you guys and responsing to spurious shit and letting y'all know he ain't never gonna happen.
Now, I hated hllary until bernie refused the call of the african americans who called on him to reject that bullshit. Sure, I hold a fucking grudge. But it aint about losing. I'm black. I'm used to losing. It's about being let down by the latent racism of the progressive left. It hurt my feelings to be called niggers by supposed leftists and to b told that something was wrong with me for being pissed about it. That it was just trolls so stfu. That I hated Bernie becaus I opposed people calling John Lewis niggers and sell outs and uncle toms on his facebook page. For rejecting the idea that Bernie's contributions to civil rights mattered more than the contributions of black people because he personally did not HAVE TO do anything.
Maybe, I'm mad because I should be mad. Maybe he should listen. Maybe you should too I
and you should spread the message that that shit was the real issue that killed the progressive movement and prevented it from spreading outside of the white liberal college educated enclaves. That folk like me who are educated are the ones you need to convince gecause we convince those who have less time to spend thinking about politics. Maybe I'm mad because I so fucking wanted you guys to convince us to convince them because my community is RIPE for change and the mark was missed. And that being right does not matter more than being human. We are humans. And his policy ideas were awesome. He and his messengers were horrible at delivering the message because they were so self righteous that they cared not who they offended on their way to 'victory'. In order to end the war both side have to stop CAMPAIGNING. We are done. It's his sides turn to stop campaigning and doing the 'he woulda beat Trump' shit. Maybe you should post on those threads and tell them to cut it out like you have done here with me. I know I posted to you first. But it would help.
You know what I want? A new leader who is not Bernie or Hillary. I would support everything wants legislatively if his name was not attached. I am as tired of Him as his supporters are of Her.