Tom Sullivan on Digby's Hullabaloo has an excellent post on today about what should be next for people who supported Bernie but yet find it difficult to transition to Hillary. Unlike, I should add, so many Bernie supporters here on Daily Kos and indeed, unlike Bernie himself who so graciously and wholeheartedly endorsed and supported Hillary at the convention.
What struck me about his post and prompted me to share it here is that it applies to all of us who support Hillary and we need to realize in our guts, not just our heads, how critical our efforts are to our country and the rest of the world.
So, back to Tom’s post which began with a tweet from David Atkins aka thereisnospoon that pointed out “You don't have to win to be effective.” in response to another tweet marveling that the platform was more progressive than Obama’s in 2008.
Next, he takes to task Hillary supporters who have been smug and/or rude to Bernie supporters. He makes this point.
Bernie Sanders' grassroots supporters have energy and a fire in their guts that Democrats will need, not just for this coming election, but beyond. Losing is always tough. The trick is to learn from it, to pick yourself up and channel that energy. Besides, as one Sanders delegate told a friend after the convention, "We may have lost the battle, but we won the war."
Then he moves on to address those Bernie supporters who are struggling with moving their support to the candidate who won the primary.
Already some of my Bernie friends are re-registering as independents, unwilling to participate further in the Democratic Party after an election contest in which, one supporter alleged, the party "wouldn't let Bernie win."
Seriously? Seriously? Letting your opponent win is called throwing the fight. That’s not how elections work. Think opponents across the aisle will be so nice?
Plus, why would anyone expect human dynamics inside a political party to be different from politics in any other organization? You can find assholes anywhere. Families feud. Clubs have fallings out. Churches have schisms. Team members don't get along. ... So it goes.
Then he goes on to make a few important points. First, political parties are like unions. You don't join because you agree with every last position but because you need strength in numbers.
Second, he acknowledges that not everyone is a joiner and that not joining is okay. He then points out “that it's their choice” and "if having less of a voice in the political process makes them feel marginalized, they are marginalized by choice. They are not being excluded.”
Anybody can get in. All they have to do to join is register. All they have to do to participate is show up and work. Sometimes alongside people they don't much like.
His third point is focused on gaining influence, credibility and authority.
You don't walk into a church for the first time and expect people to ask you to preach the sermon. You don't walk in a third time and expect people to ask for your sage counsel. We all understand that. So we don't get offended when they don't. So it is in party politics. Bernie friends say they want R-E-S-P-E-C-T. What they really want is to be taken seriously. But credibility is not conferred by registering at the DMV. Credibility, you have to earn over time.
He concludes with this which is the part I want to emphasize to all Hillary supporters.
This ain't the Montessori School. Jumping into this fight, would-be revolutionaries are vying to lead the most powerful country on the planet. You are promising voters you are going to take on and subdue the most powerful corporate entities in the world.
[...]
After the starship Enterprise's first disastrous encounter with the Borg, the entity Q tells Captain Jean Luc Piccard:
Q: If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid.
People’s futures are on the line. The world is. If you expect to win at this game, first learn how to play it. If you expect to advance your agenda and defeat your rivals inside your own party – any party – you'd best learn how they play it. Better yet, cooperate with and win them over. Or else outwit, outlast, and outplay them. But this isn't "Survivor." This is for real. And in the long run, that’s what it takes to win. Plus allies. Lots of allies.
This is democracy, warts and all. At the end of the day (and on Election Day it is the end of the day) we count votes. That’s how we determine winners and losers. There is math involved. We don’t count passion or ideology or likeability or past decisions or check-off boxes on candidate questionnaires. Politics is a competition. It’s a contest. You must be present to win. If you don’t show up to play, you forfeit.
It’s the votes that count and we need a lot of them. It's not about my feelings or your feelings. It’s about the future of our children, our country and our world.
We need to be tough and we need to be out there registering and persuading voters and supporting those who do that hard work in whatever way we can.
Thanks Tom for a terrific post.
