Bernie urged his supporters to vote for Clinton. He warned them how dangerous Trump was. And the overwhelmingly majority of them did vote for the Democratic nominee. But those who did not chose to put a White Supremacist in the White House are absolutely responsible for the suffering they inflicted on the nation. Bernie wasn't running against Clinton in the general election. Trump was, and those who refused to vote for Clinton chose Trump.
They knew Trump was a bigot. They knew he was supported by White Supremacists. They chose to put that fascist in the White House. They floated every Kremlin and GOP lie about Clinton, and they supported Trump with their votes--either directly for Trump or for Stein or some other ratfuck move. They had an opportunity to stand up against fascism; they instead chose to abet it.
Bernie is an excuse cowards hide behind to justify their own collaboration with fascism. Bernie warned them about Trump, as did Clinton. Bernie urged them to vote for Clinton, and they refused. They didn't do so because of Bernie. They did so because that is who they are. They insisted Clinton was worse. They insisted her policy positions were worse. They knew full well what Trump was, and they chose him anyway. That makes them complicit in all of this. Every death from hate crimes, every immigrant family torn apart by immigration raids, every person who loses their health insurance or is thrown in the street because of cuts to safety net programs is on them. In refusing to vote for Clinton or even directly voting for Trump, they choose THIS America, the America in which Nazis are better regarded in the White House than than Civil Rights or Environmental activists. They knew exactly what they were promoting.
So no, calling out the fascist collaboration is not disgusting. Collaborating with fascism, choosing to bring it to power-that is disgusting. Utter disregard for the lives of one's fellow citizens is disgusting. A myopic focus on their own egos over human lives and suffering is disgusting. Using Bernie as a pretext for their contemptible actions is cowardly, an effort to deflect responsibility, to pretend they are no different from the millions of people who voted for Bernie in the primary, were disappointed at the outcome of that race, and then went on to vote for the Democratic nominee. They could not be more different. The Bernie supporters got over their disappointment, at least enough to do the right thing in the fall election. The Stein/Trump/ratfuck voters choose instead to stand with fascism, to reject principles and values they claimed to uphold but never did. They chose to vote against weaning America off fossil fuels; they chose to vote against the Paris Climate Change Agreement; against civil rights, women's rights, educational reform that would have lessened inequality. They voted against regulation of banking and against campaign finance reform. They voted for conservative appointments to the supreme court. In fact, I heard a number of them argue that a RW court was a small price to pay for taking down the Democratic Party. Of course, they knew it would never be them who would have to pay.
This is their government, their America. When future generations ask them how it was that the American electorate could allow the country to descend into fascism, they can lie, feign outrage, or deflect. But the fact remains, when America was at a crossroads, when they were faced with the single most important political choice of their lifetimes, they chose evil.
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