2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: There's no good reason to anathematize Bernie and his supporters. [View all]Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Since the site re-opened, most comments even mildly critical of how the campaign was run(and I think you'd have to agree that there are SOME valid observations about strategic mistakes that a decent, loyal progressive Dem could fairly offer)have been repeatedly equated with personal hatred of Secretary Clinton and a desire to destroy the party. This line of attack and silencing was even used against long-time Clinton supporters who offered criticism of choices the campaign made.
People like myself were just trying to be a bridge between the support we had and the additional support we COULD have had if the campaign had just shown a bit of creativity. For this, we were treated as double agents and saboteurs.
I have no use for what I hear goes on at JPR-you know me and you know the vast majority of Sanders supporters well enough to know that we don't share their attitudes, defend their tactics or bear any responsibility for what they do. Yet throughout the campaign we were treated as though we were in league with JPR(we both know the late, lamented Jackpine himself would not have wanted anything to do with what they are about) and even now there are continued attempts to suppress open discussions of the party's future through false accusations that critical posters are JPR infiltrators or sympathizers.
I agree with you that any conspiratorial right-wing talking points like the ones you list their should have no place here. But it is fair game to critique a campaign that, even though it has a two million vote lead in the popular vote, fell about 70 to 75 electoral votes shy of what it expected to get.
And I don't defend anyone on the left who voted Green or Trump on "Hillary is Satan in a pantsuit" grounds(sorry for the horrible mental image there) or who hold the delusional notion that Trump was the peace candidate(that idea is comparable to Colonel Sanders being the animal-rights candidate), but I still maintain that a few very small additional changes in the platform(mainly a specific "No TPP" pledge in the stump speech and the ads, especially the ads in heavy rotation in the Upper Midwest)would have put us over the top without compromising ANY of the "social justice" commitment all of us equally pledge full support to. That change would have said to these young people "we CHANGED this party-it listened to us", and having them believe that would, I believe have swung at least 300,000 votes from Stein to Hillary...more than enough for us to have carried all the battlegrounds.
Sanders supporters who backed the ticket didn't want Hillary to "become Bernie" (It was terrifying enough when Kate McKinnon actually DID that transformation when playing Hillary in a parody campaign ad on "SNL" this spring). We asked nothing of her that was in any way disrespectful or that would have diminished her stature as nominee in the slightest. We just wanted to make the campaign a true partnership-not only between both campaign, between the great supporters we already have and the new generation of activists we could have welcomed in and embraced. It was about growing the party so we could be sure of a solid win, a win no undemocratic electoral system designed solely to benefit slaveowners could ever take from us.
Given what happened instead, do you still think the party had anything to lose by TRYING that?