I don’t like being tone policed. So I’m not going to tone police you. With that said, let’s talk.
First, I think it’s smart for Berners to remember that this election is going to be hard as fuck. We will have ups. We will have downs. We can win, but we can lose too. It is going to be a long process, and the race can and likely will change drastically before the end.
Now let’s look at the landscape. The media is against us. Big money is against us. The establishment Democratic Party is (mostly) against us. The Republican Party is against us. The primary will be a difficult uphill battle.
The fight from 2016 is starting to play out again. The vast majority of Clinton supporters are not only backing candidates other than Bernie, they are actively AGAINST Bernie.
The money and power has been against Bernie from the start. They thought they had a darling with Kamala, but she is faltering. They watched the rise of Buttigieg with anticipation, and a lot of money went his way, but he is stuck in single digits. Some of the power cautiously got behind Biden, but they know he is a train wreck waiting to happen.
Originally the money and power was against Warren, but that is starting to change. She is showing a willingness to play by the standard political rules, reaching out quietly to superdelegates and power players in the party to reassure them. She will be more disruptive to the status quo than someone like Biden, but drastically less than Bernie. She wants REGULATION not REVOLUTION.
For the powerful forces behind our economy and our politics, Warren may not be ideal, but they can work with her. Regulation is easily undone, undermined, or worked around. And she would unlikely carry the Senate with her, so good luck doing much beyond executive actions. And she might not be able to beat Trump, which is fine for the powerful interests running our country.
What we are seeing now is the Clinton coalition and their backers slowly coalescing around Warren. That is happening RIGHT NOW. You can see it in the polls, which do NOT represent reality on the ground, especially with an “outsider” candidate like Bernie. And let’s be honest: there is little you can do to stop the concentration of establishment power behind Warren.
So what the Hell are we — proud Bernie supporters — supposed to do?
We can and we should fight for some of the “likely voters” who are currently undecided, or supporting other candidates. If you look at second and third choices, there are a lot of voters considering Bernie that we can pull into the movement. This will especially be true as the field slowly winnows down.
Yeah, we can win some of these voters by critiquing other candidates, causing them to shy away from them and come to us. But the most effective way of winning them over is proving that Bernie is the best candidate for the job. It is generally more effective to talk UP Bernie than talk down other candidates.
Don’t get me wrong, we absolutely should compare and contrast our candidate with the others. And that includes criticizing candidates for their policies, words and actions. But if we start slinging names and insults… it probably won’t have the desired effect.
I want nothing more than to go on an all-out offensive against Warren. From a “scoring points” contest, it is a no brainer. She has some massive weaknesses (that Trump would destroy in the general). Within our Bernie circles, I could light her up. But what do we gain if I do that? Do I win new votes for Bernie?
Look, the media takes every little peep from Bernie supporters (or fake ones) and uses it to attack his campaign. We don’t do any favors to Bernie when we contribute to that media clusterfuck.
So again, what the Hell do we do?
We go after the “unlikely voters”, the new voters, the young voters, the voters who feel disenfranchised by our shit politics, the voters who won’t show up for anyone else, but maybe will show up for Bernie.
I used to be a non-voter. My first vote was for Obama. I gobbled up HOPE AND CHANGE. Then I was disappointed. I voted for Obama a second time, but with zero enthusiasm.
Then I discovered Bernie. He was talking about almost EVERYTHING I was talking about. Even better, he was talking about it since before I was born!!! Finally, a reason to vote!
We need to spread THAT feeling to millions of people who feel left out, left behind. We need to inspire people. WE NEED TO INSPIRE PEOPLE.
Let’s do more of that.
Let’s phone bank.
Let’s canvass.
Let’s text bank.
Let’s donate.
Let’s talk to our friends.
Let’s talk to people we know.
Let’s talk to people we don’t know.
Let’s preach.
Let’s spread the gospel.
Let’s win this primary.
Let’s win the general.
Let’s win the whole damn thing.
Let’s change everything.
But we can only do it if millions of people stand up and fight back. And that will only happen if WE talk to those millions, and inspire them.
Because #NotMeUs isn’t a hashtag, it’s a fucking revolution.
