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In reply to the discussion: I don't get the negativity and I never will [View all]Hortensis
(58,785 posts)effect whatsoever on my vote.
It's not Sanders' more zealous supporters, the minority who did not vote for the Democratic candidate in 2016, who bother me (some on the left will always reject the party just has to be accepted, it's their right to feel however they do) and it's not Sanders' official positions that offend me. They overlap a great deal with my own. But that's true of literally hundreds of honorable politicians, and I require more.
Sanders' continual attacks on ME, and insults of me, as a Democrat offend me. To put it mildy, I do not agree with his characterizations of me and the people I decide will further my wishes. Nothing new about those, of course, that's a 50-year pattern of behavior. And, even though I realized he was not a person I could support, I did mostly just ignore it and wish him well in energizing resistance to Republicans in the beginning.
His choice to instead...reform Democrats from the left as we are fighting an existential battles on the right, however, more than offends me. Reaaallly bad timing. Bizarre timing. You don't embark on a home remodel as the hurricane of the century bears down. At least most people don't.
His ethical behaviors as they differ from what I require terminally repel me. We have very different ideas of what is acceptable behavior in politicians.
And how I believe his behaviors affected the results of the 2016 election make me very, very, very, very angry. I will never forget that. But when the party leadership gave him a leadership position within the party, including a fortune in party assets for his use, he was given a chance for all of us to put everything behind us and move on to the big battle. I was willing to support the party's decision and support him in a joint fight against the right, but he is not moving on.
The current headlines about how this person who rejects and despises the Democratic Party is "taking it over" are profoundly silly and irresponsible, and they don't worry me. Even if he did have some initial success, I believe he'd promptly fail. But I'll tell you, if somehow it happened, if competent far left leaders somehow surfaced and joined him to stabilize the new direction (imo, almost an oxymoron), I would have to join those who formed a new party with leaders who meet my standards and share my ideology and leave the shell of the party to whatever he brought it to. You see, Sanders and I are both in agreement that we are not each other's kind of political person.