Bernie Sanders voters helped Trump become President

[pat_k]

249. Of course "horse trading" is necessary. But preemptive surrender is NOT.

The Democratic strategy of preemptive surrender has not been working for us because it is a losing strategy. Dedication to the principle of "Can't win, so don't fight" is why we have been sliding further and further backwards.

Just a few examples. The leadership says they want universal health care, but make NO concerted effort to get out there and fight for it. That is, they don't get out there and make a powerful case to We the People. They don't make any effort to inspire and instill the belief that we CAN get it done. They make no effort to engage "people power." And getting people on board is how you move things forward and get things done. Tragically, for too long, too many of our candidates and elected officials do the opposite. They go around telling us how impossible this or that is. Effectively, their message is "you have no power." And having told voters they have no power over and over and over again, is it any wonder that more and more of them don't bother to get to the polls?

That is the type of strength I am talking about. Standing up and speaking out, and making the case for the things they believe our country needs to do to "make a more perfect union." It means making the cases, and telling people you are dedicated to getting them the Whole Loaf. That inspires people to get out and vote for you, making it more likely that progress toward the goal will be made.

Of course, the big stuff never happens overnight, and no one expects that. The notion that Bernie voters believed they'd get free tuition right after election day was utter bullshit. They voted for Bernie because he would fight for it and work to drum up a level of popular support that would push legislators to do something, even if just incremental. You can't drum up the level of popular support for the increment. What voters are starving for is leaders who are fighting the good fight for the big stuff, getting us on board, and thereby making progress. In one election cycle, maybe all you get is a few "slices" of the loaf, but you don't stop there. You keep talking about, and engaging people, in working to achieve the REAL goal, through the next election cycle, and the next.

Instead, we have people running for office telling us we the whole loaf is a pipe dream, but that they're gonna get us a couple measly slices. And if they do, they declare victory, and call it a day.

Obamacare should not have been the end, it should have been a beginning. The fight to fix it by adding the public option should have been waged from our side from the day it was passed. Because there was no concerted effort to do that, we have had NO counterpoint to the "abolish" people. And make no mistake, if the voices for universal health care in congress don't get a lot louder, the Repubs WILL succeed in taking us backward. Obamacare has been throughly demonized. Simply trying to protect it is a big fat loser. Dems need a counterpoint. A fix of their own. And the best bet for that is the public option. But I digress from the larger point.

You don't start a negotiation asking for what you think the other side will let you have. You start from what you WANT, and then work from there. For too long, Dems keep starting from what they think the Republicans will "let" us have, while the Republicans start with what they want. For example, they want to make it impossible for women to get an abortion. They NEVER lose sight of or stop talking about that goal. That is what they run on. And Lo and Behold, they have made ENORMOUS progress toward that goal. There are now swaths of our country where abortion is so difficult to access it might as well be illegal.

There are many, many, other ways Dems could have demonstrated strength and courage of conviction that would have inspired and brought people to the Democratic Party. Like fighting to impeach Bush for torture, win or lose, because principle demanded it. Like joining a filibuster to actually STOP Alito, instead of claiming to "oppose" him by voting against him on the floor while refusing to join a winning filibuster that actually would have stopped him.

The list goes on and on.