Response to the argument that "Sanders voters" put Trump in office.

[Ken Burch]

116. I agree that that happened.

And I haven't ever defended the decision of people who SAID they voted Sanders in the primaries to NOT support the ticket. Not once.

Here's the things I'd have done differently in the fall:

1) I'd have centered the fall campaign on the platform, and abandoned all attack ads against Trump after the first round of them ran and we had proof they weren't swinging votes our way. Trump IS everything the ads said about him on a personal level, but it was obvious at the start that the voters didn't CARE. The voters wanted to know what our ticket would do-that's what they cared about more than anything else. The platform was great, but after the convention the party didn't mention it in the ads or all that much in the stump speech. It was important to keep mentioning the platform AND to reference the fact that the Sanders campaign had influenced it significantly, because younger voters in particular, the ones we needed to stay in the game and work for/vote for the ticket, needed to be shown that what they had done for all those months may have ended in the defeat of the candidate, but not in the defeat of the ideas they had worked for. Very often these young people were being told, at various levels, that they should just shut up and fall in line, that they had wasted their time for a year and a half, that they had accomplished nothing. As a party, we should have seen these people as a resource and an opportunity for growth; instead, they were more often than not treated as a nuisance.

2) I'd have run ads specifically targeting those voters during the fall campaign-not kowtowing to them, but validating and respecting the work they'd done, presenting the party as a place where they'd be welcome as a group to keep working for what they cared about. I'd have set up phone banking pitches they could do where they would ask for votes for the ticket AS former Sanders activists that were based on that theme;

3) In her acceptance speech, I'd have had HRC make it clear that there was never any significant difference between Sanders supporters and Clinton supporters on anti-oppression issues, that both groups were equally antiracist, pro-LGBTQ, pro-choice, pro-feminist, and anti-police violence. I'd also have had the party make it clear that there was never any good reason to set up a previously nonexistent rivalry between the social justice and economic justice movements. Whatever missteps Bernie himself made as a candidate, his supporters never deserved the collective distrust and hostility they received on that issue;

4) If she was under pressure to allow ambiguity in the platform language on TPP, I'd have had her staffers make sure nobody pulled a Terry McAuliffe on that issue. And I'd have had her go to states where the deal went badly and have town halls where she listened to those who were hurt by trade globalization, where she made it clear that she understood that many had been harmed for no good reason and that, even if we were to have more of these deals, they have to be negotiated in the future in such a way as to at least minimize

5) After the election, I'd mainly say that, if it's toxic to say we should have nominated someone else, it should be regarded as equally toxic to keep arguing that Bernie shouldn't have been allowed in the primaries. Both of these people represent something equally legitimate within the party and the country, and we can't win if either's supporters are given the cold shoulder. It's bad politics to drive away people you're going to need next time.

6) I'd set up dialog groups between former Clinton and former Sanders supporters, all over the country, where they could sit down and explain to each other which are the best and worst ways to communicate with each other, where they could talk about changing the way these groups communicate with each other. These are two groups of people who have always had more in common than not on what they want...it's time to get them talking WITH each other in a positive way, especially here online, where the most damaging things are said. After that, I'd send them out together to do voter registration, re-registration or re-credentialing work in states where voter suppression has done the most damage.

Those are some of the things I'd have done and would suggest doing. They are all about