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

[Ken Burch]

118. Why do you think I want to bring this back to the primaries?

Why doesn't the fact that I campaigned hard for the ticket all fall prove to you that I don't want that?

Or that I don't want you to talk about that?

I accept that Hillary was nominated. You and I are past that. I don't want Bernie to run NEXT time(and doubt he actually wants to run).

But we need to bring in Sanders voters as a group and as a movement if we're to win in the future. We can't win without them. And we have no reason to try to. Including them simply means embracing the spirit of their economic justice ideas-it doesn't mean not speaking out against social oppression. There's no difference between those voters and you on social justice-they want everything you want, as do I.

I have always acknowledged that the things you mentioned there played a significant role...but putting down the whole result to those factors is an argument for giving up.

It's an argument for not changing, for not doing anything to help ourselves.

It's an argument for the party to be conservative to reject the role of TPP in the Upper Midwest and say it was just racism, sexism, and xenophobia. Racism, sexism and xenophobia were part of this campaign, and all of us are just as committed to speaking out on those things as you are, but they were never the whole story.

And it's impossible for an opposition party to defeat a ruling party by making "Comey/The Russians/Voter Suppression" the bulk of our message. We need a positive message, a message of "we're for", not just "we're against".