Would you rather of had Bernie run for President as an independent?!

[Ken Burch]

132. Winning the nomination isn't the only test of resonance.

There were huge numbers of people all across the country who said things like "my hearts with Bernie, my head is with Hillary".

And many of those ideas were added to the platform as a measure of the resonance and popularity-had they been mentioned in the fall campaign, they would only have added to out vote total by increasing the turnout (I say that as someone who did all I could to get first-time voters who'd backed Bernie to back the ticket in the fall).

I get it that some people have issues with Bernie as a person and as a candidate-I have some myself, which is why I've repeated argued that he shouldn't run again.

But why would anyone hold a grudge against the IDEAS of the Sanders campaign and those who continue support them? Why does there seem to be this insistence that the party proscribe the ideas, pressure the supporters to break up organizationally and only be allowed in as silenced, powerless individuals from whom support for our ticket and whatever our platform might be because they somehow simply owe it to us? Why stay with "Stop_____!" politics they never work for us and when most voters hate us for using them? We have a lot of good things to offer, most of which are genuinely popular...why not campaign mainly FOR what we would do for the merits of our candidates and with confidence stand for? If we did that, the voters would see it as leadership and rally to us.

And what harm would there be in simply adding a number of the economic ideas to the platform, while centering and strengthening the commitment to social justice-a commitment Sanders SUPPORTERS always shared, whatever Bernie's personal shortcomings on that-and going forward as the party of justice for the many?

This is the argument some of us have been making for decades-and our "pros" have been rejecting. The result of that rejection has been a Republican Ascendancy that never needed to happen. What's the point in "staying the course"?