2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Bernie Supporters - Please read my post [View all]davidpdx
(22,000 posts)(this is not necessarily completely replying to your post, but ended up being a good place to post my comments given the conversation that was taking place)
I also still like and greatly admire President Obama. He has accomplished a hell of a lot in 6 1/2 years, especially considering the obstruction the Republicans have caused. If he were able to run again, I would vote for him in a heartbeat. No doubt.
There are some things that I am a bit disappointed in, one of which being the passing of the fast track legislation. I understand and see why he is pushing it, but I have issues with some of the possible outcomes. I'm not completely anti-trade, I believe we should not be allowing special interest to have so much influence. I also have concerns about the banking industry and student loan debt and feel like these need to be addressed. I'm not very vocal of any of these concerns, but that doesn't mean they don't matter. In fact they DO matter a great deal.
A member of DU falsely accused me of hating President Obama (the person is a well-known person and someone I used to respect) even though it was not true. To this day I've never gotten an apology for that person's shitty behavior (Yes, you know who you are). This goes back to the problem of Sander's supporters being broad brushed.
The same goes for when Clinton is criticized for her policy stances. Her supporters come out and throw around the "hater" label and say everything is right-wing talking points. The other day one of her supporters was talking about how Sanders was a socialist and I pointed out the hypocrisy in that person's behavior and rightfully so.
(Going back to the OP) I think the advice you are giving is well-meaning, but the number of Sander's supporters that would actually apply to is less than half. Again, the broad-brush of Sander's supporters doesn't fair well. As I stated above, I still have a very favorable opinion of President Obama. At the same time I will criticism areas where I believe the ball was dropped. If you think back to the 2008 campaign, it was he himself who told his supporters that they needed to hold him accountable. We still need to do that in the last 1 1/2 years (roughly) before he leaves office.