Pragmatically speaking, is it possible for the Bernie camp, those who have not forgotten Hope and Change, and the HRC camp, those who are glad and/or resigned to her inevitable coronation, to ride out the next 18 months in the same clubhouse?
We've got the diehard Clinton lovers. We've got those who've bowed down to the inevitability, whether or not they would prefer Bernie. We've got those who would prefer Bernie but have no belief that he could win a GE. And then we have those who believe that this Party and this Country and the World and the biosphere NEED Bernie (and a whole lot more like him), and they NEED the party's activists and operatives and rank & file to rally in a way that makes OFA look like a warm-up.
I don't see how that last group can come in here on a daily basis and listen to the inevitability realists. It matters not if the realists agree with Bernie's progressive attitudes and/or ideas. At the very least, their attitude is counter-productive to campaigning for democracy, er, Bernie.
It's like the Red Sox and Yankees meeting in the same clubhouse. Granted, the winner may be facing the Cardinals in the post-season, but that doesn't mean they aren't competing fiercely in the meantime, across the entire 162 game, er, 16 month primary election SEASON. Committed to defeating each other.
Let's face it, the battle here is between 1) those who support and/or accept the Third Way and the devastation it, along with its neoliberal partners across the aisle, have wreaked upon the middle and lower classes lo these twenty-three years since they have joined forces in ever-escalating Reaganomics, er, plutocracy in support of oligarchy, and 2) those who firmly reject every ounce of that as much as Bernie Sanders. The fact that the Democratic Party establishment is the side that is willing to maintain and expand the post-economic-rape centers does not make it the "good" Party. It is not enough. It will never scale to address the income, wealth and power inequality gap that threatens ever aspect of life. The good party can only be the one that openly acknowledges the rape and focuses at least as much on preventing it (at the point of distribution) as it does on treating the victims (at the point of "redistribution"). THAT'S the Party that, as fellow soldiers for democracy, we all should be focused on pursuing. But many, even most of us, aren't and/or won't do so. And this is from whence the intense rivalry comes, one which will dramatically escalate in the coming months.
I think of working for Bernie and coming in here and listening to the HRC supporters and the HRC coronation inevitability patter on a daily basis, ill-intentioned or not, and I say no way. No way can I be listening to that destructive, self-fulfilling prophecy, especially coming from those who claim to believe more in Bernie's policies than Hillary's. I've already been hearing it for two days, and that was prior to the official announcement. 16 months more? No way. How is that even possible if your commitment is to democracy?
If my calculation is wrong, please, enlighten me how this can work.
UPDATE: Jeez, Louise. Who the hell said anything about the friggin' SITE dying??? NOT ME, and yet that is assumed in multiple comments here. I'm talking about two campaign constituencies about as far apart as one can be and both claim relationships to the Party platform. Like Climate Change and the planet, I have no illusions the site will survive, and I have no ill wishes that it wouldn't.
And I'm not talking about the HRC of the PE. THAT is NOT going to be HRC. And it's not like we are going to DISCOVER HRC during her campaign. We know her as well as we know any other Democrat on the planet...