The Title was kind of harsh and written by a critic of Sanders as a message to Clinton's supporters. It wasn't about the candidates, it was about all of us. The title of the thread says it all, but I have a much different view of how things are.
I originally only commented in candidate threads to remind Sanders people we were not doing any favors to our candidate, his credibility, or our own credibility, by being vitriolic clowns. I stopped with that after a while because all I ever got for it was being called Republican dad, or some other nonsense. I recently started commenting in threads again, when I see redbaiting, or factually incorrect representations of Sanders. Sue me, I like him better.
The biggest problem I've seen started in the beginning really, and it's still there. The attitude all along towards Sanders supporters was, " Go have fun with your little revolution, the grown-ups will pick your candidate by dinner time, be home by 6."
The rhetoric is subtle most of the time, but I see it more often than not. Semantics are a beautiful thing to hide behind, and they allow people to passive/aggressively taunt people, and then play innocent. Sometimes this even happens without the knowledge of the perpetrator. Even as the rhetoric has escalated recently, oddly enough, right after a couple "wins" for Bernie, the wording has held a manner of civility while the meaning behind it really hasn't.
All along it's been a matter of telling people in Bernie's camp that it's not possible, it's unrealistic, or they will understand when they grow up. This is a losing strategy. You are speaking mostly to young people. If you don't know it by now, I will spell it out for you. There is nothing that pisses off young people like telling them they don't know what's best for them because they are young. The ones that aren't young, like myself, have never given up on hope for substantial change that does more than shave a few extra trips to Applebee's off the status quo. We have been told all our lives we are dreamers, it won't happen, not now/ever by republicans and authoritarians. Now we have to hear it in defense of Clinton, and it fails the sniff test.
I hear a more negative version of the future from Clinton's supporters than I do from her pragmatic policies. I plan to vote against the Republicans in the fall, who our nominee is doesn't really matter to me, but consider this; I registered to vote for the first time in 2014. I registered as a Democrat for the first time when I moved in 2015. Now I'm being told that the party that championed most of my ideals doesn't have time for any of it. We need to put up soft bills that Republicans will let us pass. Bernie is negotiating from his perspective and not giving away the cow before he gets to market. Meanwhile I'm told that he is an old man yelling at clouds, with pie in the sky dreams, he will accomplish nothing, unrealistic, unicorns, rainbows, blue stars, green clovers, etc., because he is using a superior negotiating technique. How exactly do you expect a fortytwo year old man to swallow that? Much less young people who have grown up believing that the the promised land had been broken?
What I think some people in the Clinton camp have failed to realize is that when they address Sanders supporters with this condescending, mother knows best, "Go play with Single Payer Barbie and let the adults handle it" position of inherent wisdom, you create a bunch of vitriolic, unrelenting, misinformed jackasses who will do whatever it takes to destroy this figure telling them what's best for them. They can't even believe that representatives of the status quo have the audacity to tell them that nothing can be fixed except by more of the same, when the status quo is what caused it in the first place. It's all I've heard from the beginning. Bernie can't win, went to Bernie can't win the GE, went to Bernie can't get anything done. It's a steady stream of can't from people telling us Hillary is progressive, while they so far have yet to be accurate about their predictions.
I'm pretty certain that Hillary will win, though I am not a fan of why or how, and I will vote for her. But when people who got into the political process for the first time with Bernie hear nothing but "No We Can't" from the establishment of the Democratic Party, they will not be so certain that Trump is as terrible as he really is. It's not because they are taking their toys and going home in most cases. It's because they brought their case to the Democratic Party, and were told they aren't needed except to bolster what has been predetermined to be best for them. I can't solely blame DWS and the DNC for the way I have seen Sanders supporters talked down to, or seeing our ideas dismissed as fantasy even as they thrive everywhere else in the developed world. It's comical that we are expected to be anything other than angry because we are told once again that Mommy and Daddy don't have money for our economic and social progress, because they need to save that money to make the crazy neighbors look bad. Especially when Mommy and Daddy are sounding more and more like those crazy neighbors used to, back when they were nice people, even if they didn't share much and were real sticklers about cutting through their lawn.
We all know that real change is coming. We disagree on how much there should be. I'm sure that all of us disagree with everyone else as to the degree. We also have camps, it's part of human nature. The strange thing here is that instead of being told that Bernie's policies will need to be tweaked to be successful, as if somehow no one knew, I'm hearing that it can't be done and I'm naive. Now when someone talks to you like that, how much more do you hear of what they have to say? And I don't care how stupid Bernie supporters have been in the past, or in the present, from the get go we've been condescended to. It's ridiculous to tell people they don't know what they are talking about, and then expect them to be civil. Especially when you are saying we need to defeat conservatives, while taking up their strategy.
None of this will be stopping me from voting for President Pastrami Sandwich so long as there is a D by their name. The Republicans went so far down the rabbit hole I'm surprised I can even hear them anymore. They have to be stopped. But I am an iron-willed rhinoceros when I see what must be done. A lot of these kids are just as stubborn, but they may see something else as what needs to happen if they continue to be told their demands are naive. They are the future of American constituency. Their demands are the priority of those who run for office. If we lose them right now, it may be Emperor Trump before too long. Or something worse?
It's easy to say that these people in Bernie's camp are out of control and it's Bernie's job to fix it or he's not fit to be president. It's not easy to admit that you need those hooligans every bit as much as you need my vote and your own, and that part of why they act like kids, is because that's how they are treated. I realize there was never any grand conspiracy to pick on Sanders supporters. I don't believe that most people who dismiss our point of view do so out of malice or disdain. But it has happened since the first time I read anyone comparing the two candidates when he was at 10% in national polls.
If 10% of the population is going for someone, you check them out, and see what they offer that you don't. When they get to 20%, you start to look for weaknesses and try to emulate or dispel their selling points. When they get over 40% you are in for a fight. None of these stages are the time to dismiss an opponent, especially when you will need their support later. Stop dismissing us, not all of us are as certain to back Hillary in the fall as I am. If you expect to win in hyper-partisan times, you will need them too.
Feel free to offer any advice or criticism as this is my first diary and I am basically clueless. Also, be ruthless on the grammar, typos or spellings. I need to brush up bad. I left academia long ago to be a ditch-digger.