I just returned home from voting in our Assembly District Election. What an exciting day! Our own Chico David RN was on the ballot for Assembly District 3 and I was pleased to vote for him. But when I logged in to share my experience this attack on Bernie Sanders was waiting for me on the rec list. Talk about a downer. What are we doing?
I live in State of Jefferson territory in a blue pocket of a very red part of Northern California. The Democratic party sent me a postcard reminding me to vote and had two names they wanted me to choose. I had planned on making those choices and going about my business. Instead my 18 year old son wanted us to get there early to hear the speeches. He was a first time voter so I agreed. It was pouring down rain when it was time to leave and I was surprised to see he had arranged for some of his friends to go with us. And for more friends to meet us there. When we arrived at the library it was standing room only. The crowd was enthusiastic and whenever a speech giver mentioned their support for Bernie Sanders it was met with enthusiastic cheering and applause. The progressives had formed a slate and although I had my postcard with two names on it, and the local party had those two names on signs outside, the progressives had organized 14 names and presented me with a slip of paper explaining their positions and listing the names of their people. There were other candidates making the effort to introduce themselves, shake my hand, explain that they weren’t on the slate but did stand for progressive issues and they encouraged me to vote for them. My son took a picture of the progressive slate handout and posted it to many different social media platforms and group texts urging his friends to come vote. If they weren’t registered that was fine, they were registering voters at the event. His thumbs were working overtime on that iPhone.
Voting started at 2:00 and the lines were long. We left to get coffee and talked about how terrible it must be to live in a place like North Carolina where people are forced to wait in lines to vote. We came back an hour later and the lines were still long. They had run out of ballots and were printing more. One of the older people in line behind me said he remembered one election only 12 people showed up to vote and they didn’t even have enough delegates running. He couldn’t believe the crowd. I asked him what happened and he said “Bernie happened.” We all voted (David Welch!!), my son was still texting people to come vote and explaining what they were voting for, and we left. It was still pouring down rain. When we got home my son urged his dad to go down and vote, when he got there they were out of ballots again and printing more.
We have got to stop with this hatred and the attacks on Bernie Sanders. We cannot deny his influence in getting people involved in the party and in the process. I watched 18 year old kids work hard to get their peers involved and voting. When we drove home I listened to them talk about how they were going to focus on state politics and not worry about national issues as much because they had less control. Isn’t this what we want? More and better Democrats? It is happening because of Bernie Sanders. He is the reason that at least 25 people showed up to vote in an election that typically has low participation. Because my kid believed in Sanders and wanted to keep that momentum going, he got people to leave their houses in the pouring rain and get involved. And from the sound of most of the crowd out voting today, Bernie was the reason they were there too.
I don’t know why so many Democrats comfort themselves by picking apart Bernie Sanders and blaming him for all of the woes in the party. It seems to me that Republicanism is a religion now. I don’t see any point in trying to convince people to switch parties. I think our efforts are better spent working to get the “agnostics” to show up and vote for us. I watched that happen today and I saw the sparks of enthusiasm in a group of kids who left the event energized and feeling like they were part of the process. Let’s do that instead of tear ourselves apart.
UPDATE: Just found out that the progressive slate swept the election. Congratulations to dkos’ Chico David RN for his election to the Executive Board!