Yesterday I was on the Guardian website and saw an article about a new book that the author attempted to bring a better understanding of the how Hillary Clinton became yet another Democratic presidential candidate to not win. The Guardian pulled some selected quotes from the author that I immediately understood as “pie fight” material. I haven't read the book, and I don’t know the author, but I would hope that the entire premise is more than those few selected passages.
As soon as I read it, I thought “Here we go again”. Exploiting the Hillary/Bernie rift in our Party has become the low-hanging fruit du jour for the internet. If you want a “pie fight”, just start stirring the pot and their respective supporters will go into full moth-to-flame mode. It didn't shock me in the least that I found a diary on this site about it, nor did it shock me that we are still having this pissing match in the comments.
I’m a proud Sanders’ supporter; I volunteered for him, and it was a life changing moment for me. I’ve made great friends, I’ve become more politically active, and I see the world through a different lens because of it. I spent a freezing-cold day at the NH Jefferson and Jackson dinner back in Nov of 2015, seeing hundreds of supporters from each side enduring the extremities, holding signs, and chanting themselves hoarse for their candidates, and I thought “Do these people realize how powerful they really are? Do they realize how possible this can be for all of us if we stick together?”
After the primaries, I went to my first coordinated canvass for the Dems. It was a hot July day, two weeks before the convention. Hillary was the presumptive nominee and I was the only Bernie supporter there. I came in wearing my Bernie shirt, not because I wanted to have a pie fight but because I knew how popular he was in my town and I needed to convince my fellow Bernie supporters that Hillary was the best option. My choice of clothing was not well received at first, but a couple people joked afterwards that they wished they had a Bernie shirt.
Over the course of the campaign, I met a lot of Hillary supporters that I’m proud to call friends. Our differences are minimal, in fact I would say our only difference seems to be our choice of primary candidate. I worked hard on that campaign, sometimes being the lone canvasser on a weekend shift in July and August, and as much as I was not as emotionally invested in Hillary’s campaign as I was with Bernie’s, I was devastated by her loss because I knew my Hillary supporting friends at the campaign office had given everything they had to help her win. They had just experienced what I had during the primary.
I still have a least one conversation a week with a Bernie supporter bitching about the DNC and DWS, and I’ve have almost come to blows with good friends over whether we should create a new party so that Bernie can lead some sort of revolution. So, I really want to put this sh*t to rest. We are at a serious tipping point where millions of people in other countries are facing food and water shortages because of things like global warming. We live in a world where Europe is trending towards fascism and totalitarianism. We live in a country where belief in our public institutions (schools, law enforcement, courts..etc.) are at all time lows. We need to come together; the world needs us to come together. Here is the truth: Bernie isn’t the Messiah and he isn't the anti-Christ, Hillary isn’t the Messiah, nor is she the anti-Christ. They are two people that care enough about putting their ass on the line and taking all the mud the Republicans can sling (and the media can exploit), in order to solve these problems.
Let’s put down the pies.