People often lose sight of what we are trying to change in their zeal for or against a particular candidate. I saw a post by the blogowner last night condemning Democratic candidates — saying they would attend a Klan Rally to get votes. That kind of demonization and vitriol shits in our Democratic nest and makes it difficult for the eventual winner to bring the party together. Juvenile name calling (“asshole move”) lowers the discourse here.
In contrast, these two candidates and 7 other senators have their eye on what matters.
Delta Airlines should immediately stop sabotaging efforts to unionize the ground crews that make their operations possible, a group of nine senators told Delta CEO Ed Bastian in a letter Wednesday.
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“It has become clear that Delta’s management has a highly coordinated and strategic plan to suppress the efforts of over 40,000 workers,” the letter from Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and other progressive stalwarts said. “Mr. Bastian, you earned almost $40 million in the last two years while paying workers who make Delta Air Lines arguably the most financially successful airline on the planet as little as $9 per hour.”
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Sanders — whose office said he’d led the letter-writing effort — and Warren are prominent candidates for the 2020 Democratic Party nomination for the White House. The men and women who joined them in writing to Bastian are heavyweights in their own right: Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Bob Casey (D-PA), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Ed Markey (D-MA), and Jeff Merkley (D-OR) also signed onto the letter.
“Your attempts to deny the right of Delta workers to form a union is corporate greed, plain and simple,” the nine senators wrote. “If Delta workers gain union representation they will finally have the right to collectively bargain with Delta for a living wage, decent benefits and safe working conditions.”
Think Progress: Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren blast Delta’s union-busting in letter to CEO
This is how it is done.
We can respectfully fight over policy among candidates. Or we can demonize those we don’t like.
Warren and Bernie show the way forward — working together to make change even while competing. I don’t think we will see either personally attack the other — certainly not in the way the blogowner did on the front page yesterday.
It is up to each one of us to decide how we present ourselves to the world.