If you don't want vote withholding, "it's your fault if we get President Trump" arguments won't work

[Ken Burch]

NONE of us want a Trump presidency.

Most of us who are working for Bernie will, if HRC somehow gets nominated, do all we can to get Sanders supporters to vote for HRC in the fall. I know I will.

Talking to the people we will be begging to come to the polls as if they are spoiled children will NOT help us to do that.

Most such people are driven by valid feelings of rage and disappointment about the corruption and arrogance of our party leadership and the system we live under. They want to believe things can be better, they want to believe that politics is something worth their effort, but they see that leadership doing all it can to try and crush them and stop the crusade for justice they are fighting for with such heroic passion.

A lot of them are young, and have not yet established loyalty with any party. If the approach our party takes to them is dismissive, is contemptuous, is "you have to spend years eating shit sandwiches before we let you have any chance of changing the menu", we will drive them away...as we did in the Seventies, Nineties, and this century.

Please don't make it harder for the party to win in the fall by doing the usual arrogant "shut up and get in line" thing to people we CAN'T win without.

That was stupid in 1968. It was stupid in 1980, 1984, and 1988. It was stupid in 2000.

Don't keep doing what you already know never works.

OK?

[pat_k]

1. How about this argument:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511427893#post32 link to post in-thread

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1251&pid=1428435 Permalink

[Ken Burch]

3. (self-deleted. Misread the link)

I don't like it that some people, out of despair are saying that they won't vote for HRC. If she is nominated, I'll probably be sounding to some degree like that in the fall.

But we can minimize the problem by making sure that, if HRC does get nominated, Bernie's supporters won't have the sense that the party machine has just crushed them.

[pat_k]

8. Edit -- misunderstanding straightened out.

Last edited Mon Mar 7, 2016, 03:08 AM - Edit history (1)

Here's the link again. I suspect you were looking at another post in the thread.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1251&pid=1428435

[Ken Burch]

9. You are right, I misread the original link.

It's possible HRC may get the nom. Obviously we're both aware of that. I will be working, as will you(and Bernie)to get Bernie voters to vote HRC in the fall.

The best thing the party can do to help us on that is, if HRC is the nom, to NOT make a big show of crushing Bernie and defeating everything major we want in the platform at the convention.

They need to recognize that most Democratic voters(including, I suspect, most HRC voters)essentially agree with Bernie on the need to fight corporate power and to take control of life away from corporations again.

This isn't all that much to ask.

[pat_k]

10. Absolutely. Conduct at the convention can make all the difference! (nt)

[uppityperson]

4. Did you know the history of the phrase "cut off your nose to spite your face"? I didn't so looked

it up.



http://grammarist.com/usage/cut-off-your-nose-to-spite-your-face/

History

The exact idiom did not appear in print until the 1700’s. However, the idea of causing yourself more harm than your enemy goes back as far as a Latin proverb in the year 1200. Male ulciscitur dedecus sibi illatum, qui amputat nasum suum. He who cuts off his nose takes poor revenge for a shame inflicted on him.

It became popular in the 19th century in England.

[Ken Burch]

5. And that is why I don't want our party to cut off its nose.

Too many of our leaders see the Sanders movement as a personal insult...as something that should never have been allowed to happen.

They would rather crush it and lose than embrace it and win.

This year is beginning to have a real 1968 feel to it.