An explanation of the Bernie or Bust ideology...

[pantsonfire]

Eight years ago, Barack Obama glided to victory on a progressive platform that promised real change. But after eight years of brutal compromise and frustrating stalemates with the GOP, Gitmo remains open, American troops are still in Afghanistan, the criminals that engineered the financial crisis are at large, and race relations have deteriorated rather than improved. Now Sanders supporters hear Hillary Clinton promising to continue wherever Barack Obama leaves off, and they wonder what the point of four more years of the same would be in an increasingly desperate country and, indeed, world. To the Bernie or Busters, half-measures no longer cut it. It’s why they’re for Sanders in the first place.

You can call adopting such a stance naïve. Ultimately, though, it won’t help to tell the Bernie or Busters that they’re wrong. They want change, not the status quo that the Clinton camp more or less offers. The Bernie Sanders campaign is plainly saying “enough is enough” to the way things are; it’s no good for the Democratic establishment to take a position of presumed superiority and urge Sanders supporters to hand their vote to Hillary Clinton despite their misgivings, when this is exactly the kind of attitude that the Bernie or Busters are rebelling against. After Sanders’ stunning defeat last Tuesday, his voters are now being told they can’t possibly refuse Clinton in a general election.

Sanders supporters see the 2016 Democratic primary as a battle between a candidate that seeks to change the “rigged system,” and a candidate that represents that same old illusion of choice. The Bernie or Busters are simply refusing to vote for the illusion if that’s all it is. For months they’ve been witness to a Clinton campaign that influences how the press think and relies on voters being kept in the dark to win. They see the DNC fixing the race in Clinton’s favour, limiting the number of televised debates, removing corporate funding restrictions just as Sanders’ campaign was becoming a threat, and attempting to silence anyone who threatens to break party ranks and actually endorse Sanders. For a lot of Sanders supporters, Hillary Clinton isn’t an option in November because she is the very embodiment of the rigged, establishment politics they wish to see discontinued.

Currently, the general election is set to come down to a contest between the two least-favorable, least-trusted candidates countrywide.

But both the media commentariat and the Democratic establishment have decided Sanders voters must in November vote the candidate they have come to view as an opponent to their cause – Clinton – in order to keep the other, bigger threat out of the White House. The idea now is not to support the best candidate, then, but to thwart the worst one. It’s cynical, it’s disheartening, it’s the dreaded politics as usual. And after months spent hoping things might finally change under their guy, 33% of Bernie Sanders supporters have, quite simply, had enough of playing the old games.

http://www.salon.com/2016/03/23/hear_this_sanders_supporters_you_dont_need_to_back_hillary_you_have_every_right_to_say_bernie_or_bust/

[blm]

1. Did you vote in 2010 and 2014? Those who didn't vote in 2010, especially

should be held accountable, as well. You get the government you vote for….and if too many of you didn't vote you get definitely get the government that RWers show up to vote for. Look at what is happening in red states.

[pantsonfire]

3. Yes, in CA though we're staunchly Democrat.

The state legislature has a super majority backing up Jerry Brown. And my congressman Ted Lieu shares most of my political opinions (I remember when he was a city councilman and I went to a phone banking event in High School to get him elected). He's come a long way. Now one of only 11 Asian-Americans in congress, only one in the senate.

Also, since Barbara Boxer is retiring, our State Attorney General Kamala Harris is running for her spot. She'd be only the second African-American woman to be a senator, and the 10th African American senator in our history (President Obama was the fifth)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_African-American_United_States_Senators

[Meteor Man]

2. Quite Right

If we keep voting for turds, we will keep getting turds to vote for.

The Third Way Corporate Dems only want our vote. We have three choices if Bernie loses the primary:
1. Leave the presidential choice blank and vote for down ballot Dems.
2. Vote for Jill Stein
3. Write in Bernie's name for Prez.

I don't see any other way for Progressive Dems to get their attention to reform the Democratic Party. It's way past time to demand progressive reform in exchange for our vote.
Personally, I fear the Democratic Party has become too corrupt to be reformed.

[840high]

4. Thank you - that's

my plan.