General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I posted some things two years ago about Kamala Harris that were I shouldn't have. [View all]Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)I wasn't upset that Senator Harris endorsed HRC.
I was bothered deeply that this fact was being used to try to pressure the candidate I supported to drop out of the race and leave his supporters in the later states with no one to vote for and no way to keep fighting for the issues they cared about, and to pressure those supporters into switching BEFORE the convention to the other candidate, when there was no good reason to apply that kind of pressure.
What was the rush in forcing him out? What was the rush in pushing his supporters to switch to HRC weeks before Philly?
Look...it wasn't the fault of the candidate I backed OR of those who supported him that the election result was what it was.
The result we had in November was the same result we'd have had if Bernie had suspended his candidacy on Super Tuesday, and the same result we'd have had if he'd never run at all.
Refighting the primaries is bad enough(which is why I haven't done it). Refighting the primaries when your candidate was the one who was nominated, in an effort to retroactively delegitimize the candidacy of the other candidate, is a total waste of time and effort. At a time when we need unity and need to work together, it does us horrible damage.
What we need to do is unite the base with the people who came into the process in support of the runner-up. If we take it out of the realm of personality politics and simply try to relate to each other as people, there are few if any actual differences on the issues between those two groups. Both of those groups want this party to be more on the side of the poor and the dispossessed. Most want a less-militarist foreign policy and fewer wars. Both are equally committed to fighting for social justice. Both want us to address income inequality and excessive corporate power. That's why I say the issues should matter more than who we nominate, and that it should be the party writing the platform based on what most of the party and most of the country wants, with t he candidates running on the platform the rank-and-file have created.