My fellow Bernie supporters. [View all]

[PeteSelman]

Ok my fellow Bernie supporters, it's time to move on to the next phase.

I realize none better how painful it is for the dream candidate to concede. Particularly for those of you who are new to politics and are witnessing their first real campaign. I have to tell you that this happens just about every cycle. The best guy rarely wins. Thus the phrase "you fall in love in the primary and fall in line for the general". The sad part of this particular one is that if anyone at all foresaw the kind of support Sanders was going to receive, there would have been a much more concerted effort to see people change registrations to get the votes necessary to take the nomination. Alas, it was not to be.

But it's not for us to despair here. Bernie has fought for and gotten many of the issues that matter to us into the Democratic platform. We got the public option to expand health care on there, we got the tuition free public college on there, we got minimum wage, we got campaign finance reform and dragged the party back toward the left on other issues. It's a win for us, we should be proud of what we've accomplished.

So, now is not the time to be shortsighted and foolish, now is the time to play the long game. The most important thing is to keep the tiny handed, thin skinned, racist angry yam from getting anywhere near the levers of power. A complete know nothing amateur such as he would be a disaster for the country.

One need only look at the results from 2001-2009 to know that we simply cannot afford a person of such shallow intellect and inexperience to be anywhere near the Oval Office. Let's face it, as boorish and embarrassing as he was, compared to Trump, Bush is a sophisticated statesman. It's that bad.

Yes, Secretary Clinton is an imperfect candidate. Yes, she's a little too much of a neo-lib in her policies but there simply is no viable alternative if you care about progress at all. No, she's not the perfect across the board progressive we all want but she's also not the iniquitous villain she's portrayed as by the right wing hate machine that's been relentlessly attacking her for twenty-five years. All those phoney scandals, many of which have sadly been repeated by those on the left in this primary, have amounted to nothing. Like it or not, like her or not, she truly is imminently qualified and probably more prepared to step into the job than anyone in history.

Now, if we want the revolution to continue we need to vote for candidates who will carry that platform out. We can't cut and run or stamp our feet because we didn't get everything we want and allow the far right crazies to continue to hold power in the congress. And further, we need to commit to running Sanders style candidates in every race for every office from now on. We need to take this party over from the bottom up and if we can't jettison all of the corporate whores, we can hold their feet to the fire and make them very uncomfortable. That's the long game.

This is particularly important because a Trump presidency with a teabagger congress means massive damage, if not the outright abolition of, social security and Medicare, massive damage to health care, massive damage to services for the poor and needy, ignoring climate change, an end to the right to organize and collectively bargain, massive deregulation of Wall Street which will lead to another horrific recession, more pointless tax cuts for rich people and all the usual failed trickle down policies from the past four decades that have brought the middle class to its knees. And then there is the disastrous foreign policy Trump envisions. He casually speaks of torturing people, of murdering the innocent family members of terror suspects, of handing out nukes to countries that have never had them and destroying relationships with our allies as he praises dictators.

And if that isn't enough to convince you, the Supreme Court is everything in this election. If women's rights, workers' rights, LGBT rights, voting rights, money in politics, health care and the seperation of church and state, progressive values all, matter one bit to you, you'll vote for the person who will keep these things intact and work to expand them. The person who will appoint judges who will adjudicate fairly and according to the Constitution. I certainly do not want to spend the next thirty years living under the thumb of the far right Christian Taliban. That is what is at stake in the judicial branch.

So, in conclusion, I get the disappointment, I get the mistrust and I get the cynicism. And if your demand for one hundred percent agreement is more important than the health and security of the country, by all means go vote for someone else. Jill Stein is a fine candidate. But what I have laid out is why Bernie Sanders endorsed Hillary Clinton. It's not because he "sold out". It's not because his life was in danger or any idiotic nonsense like that. It's because he cares about the country, it's because incremental progress is better than regression on a giant scale. It's because we want to continue being the leader of the free world and not reduce ourselves to the level of petty third world tyrants.

We're better than that and that's why we should be with her.