Some perspective on gaining Bernie voters ... [View all]

[nolawarlock]

Across Facebook and Twitter, many of the people I've seen screaming the loudest that they aren't voting for Biden have also taken the time to say that they were never Democrats to begin with and only switched from independent (or registered at all) to vote for Bernie. Most of those people were much farther left than even the average progressive Democrat. They're Green party, or Communist party or anarcho-communists or socialists like Briahna Joy Gray who already suggested taking "Democratic" off of her designation of "Democratic Socialist." Real shocker there, right? Some, like those on one particular JPR site that pushed Trump in 2016 and even one loud poster there now saying that Trump is the lesser of two evils, are more in line with Trump on issues such as trade isolationism and military non-intervention. Some of that 12% (if I recall the number correctly) that voted for Trump were probably the type of non-voters who likes a rabble-rouser and a demagogue and any port in a storm will do.

All this hullaballoo over let's get the Bernie voter boils down to this. You're likely to get at least 85% of them and those will be the Democrats who liked Bernie's vision, his spunk and determination, and his caring for the disenfranchised. I personally can't stand the man but I also understand his appeal.

But, as for that 15%, if the old adage is true that we shouldn't cry over spilled milk, why should we cry over milk that was never in the bottle to begin with? Let's rely on that 85 % of Bernie supporters who are actually committed to seeing children released from cages and the hard-right tilt of the court reversed. I don't think we're going to get the extremists and I think it's a waste of time and resources to try.