The primary presidential elections are well on their way, and so far this year shows great promise for a real slobber-knocker. The elections on both sides resemble something like a reality show, with contestants being eliminated one after the other until we get to the last one. On the republican side, the reality king himself, Donald Trump, managed to knockout his 16 republican challengers, and now he stands as the presumptive nominee. The once “never-Trump” movement (which existed amongst republican elites and donors but not so much among republican voters) seems to be slowly acquiescing to the idea of President Trump, or at least the idea of a republican in the White House. His political prowess was only further emphasized over the weekend when he picked up a big party endorsement from the NRA. On the democrat side however, unity seems to be much, much farther away, and with the frustrations arising on on both Team Clinton and Team Bern, the Bernie or Bust movement needs to be taken incredibly serious.
First things first, there’s a lot of talk in the news and media, with concern in the Clinton camp about democratic party unity and us having to unite under the democratic banner as democrats to stop Trump. After tallying up way more votes than Sanders and making Sanders’ chances at winning the nomination by pledged delegates mathematically improbable, this has been the argument made by the Clinton camp: put down your arms, unite the party, STOP TRUMP. My first red flag with that argument is: the democrat party is united. People who voted for Bernie by and large identify as independents, not democrats, and haven’t been involved in the process before either because of closed primaries or because there hasn’t been a candidate who espouses the views of Bernie as explicitly as he does. Even Bernie identifies primarily as an independent, and probably would have run as one if the election process was inclusive of independents. The Clinton camp needs to realize a few things; first, without Bernie running, A LOT of people who voted in these primaries and who’ll probably vote in the generals, wouldn’t have. Secondly, going off the first point, it is now Hillary’s responsibility to appeal to those voters and attract them to her side. Not the media or Hillary’s surrogates on television condescendingly telling Bernie supporters they’re being unreasonable because they won’t surrender.
Team Clinton seems to be showing no signs of letting up their rhetoric. That is understandable, because the reality is: Trump has a very good chance of winning the White House. He’s the most hated, yet the most loved; the worst and best business man, and he has no limits. Things that should have taken him out of the race a long time ago, haven’t. This is real. What is also real is republicans are very serious about doing what they say they will do. I know, that sounds very off, but bare with me; when republicans on the campaign trail say things like “we’re gonna stand up to the unions,” (ironically while trying to appeal to blue-collar workers who need unions) they do it. When they say things like “we’re gonna protect traditional values,” they get in there and block marriage equality. Tax breaks for the rich, cutting welfare and social spending, overstocking on our military, they almost always deliver and while they lie or exaggerate about the results these actions will produce and the effects they’ll have, presumably on the economy, they rarely lie about what they say they are actually gonna do. I say all this because a Trump presidency will have very real effects, especially if the House and Senate stay as red as they are now. The strategy behind Bern or Bust however is this: if Trump wins we get four years before we can send out another progressive like Bernie to run. If Hillary wins, we’d have to most likely wait eight years. This mindset coming from independents, who seldom vote as much as democrats or republicans and who seem pretty comfortable just swaying in the political wind the way they have been since closed primaries don’t allow independents to have a real voice, means independents like myself have very little to lose, or even more to gain than lose by busting with Bernie. Just saying.
As a Bern or Buster, I’d offer Hillary this piece of advice for if she wants to win us over: call off your dogs, you’ve already won. The debacle in Nevada over last weekend, the corporate media being unable to report objectively on anything, taking Bernie’s ideas and trying to find the perfect way to spin it for Hillary. And while on this topic of corporate media someone should tell Chris Matthews of MSNBC his bias is showing. The other night in an interview with Hillary he started off so cordial, “how are you…how’s being a grandma treating you?..” now granted it wasn’t a debate, I can’t imagine Chris being as nice with Bernie Sanders; when the producer yells action Chris’ first question to Bernie will probably be “how are you…how’s socialism treating you?” My personal calendar marked this year as the year of the outsider, and while the republicans heeded the call and rejected the establishment candidates, democrats didn’t follow suit, and decided to nominate Hillary. Whether or not she’s actually deserving of the White House will be determined in the generals but for now, if she wants to win over independents, she should at least pretend she isn’t as establishment as we all know she is.
