“Thanks to you, we’ve reached a milestone: the first time in our nation’s history that a woman will be a major party’s nominee,” Hillary Clinton said Tuesday night after clinching a majority of pledged delegates in the Democratic presidential primary.
I could spend a good deal of time waxing indignant about the candidate I endorsed- Sen. Bernie Sanders- losing the Democratic nomination. While I’m certainly disappointed, I understand that democracy means that sometimes you don’t get what you might have hoped for. Sen. Sanders waged a vigorous, thoughtful campaign and offered some good ideas, but when all was said and done, Hillary Clinton collected more delegates and more votes. Majority rules, right? The voters have spoken, and while I may not like what they’ve had to say, I feel bound to respect the result.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve become increasingly disillusioned with the Sanders campaign, in part because the Senator has declined to distance himself from the increasingly loud, intolerant, and obnoxious “Bernie Bros,” his take-no-prisoners, show-no-mercy followers. Bernie Bros brook no dissent or deviation from the party line- which is that Sen. Sander is the One, True, and ONLY option (and Hillary Clinton is the Devil Incarnate); no deviation from that line is tolerated. Heretics are metaphorically burned at the stake as punishment for their weakness and lack of commitment to the Revolution. Truth be told, they reminiscent of Ron Paul’s supporters from 2012…and it would surprise me not at all to learn that many of them did the same thing to those they deemed insufficiently loyal to Paul’s “revolution.”
It’s all pretty tiresome. I’ve seen this stridency and intolerance grow exponentially over the past few weeks, and I’m frankly sick of it. Disappointed and angry that their passion, devotion, and commitment has been for naught, Bernie Bros have over the past few weeks been looking to vent their considerable righteous outrage on those whose commitment to the cause has been deemed insufficient. The revolution is dying…which means those whose devotion to the cause was something less than absolute need to be brought to account and made to pay for their weakness. I’ve already been roasted on Twitter, evidently considered by some to be a traitor. I’m OK with that; the way I look at it, if you haven’t been roasted on Twitter it’s probably because you haven’t offered anything of interest.
Now that Sec. Clinton has won the necessary number of delegates to secure the Democratic nomination, it’s time for Democrats to come together and recognize that Job One should be keeping the White House in Democratic hands. We simply can’t risk the possibility that Donald Trump will be the one putting his right hand on John Roberts’ Bible come January 20th.
This is why Democrats need to put aside our disappointments and petty grudges and unite behind Hillary Clinton. At the risk of sounding like an old Rolling Stones song, sometimes you don’t always get what you want. Sometimes you get what you need…and right now, America needs to ensure that the only way Donald Trump gets into the White House is with a tour group.
This is far too important to screw up, people….
