Part I:
Recapping the May Column

Based on what The Cud’s editor related to me, more than a few people were annoyed at the piece I wrote about the problems with Bernie Sanders in the May issue (HERE if you missed it). Despite making it abundantly clear that I liked Sanders and his progressive ideas, angry emailers only saw that I was slamming on their favorite candidate. Their dedication is touching, but he deserved being called out for the four problems that I saw with him, which I’ll recap here.

The first: Vagueness. Sanders has good ideas—even great—but he hasn’t ever seemed to have specifics for any of them. Merely trumpeting ideas that gets the crowd roaring its approval isn’t enough. We need some kind of details, some type of plan, to make them reality. Sanders didn’t, and as such he sounded like a typical Republican candidate merely playing to his cheering masses.

The second: Refusal to speak against his violent supporters. As the campaign went on, some of Sanders’ supporters began behaving like Trump supporters. Of course, that isn’t Bernie’s fault, but he certainly had the power to shame them for behaving like Trump yahoos. He didn’t, and in fact danced around the issue and seemed to offer a dreadful “Well, you can’t hardly BLAME them” type of excuse. Just days after my column published, Sanders did speak out against the latest violence, making it clear that those sorts of followers were not welcome in his campaign. This was the right stance to take, but it was months too late.

The third: Whining. When the Democratic primaries didn’t go his way, Sanders began complaining about the party rules being undemocratic. It was as if he didn’t understand that a party isn’t the government and can run things how it wishes. It was also as if he had not understood and agreed to those procedures when he joined the Democratic Party. I bet that if he had won more states, more delegates, and more superdelegates, he wouldn’t have complained.

The fourth: Opportunism. For 36 years, Sanders was a fierce independent who only joined the Democratic Party early last year for the sole purpose of running for president. He knew he’d never get anywhere otherwise, so suddenly the Dems were worth joining, even if to spend lots of time complaining about how unfair his newfound party was.

Part II:
Angry Bernie Supporters Sound Off

In the emails the editor received, it certainly seemed like many of the writer had little to say about the content of my column but rather were merely annoyed that I had dared to shine the spotlight on Sanders’ political blemishes. Let’s review what appeared in The Cud’s letters:

“Bernie may have become a thorn in Mr. Fitzpatrick’s side, but Hilary best not alienate his voters. Trump looms large.” –Paul, New York, NY

It sounds more like my column was a thorn in Mr. Paul’s side. As I said, I love Bernie’s ideas. But they need to be ideas with substance, not painted up and glitter-coated like Easter eggs but with only empty space within their shells. Trump does loom large, and luckily we have the better candidate representing the Democrats. The interesting thing about Paul’s point is that Clinton “had best not alienate [Sanders’] voters.” This is a veiled threat we’ve heard all too often from Sanders supporters. But the thing those folks seem to miss—frighteningly often—is that, in the primary process, Democrats usually just get on the same page when a nominee is clear. It’s how they work together, instead of insinuating that Sanders supporters won’t vote for her if she pisses them off. What’s the point? That you’ll vote for someone else because your favored candidate lost? That if Clinton doesn’t kowtow to every single thing Sanders espoused, she won’t have your support? That sounds like the Sanders “If I don’t get what I want, I’m taking my toys and going home” mentality, and it will accomplish nothing to advance a progressive liberal agenda.

“I feel Mr. Fitzpatrick has mistaken ‘there is actually a lot to identify in this country that needs fixing’ with ‘complaining.’ Let's not just leave all our problems be, sir. I credit Mr. Sanders for having the guts to fight the good fight so vociferously.” –Emily, San Diego, CA

Well, I feel that if Ms. Emily had actually read what I wrote, she wouldn’t have this idea that I felt Sanders complained about problems that need fixing. I clearly argued that he was complaining about the rules and procedures of the Democratic-primary process. Does Emily think that the party’s procedures are part of what needs fixing in this country? Does she support legislation that forces political parties to run the way Bernie Sanders thinks they should be run instead of how the party choose to run them?

“It's rich to call Mr. Sanders an opportunist when he has real HISTORY on his side as someone who has been committed to civil rights since his student days. Harsh and unfair.” –Kathy, Cleveland, OH

Sorry, but to be a fierce independent for 36 years, and with a history of slamming on Democrats on his own ethical grounds, only to join the Dems merely to run for president, is about as opportunistic as one can get. And his commitment to civil rights since his student days has nothing to do with that opportunism. Either he’s a proud independent, or he only has been until he had the chance to compromise that proud independence by becoming a Democrat. But Kathy’s response to my claim that Sanders is an opportunist appears to be that it’s OK that he’s an opportunist, because he supports civil rights—as if that excuses his opportunism—and call me or my column harsh and unfair. And that seems harsh and unfair.

But the best email was this one, which was not included in the letters and thus not identified:

“If you could please ask Mr. Fitzpatrick about what he thinks regarding the media’s decision to preemptively call the Sanders race over—which in turn surely discouraged MANY potential supporters from showing up to vote for him in the California, New Mexico and New Jersey primaries? The media’s role in attempting to sabotage his race in recent weeks has been nothing short of unconscionable.”

Instead of debating ANY of the points that I made, this person instead wants to know what I think regarding something that doesn’t matter at all as to why Sanders lost. I am happy to tell him. I kind of just did, but I’ll get into more detail.

The media didn’t sabotage anything. It reported statistical likelihoods and mathematical projections. The media doesn’t control campaigns; it reports on them. Weeks ahead of time, we knew that there was a ridiculously minuscule chance that Sanders could possibly win. Sanders knew it, too, because he downsized his campaign and laid off a big chunk of his staff—long before California, New Mexico, and New Jersey held their primaries, thank you very much. Everyone knew Sanders was done at that point—the media, Clinton, the people heading Sanders’ campaign, and Bernie Sanders. Hillary Clinton would probably have to have gotten caught screwing the ghost of Ronald Reagan in Ted Cruz’s basement in order to lose. Even then, she was still likely to win.

It’s fun to use words like “unconscionable” to describe the media’s actions, but this person is just plain wrong. Indeed, the media reporting the facts and the statistics and the math was VERY conscionable. You can’t blame the media just because you don’t like the reality, because then you end up being one of two things: a sore loser or a Republican.

Part III:
What Revolution?

The worst part about that was that Sanders hung selfishly on for weeks beyond the end of it all, refusing to endorse Clinton until it got to the point where even he must have realized how bad he was appearing. How do you lead a supposed political revolution when you can’t even play on the same team… as the rest of your team?

And, for that matter, this notion that Sanders was leading a political revolution was just never true. First, if the above letter-writer was correct that the media sabotaged the primaries and Sanders supporters everywhere gave up and stayed home, then they sure don’t seem very committed and revolutionary to me. I suspect that most of them merely saw the reality that Bernie Sanders was just not going to win. They knew it because it was obvious to everyone except Bernie and a small minority of his blind-faith supporters.

Sanders has revolutionary ideas—there’s no doubt about that. And they’re ideas that will eventually come to pass. But without real plans behind them, and pushing for Utopia in a day when moving ahead in stages makes much more sense, they weren’t going to draw the kind of crowd that the word “revolution” demands. Don’t believe me? Let’s look at the numbers of the final popular vote in the Democratic primaries:

* Hillary Clinton: 16,838,264 votes (55.4%) in 36 primaries (61%)

* Bernie Sanders: 13,100,987 votes (43.0%) in 23 primaries (39%)

Sanders had an impressive showing. But he lost by 13 primaries and more than 3.7 million votes. He got 43 percent of the popular vote, losing by 12 percentage points. It’s a great start pushing forward his very progressive agenda, but can you really keep a straight face when calling that a revolution? No minority is a revolution.

To put that into perspective, the American Revolution ultimately had about 80 to 85 percent of European colonists opposing King George. Now THAT’S a revolution. And if you want to argue that Sanders’ movement is a revolution, then you’d have to admit that Clinton, who won more than half the popular vote and 6 out of 10 primaries, must therefore be the bigger revolution, because more people were excited by what she had to say than what Sanders had to say.

Now, there was a lot of ranting by Sanders about superdelegates. They were unfair, the system was rigged, it was all very undemocratic, and so forth. Again, the party’s internal rules and procedures are its own, and he knew them when he joined. But let’s forget that for the moment and look at those numbers.

Whoever made it to 2,383 total delegates would win the nomination for the Democratic Party. Clinton won 2,766 to Sanders’ 1,893. If you remove superdelegates from those numbers, she had 2,204 to 1,847. That put Sanders 536 delegates short of 2,383 and Clinton just 181 short. With 608 superdelegates available, even if Clinton and Sanders had split them evenly, she would have ended up with 2,508 and he with 2,151. She would have been 125 over and he 232 short. Heck, if she’d gotten just 179 to hit 2,383 and Sanders the other 429, he still would have ended up short at 2,276.

Bernie Sanders lost the Democratic primaries in every way imaginable: number of primaries, number of superdelegates, number of pledged delegates, and overwhelmingly the popular vote. OVERWHELMINGLY.

That’s no revolution.

Part IV:
Do Sanders Supporters Want Trump to Win?

A friend of mine is a Sanders supporter. He isn’t a Democrat; he’s usually unaffiliated, but usually quite liberal, and he joined the party this year just to vote for Sanders. And he is one of those displeased Bernie supporters who plans to write in Sanders’ name because, as he puts it, he cannot in good conscience vote for either Trump or Clinton. Whatever his reasoning, there’s a deeper issue going on there.

This friend and I have, in the past, debated the “waste of a vote” argument. If you’re unfamiliar, it goes like this:

* Candidate A is in opposition to the vast majority of your views. You would never vote for this person in a zillion years.

* Candidate B was in alignment the vast majority of your views, and is the ideal candidate who deserves your vote. But he didn’t win the nomination, so he’s not in the election.

* Candidate C is in alignment with most of your views and is certainly more closely aligned with you than Candidate A by a long shot. Candidate C is in the election, but you really wanted Candidate B, who was so darn perfect that there is no way you’ll vote for Candidate C. So you write in Candidate B, who isn’t running. You don’t vote for Candidate A, but by taking away a vote from Candidate C, you increase Candidate A’s chance of winning.

This is ridiculous and is absolutely a waste of your vote. I know, I get it: Voting your conscience is noble and all that, and if Candidate A wins, at least you did right by your morals and ethics and all that horseshit. And it IS horseshit. People feel dirty voting this way—the “choosing the lesser of two evils”—but every election is about choosing who you think is the lesser of two evils. Every single one.

Do I agree with everything Clinton believes? Of course not. But do I agree about ANYTHING with Trump? Not at all, and even if I did he’s such a horrible human being that he’s the last person who should end up in the White House. But I can tell you without hesitation that despite my criticism of Bernie Sanders and my preference for Clinton, if Sanders had won the nomination there is NO WAY I’d write in someone else’s name. Why? Because that IS a waste of a vote, and I’m an intelligent, thinking, rational person who wasn’t born yesterday.

There will be two candidates who matter this November—Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Even Sanders has finally done what he should have done in the first place and endorsed Clinton. He knows what matters to this country—keeping a Democrat in the White House and ensuring that this country heads in a progressive, liberal direction. He knows that writing in his own name really will be a waste of a vote.

There’s a Trump slogan that appears on signs at his rallies: “The silent majority stands with Trump.” I certainly hope not, but if you write in Sanders’ name because you refuse to vote for Clinton, then you’re merely part of the silent majority standing with Donald Trump and helping him get to the White House.

My friend won’t ever agree with me, and that’s his choice. Poor one, if you ask me, but his choice nonetheless. That’s the beauty of having different opinions… and the beauty of writing a piece like this to explain mine.

Part V:
Suck It Up, Bernie Lovers

There are some out there who will still sa

y “I just can’t vote for Hillary because she had a private email server and Benghazi was bad.” The Benghazi thing is a pointless and overdone argument that doesn’t even matter. And the email server? Well, that was just plain stupid, but to hold her to the ridiculous standards over this when previous secretaries of state have done the same thing is just ludicrous. Come on, the woman once made a statement about not wanting to have multiple phones for various email accounts, so she obviously doesn’t understand that she can check multiple emails on one phone. She’s a politician, not an IT professional, and she’s like most of the people out there who can’t set up email or an iPod without a high-school kid helping out.

If we blame anyone for the email-server silliness, blame the Obama administration that knew this was going on and didn’t stop it. And did she send some classified emails?

 I’m sure she did. The woman didn’t know she could use multiple emails on one phone, so this doesn’t surprise me, but it hardly makes her intent malicious or criminal—as the FBI has clearly deduced. But all that into consideration, is that any excuse to effectively vote for Trump by writing in Bernie Sanders or yourself or your cat because of some ridiculous principle or issue of conscience? Not at all, and if you really consider yourself a progressive or a liberal who cares about the state of this nation and how it affects the world, it would be irresponsible to do so. Any vote taken away from Clinton is a vote in favor of Trump.

And while we’re on the subject on Stupid Politician Stuff, let’s make a list of “Bad Hillary” cons, and then compare it to “Bad Donald” cons. You’re going to need a lot more paper to list Trump’s. And then there’s the list of “Bad Bernie” cons like the four I outlined in my column in May, to which you can now add “not a team player” and “refuses to unify Democratic Party” and “has a ‘my way or the highway’ mentality.”

In op-ed journalism, they say you should never write a piece to defend a previous piece when people bitch about it. I don’t think I’m doing that here, because the complaint emails didn’t really say anything at all in response to my column; they just complained because their candidate tanked. I know, it hurts. But it certainly gave me a reason to write another 3,200 words on this subject.

What really bothered me about the angry letter-writers is the apparent lack of actually reading that column. Critique it for what it says; I’m all for it. But email just to stomp your feet? Put on your frizzy white Bernie wig first!

What those writers missed was that—as anyone reading my column could see—I love Bernie’s ideas. I think they’re the way to go. But it was like he didn’t have a plan. “Free community college for all!” he trumpeted, and the crowds cheered, even though he had no idea how to pay for it or even an understanding of how financially difficult it would even be. But Clinton listened—something she has always done—and adopted the idea and said, “How about free community college unless your family is rich?” which suddenly makes it a lot easier to imagine financing. Even Sanders said it was a good move.

Bernie Sanders is a great “idea guy”—and even a “great idea” guy. Maybe he did get caught up in a popular response that even he didn’t really expect. And his response has helped the Democrats put forth its most progressive platform ever. This is all good, and his ideas are the future of this country. But we have other things in the way that we have to deal with before this country changes for the better, and if we push an ultra-liberal agenda much too far on to many simultaneous fronts, we WILL lose moderates and centrists who are scared away by too many progressive changes coming too fast.

For those of you who are still sore about Sanders losing, it’s time to grow up and suck it up. Get your asses to the polling places on Election Day and vote for Hillary Clinton. Don’t be an idiot and write in Sanders’ name. He’s gotten past it now, and so should you. If you REALLY believe in Sanders’ progressive ideas, if you TRULY want liberal change in America, if you ABSOLUTELY want to see us pull away from the hate and intolerance and conservative control over our very lives, then a vote for Hillary Clinton is the only logical choice.

 

David M. Fitzpatrick is a writer living in Maine, USA. His many short stories have appeared in print magazines and anthologies around the world. He writes for a newspaper, writes fiction, edits anthologies, and teaches creative writing. Visit him at www.fitz42.net/writer to learn more.