As much as I feel I was too harsh in my words, I have decided to let the rest of this post stand. These are tempestuous times and everyone I know is getting swept up in it...even me. I hope our focus will hopefully turn towards getting Trump out of office once we have our candidate.
To My Berner Friends,
As you rage about Klobuchar and Buttigieg dropping out and claim that it was a “conspiracy” in exchange for a position in the Biden administration, you might want to take a rest for five minutes and let the conspiracies and witch hunts rest with Trump. There is, and is going to be, Russian interference in this election: this will be much more insidious this time. Putin wants Trump elected. As soon as we have a candidate, we need to turn our attention to this sort of manipulation, and boot Trump to the curb...and let go our differences if we can. There is a democracy at stake.
Politics is a game. It has been and it always will be. Things like candidates dropping out in order to shuffle votes to the leading candidate are part of the game. Few Bernie supporters I personally know here in Santa Cruz never seem to do much research (or just slap up on Facebook any meme or Washington Examiner article they find), but Buttigieg met with Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter before he dropped out (I am sure Carter gave him some wise counsel) then told Biden he would “sleep on it” before endorsing him. I believe Buttigieg dropped out for the good of the country. Was Biden’s promise to give Buttigieg some role in the Biden administration wrong? No—was Obama giving Hillary Clinton the position of Secretary of State wrong? These seem like consolation prizes, but I should hope that it also comprised part of assembling a strong administration.
Is Sanders immune to the chess game of politics? Hell no. Plus his lukewarm admonishment to his supporters to stop their raging, rabid behavior and kooky conspiracy theories has done nothing to stop such behavior. I myself can tell nobody in Santa Cruz the “horrible” thing I have done: vote for a good man. Is Sanders a good man? Sure. But his followers definitely turned me off from voting for him. Some are much, much worse than Trump supporters: not the majority, but certainly there are notable ones in my corner of the world.
Actually, the tipping point for me with Sanders was the statement about Cuba and its high literacy rate under Castro. People who lived in Cuba have publicly said that, sure, there was a high literacy rate: in order to read and parrot the Castro regime’s propaganda. Cuban refugees traveled here, risking death with a terrifying voyage, to escape that despotic government. Obviously, Bernie meant well. I myself do not believe he is a crazy commie or even a radical socialist. But that statement was unconscionable.
I happen to live in the epicenter of Bernerland. I told a close friend never to tell anyone I was voting for Buttigieg. I definitely am telling nobody I voted for Biden, unless they come to this blog and read about it, which is not likely. I’ve “snoozed” so many Bernie supporters on Facebook that it’s practically a slumber party. These are people I really care about, but many of them have frankly gone a bit crazy. And I certainly feel there is zero room for dialogue with them.
All of this my humble opinion, and definitely backtracking on my heartfelt desire to be neutral and not put down Bernie supporters. But these are people I know well, and would ostracize me if they knew I voted for Biden. And that isn’t a crazed conspiracy theory or a meme I saw on Facebook: it is the truth.
And no, I’m not as neutral as I wanted to be. Hopefully I will get back to that soon.
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