Just in the last few days, I have been told that many actual liberals who are fighting the good fight and trying to get Democrats elected are “shills” who are trying to hurt Bernie Sanders’ chances in 2020, I have been told that many on the left agree with the right, that “liberal” is a dirty word and proof that someone is a “sell-out” and I have been told that I am supposed to hate the Democratic Party because Democrats in California elected the “wrong person” to be chairman of that party.

Then, there is this “list,” that went viral in the last couple days:

These are the #CorporateShills out to smear @SenSanders & derail the progressive movement! Divisive protectors of the 1%!#IWillNeverTrust🔥 pic.twitter.com/koHxUQJlxl — Geoff Campbell (MiamiGator) (@GeoffMiami) July 9, 2017

This list of liberals is actually an excellent group of people to follow on Twitter, if you want to get good information. And for the record, they don’t attack Bernie; they just don’t take shit from Bernie Stans who worship Bernie Sanders with an irrational fervor. (Just as an aside, most of these people have seen an upsurge in Twitter followers since this list was posted.)

In other words, lately, I have been getting just as much shit from so-called “progressives” as I normally get from the far right.

Let’s clear up a few things.

If you claim to be a “progressive,” but you have not been a major part of a winning electoral effort, you’re not actually progressive. Check the root word; “progress.” The only way to achieve progress in a democratic system is by winning elections and getting laws passed. The people these professional left morons are trashing – people who supported Hillary Clinton, for example – have actually achieved more than anyone on the unicorn left.

No one can “hurt” Bernie Sanders’ “chances” because he will never be president. By 2020, he will be 79 years old, making him too old to expect a majority of Americans to vote for him. That’s not “ageist,” either. What many Bernie Stans feel for Sanders is very much the same as the irrational support Trump gets from his brain dead minions. I know many of these people have convinced themselves that Bernie is a god, but his record of 30 years in Congress doesn’t come close to Hillary’s eight years there. That’s just a fact. When it comes to talk, Bernie Sanders says everything the Bernie Stans like, and that is all. He is all talk, with very little action.

What the Bernie Stans and the professional left are all about is white privilege, writ large. I know these people get pissed when I say this, but it’s too goddamned bad. The base of the Democratic Party is People of Color. White liberals who think they are too “special” to just play politics like all others do think they should have as much say in Democratic Party politics as everyone in theDemocratic Party, even though they won’t even register with the party. There are people who call themselves “progressive” who actually think the Democratic Party is brazenly “corporatist,” and is always going after the money, even though there is no evidence.

In California, almost two months ago, rank-and-file Democrats in that state elected a chairman. Eric Bauer was elected chairman over Kimberly Ellis. The margin was 60 votes and the professional left are royally pissed about it, claiming Ellis was “robbed.” There was no evidence of this, of course; there doesn’t have to be any evidence . They decide they want one candidate, but… well… more on that in a second.

Lately, there is often very little difference between the far left and the far right when it comes to irrationality in their political discourse. Again, these people are mostly white, fairly well off and they believe they are somehow above the fray. They adopt a symbol to “support,” but they’re not even consistent with that. The vast majority of Bernie Sanders supporters last year heeded Bernie’s support of Hillary and voted for him, but the truth is, about 10-20 percent of them did not. They convinced each other that Hillary Clinton was somehow a bad candidate, or dishonest or any number of other descriptors that, once again, had no evidence to support them. Irrationality rules with these people.

I mean, these people are actually touting Bernie Sanders as a “front runner” for 2020. The initials WTF come to mind when I hear this. For one thing, no one has announced, not even Bernie. The only person who is clearly running is Trump. In any case, we have to get through 2018 first. There is no way to even assess the 2020 race until we see the results in 2018. If Democrats win and make huge gains, you will have one type of election in 2020. If Democrats win huge in 2018 and Trump is impeached and removed, you will have a different type of election. And if the Republicans end up gaining seats in 2018, the 2020 election will be completely different from that. If you think you can even begin to predict what will happen more than 3 years from now, might I remind you that Jeb Bush was considered a shoo-in for the GOP nomination last year and Trump was considered a joke by pretty much everyone, including the same people who claim they can predict what will happen in 2020.

The only people on the left who think the professional left and unicorn progressives represent liberal thought are the pro and unicorn lefties themselves. They are deluded. Unfortunately, many voters don’t pay close attention to politics because they can’t. They tend to be overworked and underpaid, they are struggling to keep a roof over their heads and food in their kids’ bellies and they don’t have the time or the energy to read about “politics” every minute of every day. They make their voting decisions based on the overall tone. And there are two things everyone should know about that voting decision: First, they are already inclined to vote for Democrats because they think the Republican right is crazy. And second, their decision is not always who to vote for, but whether or not to vote at all. In the last few decades, They are increasingly deciding to not show up to vote. And many of them make that decision based on the fact that BOTH SIDES of the debate are telling them the Democrat sucks too. They are also being told their vote may not count because of something called “voter suppression.” In fact, talking about voter suppression is probably more suppressive than the actual voter suppression efforts.

And why would they not get that impression? The far right keeps telling them “millions of immigrants are voting” and the professional left is saying that everyone is conspiring to keep everyone who isn’t a far right loon from being able to cast a vote. Now, if you’re a single mom working three jobs just to scrape by and buy food for your kids and pay for child care and you have to take three buses and lose a couple hours pay to go cast a vote, but the overall impression you get is that the Democrats are just as bad as Republicans, why would you go through all that trouble? And please don’t tell me, “civic duty.” The only duty someone in that position feels is to her kids and perhaps God.

This is the problem we face as progressives and liberals. White liberals who proudly shout “progressive” pearls of wisdom aren’t “special.” They don’t have some sort of “special knowledge” that other liberals don’t have. They have not been anointed by the “progressive” gods as knowing all of the solutions to the problems Americans face. No one gives a shit if Bernie marched with King. Regardless of how much college they’ve had, white “progressives” do not know more about what it’s like to be a person of color than a person of color does. When the white unicorn and pro left acts like they are the only true representatives of the left, they are acting out of just as much arrogance as the right wingers who still blindly support Trump. Black people are overwhelmingly liberal in their politics, as are Latinos, recent immigrants, LGBT people and women, especially women of color. That is because, while you are reading about shit all day, they are actually living it.

Liberals come in all shapes and sizes and types and they come with every shade of ideological liberalism. Not all of us think the same about every issue. While white far lefties have all their “buzz words” memorized, most liberals are too busy with life to come up with buzz words and to “organize” constantly into vague factions who do nothing but talk about shit incessantly. The thing is, they don’t actually do anything because they never win elections, they only lose them for the Democrats.

And the key thing to remember is, if they’re losing elections for Democrats, then you know why the GOP is running everything now. And that is not in any way progressive.

Also published on Medium.