I remember vividly the poisonous atmosphere that took over this site when it appeared Bernie Sanders actually threated Hillary Clinton’s nomination. The efforts that went into pouring cold water over the incredible enthusiasm — generated by his campaign and his positions — were nothing short of shameful. Here we had a truly progressive candidate, who stood for almost everything the Democratic Party was supposed to stand for; Universal Healthcare, fair taxation, opposition to Free Trade agreements, workers rights, a living wage, descalation of foreign wars, womens rights, minority rights, corporate accountability (i.e. Wall St for the ‘08 crash) etc. The list goes on and on. He was a dream come true for any true progressive. Public financing of elections, legalization of marijuana, he ticked almost every single box.

Then his campaign started to hit the roadblocks. The bias in the DNC. The breaking of promises. The limited debates, and the bizarre scheduling of them. When we raised concerns you laughed in our faces and said it was unfounded. All now proven by the Podesta emails from Wikileaks.

We were told there was no establishment bias, that there was no collusion. Now we know it went all the way to the top, and that Clinton even got debate / town hall questions ahead of time. Accountability? Next to none — Wassermanschultz “resigned” only to step straight into a job with the Clinton campaign (as if that wasn’t her plan all along).

We were told that the downballot Democrats needed the coprorate money that Clinton was soaked in, that it was for the good of the party. How’s that working out for you after this blood bath?

When Clinton struggled to fill a school gymnasium whilst Sanders filled parks and stadiums with people queuing for miles to see him, what did you say? Irrelevant, we were told.

When we pointed out her flaws we were called sexist. The irony of the feminists citing Clinton’s gender as one of the main reasons to nominate her is still probably lost on most of you; feminism for feminism’s sake, making gender and not candidate quality the central issue.

You dismissed her grossly suspicious personal email server, said to take Clinton at her word on the 30k or so deleted emails. You dismissed her hawkishness. You dismissed her coziness with Wall St and Big Money. You dismissed her alignment with Free Trade agreements, her total failure to lead on any notable issues since she pushed Healthcare as First Lady, her Iraq war vote, basically her entire political history which cemented her as the most establishment candidate to ever run and a candidate so clearly on the side of corporate a rich America that it was mind boggling to see the hoops many here jumped through to try and deny it.

When Hillary Clinton blasted journalists with white noise whilst she spoke to Wall St donors in election season, you said we were jumping to conclusions, only for us to find out she has both a “public position” and a “private position” on most issues. The quid pro quo for cooperation with the Clinton Foundation and access to Hillary Clinton was unprovable because there was no slip of paper or public admission of it, so it wasn’t a problem, we were told.

Then there’s “Correct the Record” and the lies and smears and vitriol that most Bernie Sanders advocates had to wade through on here, or reddit or any other significant public forum. We were told we were making it up, before it became proven.

You stood by and aided a corrupt system to shove a damaged candidate down our throats and now we all have to choke.

You dragged us down. You enabled this. You think Bernie would not have won? He consistently performed better than Hillary amongst Independents and the youth vote. He excited close to a million people (perhaps more) to come and hear him speak in primary season alone — how can you be so stubborn as to deny that would not have gained pace in the general election and had a huge impact at the polls?

He would have had the Democratic vote that begrudgingly turned out for Clinton, and then a signficant portion of those angry voters who voted for Trump because he wasn’t Clinton on top plus whatever else the enthusiasm for Bernie’s campaign brought to the table. And that would have carried over to downballot candidates, because that is what happens at General Elections — just like on Tuesday.

Instead of embracing the enthusiasm that Bernie Sanders’ campaign energized the primaries with, you turned it into a toxic soup of bitter pedantic debate laced with dishonesty and slander.

You dismissed the dirty tricks taking place during caucuses. You turned a blind eye to the gross voter disenfranchizement that riddled many of the close primaries.

You dismissed us as Bernie Bros and did everything in your power to shut us down, being complicit in the conspiracy against his campaign, making progressive hangouts like DailyKos an unpleasant place to be. The only thing you failed to do was engage us on a policy level and bring us on board when it mattered. You treated us with contempt.

You got what you wished for. You got your candidate into the General Election regardless. You were “I’m with Her” through thick and thin, rather than right over wrong, and now it’s as thin as it gets. Now we all get to suffer.

Politics is not bean bags. It is tough. However part of being a progressive is holding things to a higher standard than those do on the right wing of the spectrum. If Clinton had won the primary fairly then we would hold our hands up and admit our failures.

Instead, we now know it was grossly unfair, and many of you on here were a big part of that. Will you admit your failures instead of making excuses?

Where is our apology? This is a good start.