Things are not going as we expected right now. After several months of the Bernie Sanders campaign building itself up and gaining traction, after Bernie became the first candidate to win all three early states in the Democratic primary, we see three candidates drop out and endorse Biden. And suddenly, Bernie is back to being the underdog, Cenk Uygur lost his primary race in a land slide, and Jessica Cisneros just barely lost to Trump’s favorite Democrat. We got smacked in the face with the crushing reality that our Democracy is only for show, and that the establishment is always one step ahead of us.

Or is it?

I’ve thought long and hard about what just happened yesterday, and I was at first, feeling just as hopeless as everyone else. We want Bernie to win the nomination because we know he will be the best candidate to defeat Donald Trump in the general election, but we also know that Bernie will go about fixing all the problems with our crapitalist shithole of a government. The establishment doesn’t want that, so they are willing to risk a repeat of 2016 by railroading Biden into the nomination at any cost.

Most of my regular readers already know this, but we are tasked with the difficult issue of informing all of our older “apolitical” relatives that they are being lied to by the people they trust. Part of me misses the days when I thought politics came down to “Democrats good Republicans bad,” simply because the truth that both parties only care about the bottom line is so much more painful. And also because it makes shit like this all the more harrowing.

For a while now, we’ve been lead to believe that Bernie had this in the bag because the Democratic establishment is so incompetent and out of touch, but we effectively have scared them into the position where they have to get serious. We are only a little of the way through the primary, and they already had to bust out their ace in the hole of having everyone drop out and endorse Biden, which means we still have four and a half months to turn this around.

Just think of all the crazy shit that happened since November. Four months ago, Bernie was behind Warren and Biden had a 12 point lead over him. Kamala Harris was still in the race at that point, and a few weeks later, Bloomberg would enter the race at 3%. I have heard some people claim that this is basically a different race now, but I have to disagree. Bernie was ALWAYS going up against the entire Democratic establishment. All that has changed is that they’ve merged into one corporate centrist blob and are now working together.

That doesn’t mean we can get comfortable though, far from it. We know fully well that Bernie has enough resources and a strong team of activists to fight this battle, and that team is us! After everyone is done reading this piece, I want you all to think long and hard about what you have done to help this progressive movement, and also about what you haven’t done. This is by no means an attempt to shame anyone, but rather an attempt to shift the discussion away from “what can Bernie do to win” to “what can all of us do to make sure Bernie wins?”

And I get that this isn’t all that simple; some of us have jobs we need to do or bills that need to be paid. While I am significantly lacking in the financial department, I have the gift of a lot of free time due to not having to deal with school or work. I’ve always had a lot of strong aspirations and ambitious ideas, but I’ve come to the realization that I need to think about how I can create something efficient given my output. The short version of this is that Pink Tsunami isn’t catching on, so I’m going to try something different.

I’m instead going to try and get out one political piece a week, in addition to the usual gaming content. However, the political pieces will be more like this one. Where I speak in raw emotion and passion rather than gathering a bunch of stats and numbers. I got the when I re-read my “On the Death of Leelah Alcorn” piece. There wasn’t any information or data in that piece, it didn’t tell you who to vote for or against, just pure anger and a desire to make thing change. And it is only natural that it got a fuckton more views as well.

I do still plan to keep making gaming stuff as well, if only because it may draw more traffic to this blog, and thus an increased chance that otherwise apolitical people could read this stuff. That’s not to say that I don’t care about gaming anymore, but pardon me if I’m more focused on saving the world at the moment.

As for everyone else, I can’t tell you what you can and can’t do. For all I know, you may have exhausted every possibility and are just as drained as I am. Or you may have not payed any attention and have not contributed in any way and seeing this piece makes you want to do so!

I’m reminded of a Socrates quote right now.

“When the water was shoulder height, Socrates asked Plato, “What is it exactly you want from me?” “Knowledge,” Plato answered, at which point Socrates abruptly grabbed Plato’s head and pushed him down under the water. After a half a minute or so Socrates let Plato up and asked him again, “What is it you want?” “Knowledge,” was again Plato’s answer, at which point Socrates shoved him back down under the water.

After a time, when Plato ran out of air, he began to struggle to get his head above the surface. He punched and kicked and grabbed to get free, but Socrates was a strong man and held him down. At the last moment before Plato blacked out, Socrates let him up and asked that same simple question, “What is it you want?” Plato coughed and spluttered finally responding, “Air! I need air!” Socrates calmly stated, “When you desire knowledge as much as you desired a breath of air, then you shall have it.”

In this case, the key to making sure we elect Bernie Sanders to President of the United States is to desire it just as much as that breath of air, and to do almost ANYTHING to do it. And earlier this morning, I’ve thought about what I’ve been hesitant to do, and what further steps I could do.

CW: Suicide

A bunch of Bernie Supporters are planning on holding a mass protest event in Milwaukee if the DNC tries to screw him over via the super-delegates. I’ve thought to myself about trying to see if I can get a speaking position at this rally, and then using that position to kill myself publicly, on stage, as a statement against the DNC and their willingness to let people die for profit. To make sure that they are forced to see the consequences of their actions front and center if they nominate someone who will not pass medicare for all, who will not pursue a green new deal, and who will continue to send troops into endless wars for them to die violently in. There’s a part of me that wants so badly to trap these sick bastards into a scenario will they cannot possibly put an anti-establishment spin on it.

CW Over

Part of the reason I tell you this is so that I am unable to do this. After all, if I have already made my intentions known, no one would let me do this. But I find that it also speaks to something about myself; about how I’m willing to martyr myself before doing something obvious like volunteering for his campaign. I come to realize just how much depression, agoraphobia, social anxiety, gender dysphoria, complex PTSD, and Borderline Personality Disorder have screwed with my mind, and I doubt I’m the only one in a vulnerable place here.

Why else would so many of us be desperate for change? Why else would we want to believe that we aren’t consigned to a life of desperation and misery while corporate scumbags profit off of our suffering? We are so quick to give up precisely because we are USED to being fucked over by everyone around us! This is entirely intentional, they want us to be complacent!

They want us to act like “normal” human beings who think politics is like a reality show where none of us are effected by the results, and this is entirely because they aren’t, but we are. I’m running out of things to say because I am tired, I am sick and fucking tired of all this bullshit, and it should not be this hard to expect basic human decency and care. Anyone who votes for someone other than Bernie in this primary is complicit. I don’t care if you think that Dementia Joe has a better chance of beating Trump, even if Biden wins, it will not means shit for the people that are going to die due to a lack of health care.

It may not be how we are “supposed” to act, but if I’m not supposed to point out the fact that the Emperor has a huge, bulging erection and won’t stop touching women without their consent, then I may as well have voted for Trump.

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