If Hillary Clinton loses this fall, she and her supporters cannot blame Sanders and his, if they believe in intellectual honesty.

The buck stops here. Anyone ever heard that little axiom before? The idea behind it of course is that when you’re the president, “passing the buck,” or in other words shirking responsibility isn’t supposed to be tolerated.

So how come I keep hearing ardent, die-hard, scream in your face Hillary supporters swearing up and down it won’t be the fault of Ms. Clinton, but rather Bernie or Busters, who cost her the election in November, should the unthinkable happen and Trump best her? But, isn’t that a little ridiculous on its face? For starters, if keeping Sanders supporters happy was important to the Democratic machine and Clinton’s team, they probably should have dialed-back the “you’re not one of us” rhetoric a smidge. Secondly, it really flies in the face of reality. Independents make up more of a voting bloc than Republicans or Democrats, so if your candidate fails to win in November, it’s because he or she couldn’t inspire enough people who don’t “Rah-Rah Sis Boom Bah!” over the donkey team, not because of any other factor.

You have to be enticing as a candidate to more than just those who swallow the blue state pill. Obama seemed to understand the importance of a coalition of voters; whereas Clinton with all the accusations of Bernie Bros (remember “Obama Boys” anyone?), seems to have decided to go old school and just assume the support of her own party’s faithful be enough in November. And hell, I’m not a fucking prognosticator, so maybe it will be enough to carry the day. But if it’s not, and she doesn’t inspire enough people outside of the bluest of blue acolytes, you cannot blame those of us who decided not to cater to fear mongering. You cannot blame people like me who live in states that are safely blue for sending a message to the DNC that we’re done with predestined candidates.

You have to blame your own failed candidate in that scenario.

You’ll have to reflect on whether finger-wagging, hand-wringing and insulting Sanders supporters was a wise decision. You’ll have to think about whether generalizing us all as young, white, millennial men who want “Free Stuff” really made you that much different than Mitt Romney in 2012. You’ll have to square yourself with the idea that you turned off a shit load of people who helped you do the impossible eight years ago, then four years later, by electing the first person of color to the highest office in the land. You’ll have to do some serious soul searching to figure out if “otherizing” Sanders fans was the way to go.





And you’ll likely just Nader us all, won’t you? Oh, and speaking of Nader…I forget, who won Al Gore’s home state that year? Was it Al Gore? Would those electoral votes have made Florida and therefore the Supreme Court irrelevant?

Asking for a friend.

There’s nothing pragmatic about choosing a candidate because you’re afraid of the other candidate. Especially in a country with checks and balances so rigorous it stymied a president like Obama. It’ll never cease to amaze me that liberal Americans who watched what obstructionism did to Obama are suddenly convinced Trump will rule with the same iron fist conservatives accused Obama of running his dictatorial presidency with.

Also, I know I haven’t been a Democrat my whole life, but I don’t remember there being a clause when I registered that said I had to vote for anyone I didn’t want to, just because they were also a Democrat. Let’s be really, really real here shall we? A hundred years ago, it was Democrats lynching black folks in the South. It was Democrats fighting to keep Jim Crow alive and well. Hell, a racist genocidal asshole president who thankfully will be moved to the back of the $20 bill soon started the damn party. Now, it’s the Republicans that are and have been courting the scum of the earth for votes. So why the fuck any rationally thinking person would throw-in with a political party to the point that they decide blind allegiance to it is better than critical thinking is beyond me.

Whatever happened to a candidate actually earning someone’s vote? Perhaps if Clinton and her campaign hadn’t been so busy implying that young women were going for Sanders because they want to get laid by so-called feminist icons, maybe she’d have done better with the youth vote. You know, that same youth vote that Barack Obama leveraged like a champion, twice? You might remember Obama from previous electoral victories we all came together to secure. But it’s not just young people that Clinton and her team have turned off. It’s Democrats that lean toward the New Deal, and there are still quite a few of them left, as it turns out.

If Clinton’s supporters aren’t willing to extend the olive branch, why the fuck should Sanders supporters just fall in line? Oh, I know, because it’s only Sanders supporters who have said horrible things to Clinton supporters and about Hillary right?

Hell, maybe if Sanders supporters had been treated like equals from the start, and not like some naive, doe-eyed simpletons clamoring for handouts, there’d be more unity. But you can’t shit in someone’s shoes for months and then get mad at them when they decide to not go anywhere with you. That’s, in the end what this will all come down to — whether or not Hillary did enough to make herself look like the right choice, not just for some Democrats, but for most of them, and most importantly, she has to look like the right choice for independent voters.

Pretending as if any candidate doesn’t have their flaws is dangerous. Bernie has his flaws, as does Clinton. But trying to blame someone else for your candidate’s lack of addressing those flaws is the height of willful ignorance. You won’t get there by preemptively blaming us for your candidate’s shortcomings, that’s for damn sure.

