Democrats should win with Sanders or they will suffer "Destruction of the Brand" equal to what's coming for the Republicans if they don't dump Trump at their Convention.

Senator Sanders and campaign already won the right to "contested convention." He won enough delegates to force a series of votes at the convention that make it possible for Sanders to be the nominee. Clinton did not win enough delegates to seal the deal on the first ballot. Therefore, in the rules and official processes of the Democratic Party, Senator Sanders has won the right to go the Convention and try to win. Some great writing on the subject is here.

If Sanders wins nomination, then Democrats win Congress. Democrats should choose huge victory with Bernie over crushing defeat with Hillary. Democrats can win the presidency and control of Congress if Bernie wins the Democratic nomination at the contested convention in Philadelphia in July 2016. If Clinton is the nominee, Trump will win the presidency and the GOP will keep control of Congress.

Democrats, don't choose to "snatch defeat from the jaws of victory." Choose to win a yoog victory and not to "ruin the brand", divide the party and go down in a crushing defeat in fourth months that Democrats will deserve. Personally, if Sander isn't the nominee, I swear to renounce the Democratic Party because it has become a complacent loser's racket, a useless corrupt institution dominated by political hacks.

I'm a lifelong Democrat since I lost my voting virginity with Dukahkis in 1988. I volunteered on three Democratic presidential campaigns. I helped elect a friend to the Vermont Legislature in a Republican-heavy town. It's bittersweet to be a Democrat because we often choose to lose, like switching out Dean for Kerry in 2004.

I am trying to help a Democrat get re-elected to the Vermont State Legislature. If Hillary is the nominee, he will have a much harder time getting re-elected because Democrats are going to stay home. Further, Democrats are going to "see their stock drop" on their brand. Democrats as "a brand" are going to lose their charm, triple AAA rating, their street cred, their cool in the future. If the Democrats jilt the Sanders Movement, they will pay a steep price, including a mass exodus of progressives to a new left party. Progressives are going to feel robbed by party leaders and corporate Democrats and elite Debbie Wassername-Shultz types and complacent biennial losers who suffocate in DC with tight ties and alcholic fog.

The Clinton Quiet and Trump's fierce historical takedown will equal Trump winning by 15 points. Trump will win the rust belt among white workers and progressives will stay home, and that's all that's required for a Trump to win big. Alternatively, if Sanders is the nominee, Democrats could win both control of both houses of Congress. Those massive crowds will vote up and down the ballot for one of the biggest political upsets in American history. That is the Thrilling Success that Democrats seem determined to avoid.

Mainstream 'opinion formation' and 'manufacture of consent' has been intense this election cycle. I denounce the media's fake rush to coronate Hillary in disregard of the actual legal democratic process. It may not "mean" anything to MSNBC that superdelegates don't 'vote' until the convention, but it's legally how it is. It's a long arcane legislative-type process and it's not something that ancors can just short circuit because they are restless to call the game over in the third quarter.

Let us try a sports metaphor: Some commentators and the other team rushed to call the game over middle way through the fourth quarter, just as Bernie was winding up for a Hail Mary in California. "Bernie goes for the Hail Mary in the late in the fourth quarter..." cut to beer commericial, come back and commentators like "game over, go home people, nothing to see here. Hillary won somehow." But actually the game is actually tied going into overtime, with Sanders and Clinton going to contested convention.

The campaign season resembles being underwater in a propaganda ocean. like fish swimming in water, do we recognize it? How do we describe the strange cultural landscape around this election? Where was the joy of the Hillary supporters on her victory? I didn't see one post on Facebook of anybody being like "yah!" NYT had a telling article in the Styles section, leaking political truth through a column ostenstibly about other things, that people are pretty quiet about supporting Hillary because it can cause boyfriends to break up with you etc. I call it the Clinton Quiet, a phenomonon where large groups of Democrats gather and NOBODY MENTIONS HER NAME. "She who shall not be named" is a real phenomoneon and it does not bode well for the Battle of the Bulge against the Trump Reich.

I reject 6 months of everybody shut and go back to your cages. I denounce the Clinton Quiet as undemocratic, bad for democracy, a dynamic propped up by the Clinton campaign, an ugly use of the rise of neo-fascism to squash progressivism in the Democratic party. Talk of "it's good for the party" and "Time to quit for the good of the party" and "Sanders should commit hari kari for the good of the party" is partisan Clinton rhetoric. For the good of the party, Sanders should be the nominee and Clinton fold her weak hand.

I have been to three major events for Democrats in Vermont and NOBODY mentioned Hillary's name once. I'm calling it the Clinton Quiet, a strange phenomenon where nobody wants to say anything bad so nobody says anything at all. This dynamic is going to make it impossible to mount an effective campaign against Trump for the rest of this election cycle.

Democrats, choose to win.

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Theo Talcott



About author Theo Talcott blogs at Theo Talcott blogs at http://thinkingaboutsurvival.blogspot.com/