Just a Picture

For those who came here to tell me I’m nutz, I will vote for whoever wins the nomination, just like I did last time.

The number of comments I’ve read here on the Daily Kos screaming, in writing of course, at folks for not getting on board the Democrat train truly amazes me. A funny thing happened three months ago. For the first time in forty years, the Democratic party swung left. When I was young, the party was the party of liberal ideas. Look up Eugene McCarthy for example. The election of Ronald Reagan changed that, many union members got on board the Reagan wagon, much to their detriment. When Clinton came along, he wholeheartedly threw the remainder under the bus and got on board the corporate money train. From that point on, the party went right. Rational right, but still, right.

There is a solid reason that the party did so well last November. Progressives and minorities and women got out and beat the bushes. They did what it took to push a reluctant party into races the party had long ago given up on. They worked tirelessly for progressive candidates, locally and nationally. As a consequence, the party is different than it was, in a better way. Why did that happen?

It wasn’t the DNC that made this happen. It wasn't some party leader, it certainly wasn’t Tom Perez. The person who set the tone for this was Bernie Sanders. He showed that a hardcore progressive agenda was not just viable, but where the party needed to be. He won that argument. You don’t have to look farther than the crop of Democratic presidential candidates to see how much of an impact he had. Bernie Sanders moved the Democratic Party to a place, for the first time in decades, where it is actually listening to its base (based on issues that motivate them as seen in national polls). Like him or not, he got it done.

The question for me now is, how sincere is this bunch of presidential candidates? Well, I’m pretty confident that Elizabeth Warren is on my side, after that, my confidence wains. It’s hard to judge because some of them had no position on many of the progressive values they are now espousing so loudly, all except Amy Klobuchar, who is sticking with the lean right “centrist” position. I will remind you, I’m voting for whoever gets the nomination, period. And yes, you should too.

However, I think it is time to change the narrative. I don’t think those hardcore Democrats - who were not enough to keep the Democratic party in power, they lost the Executive, the Legislature, the Judiciary, and two-thirds of the state houses - should be crying, “get on the Democratic train.” Rather, it’s time for them to look at the Democratic party, as it now exists, and recognize how it got there and get on board.

Stop with the Bernie is evil, he destroyed the party message. The party did that all on its own. Even if you give Bernie full credit for Hillary's loss, the Democratic party had blown it. Bernie didn't make that happen. On the other hand, the sweep of the House in November rode in with his ideas, his goals, his thinking. Thinking, that has been anathema to the Democratic party for some time. The party has changed.

Bernie Sanders is the face of that change, like him or not. His message resonated and changed what the party was. It's time for the party and it's staunch allies to give that a think. Now, I don't know if I want Bernie to be president at this time, but I do want Democrats as a whole to recognize what he accomplished, how much he changed what our "aspirational" goals are. I'm grateful for that, and I think we might want to keep that in mind.