General Discussion

what his campaign stood for. Doing so leaves us stuck at 49% with no chance of increasing our support.

And it's not about idolizing the guy, so please stop acting like there's something unhealthy about defending what his campaign stood for.

Bernie didn't get nominated(in part because his early shortcomings on addressing race(he thought his lifetime antiracist commitment would be enough, apparently)were exaggerated and lied about(he NEVER said the party should fight ONLY for economic justice and say nothing against racism while doing so).

But he essentially won the argument on economic justice issues in the party, and the platform the two campaigns joined forces to create in Philly reflected that. That amazing platform was largely why we left Philly with a 12 point lead in the polls. Had the campaign emphasized that platform and reminded young Sanders volunteers that they had won major victories in the platform language, our ticket's lead would likely have been larger and turnout would likely have been larger. Instead(as major figures in the Clinton-Kaine campaign and the party leadership have admitted, the campaign spent far too much time and money on the useless tactic of attacking Trump's personal sleaziness. The campaign did so even when it knew, less than a month into the campaign, that the voters didn't CARE that Trump was a sleaze-they wanted to know what WE had to offer. Rather than running ads emphasizing the platform, rather than treating Sanders people as partners in the campaign, the focus was almost entirely on attack ads, and the only issue that was mentioned with any real frequency was choice-an important issue, but not the only issue that matters and NOT the only issue where our position was more popular than the conservative position.

And, I'm talking about casting the party in the image of the American people-the overwhelming majority of whom want us to be just as tough on corporate power as the GOP is subservient to it. Economic justice as a set of issues isn't unpopular(many Clinton supporters, when polled in the primaries, supported the Sanders economic positions-they just believed that HRC was "more electable&quot .

If we go totally anti-Sanders on economic issues(as you appear to want)we are not a progressive party. WE are simply a party of the more socially enlightened wing of the 1%. We can't do anything to help the working and kept-from-working poor.

It's about issues, it's about the people...it's NOT treating Bernie like a golden calf or something weird and creepy like that.

In the real world, the voters don't want TWO parties that put the rich about everyone else on economic issue.

Why do you?

In the real Texas world, most of the Dems who've lost every nearly every statewide race since 1994 had economic positions iike Lloyd Bentsen, not Jim Hightower(a man who won statewide races for years there, losing only in 1994 when EVERY Dem lost badly statewide, including the Lloyd Bentsen-John Connally types).

Pro-corporate economics can't elect Democrats in this country. And even if it could, people elected on pro-corporate programs can't do anything progressive on any issues other than LGBTQ rights and choice-important issues, issues all of us are united in supporting, but not the only issues that matter in this country.