2016 Postmortem

As in "BIG FUCKING DEAL!!!". So Democrats didn't like Bernie's candidacy and didn't want him to win. Who's fault is that? Bernie has been a fixture in Washington for since 1991 - that's 25 years for those who aren't good at math - and he had all that time to make friends and allies and cultivate supporters within the Democratic Party for his primary run. So why was "everyone against him"?

Maybe because from the start he was never a party member, though since he would have been completely isolated otherwise, he always caucused with the Democrats. Maybe it was because during his entire stint in Washington he chose to be an outsider, working with the Democrats only when it pleased him. Maybe it was because he has always been as critical of his Democratic colleagues as he was of the Republicans. Maybe it was because he had the gall to run for the Democratic nomination as an independent, trying to be the nominee of a party he never joined; I'm frankly surprised they even let him into the race.

Bernie lost fair and square. Nothing anyone did or tried top do deprived him of the nomination. In fact I can't point to a single primary in which he received the most votes from Democratic Party members. When he won primaries it was because he received the votes of independents who consider themselves too liberal to belong to the party and because he was the favorite of college age kids and other young people suffering under the crushing debt of their college loans. Why, because Bernie promised them government handouts which he could have never delivered even if he had won the Presidency.

Bernie and his supporters spent most of the primary season bitching and moaning about how unfair the super delegates were. However, in the end ironically it was the the super delegates which allow him to pretend that he still had a slim chance to win during the last set of primaries and on into the convention. Otherwise, the race would have been over after the California primary. And by the way, most Democrats didn't appreciate the fact the Bernie refused to concede after it was clear that he had been beaten and many of us were very disappointed that Bernie chose to make his REVOLUTION primary above all other considerations.

But here is the bottom line - it is long past time to quit re-fighting the primaries. If Democrats don't bury the hatchet and unite without acrimony we will have no chance in 2018 or in 2020.