2016 Postmortem

I'm sorry if this sounds horrible or harsh (I genuinely don't mean it to), but the simple truth from this election was that unless your platform caters to the masses, you're not going to win elections. If you know anything about Bernie, you already know he cares deeply (and has done for his entire adult life) about minority and gender rights. He's put his career at risk countless times standing up for those most in need of help, so any narrative that suggests he'd suddenly not give a damn in office is just nonsensical.

He put forward a reasonable (but certainly arguable) position that economic growth would help minority communities overcome some of the historical problems of weath inequality, and over time these would help remove some of the contributing causes of discrimination. I actually still think that is true, however as people from the black community pointed out to him, the immediately issues around racial justice are too important and can't be solved by such long term economic thinking. They were right, but that doesn't mean his initial position was completely wrong either.

What makes me both sad and angry however was the response to those discussions. How did he respond to that information from the black community? Simple, he rebuilt his entire position taking into account what he had learned, and putting racial justice as a major pillar of his platform. What was the response from the media and many here? Exactly the kind of thing you just posted. As if he'd turned around and ignored the issue, when in fact he listened, learned and embraced.

This might not be important to you, but this kind of thing is exactly why there's such a divide between the primary camps here. It's sometimes like we saw two completely different versions of reality.