This diary is not intended to persuade, but to explore.
How many years, how many elections have we heard that Democrats need to vote for whoever we’re told to because scary Republicans?
How many years have we been conditioned to believe that Republicans have some super power to obstruct everything, so don’t even try?
And how many years have we been told that our prime duty is to stop the Republicans (and hopefully “destroy” them)?
I don’t have the transcript, but in one of Bernie Sanders’ speeches, he spoke about the climate change issue and the Republican intransigence on it.
Bernie said that Republicans had no problem accepting the science on, say, Alzheimer’s Disease, cancer, diabetes, all sorts of technologies, you name it.
So why would they, unanimously, deny climate change?
Bernie said that every Republican representative knew that if they spoke out on climate change, the next day they’d get a phone call telling them their funding was now gone, over, kaput.
How long do you believe the Republican party could survive its present obstructionist unity if their money dried up?
Bernie sees where the real obstruction comes from. He has a forceful and implacable ability to communicate that reality to we the people, and as a result has received the support of millions of Americans.
He doesn’t take the money from the wealthy and connected and so he is free to talk about this with no hedging or political obfuscation or balancing act gyrations.
We will NEVER beat the Republicans until we beat the system which supports them.
That’s just fine, unfortunately, for a lot of Democrats who also feed at this particular trough, and when confronted with their own corruption claim that this is just the way it is and not to take the money would put them in a non-competitive position against the Republicans.
Sure.
Bernie Sanders’ campaign has shown that there’s only one thing that can stand up to the immense power and money of the 1%, which has bought our government wholesale — and that is unity among regular citizens. Over and over his campaign shows that they may have the money, but we have the people.
The proof of this is his ability to fundraise on a par with the Clinton campaign, who has also used the excuse that it would be foolish to “unilaterally disarm” against the Republican machine when it came to feeding at the Citizens United trough.
If this is so foolish, then why is it that Bernie has been so competitive in this race?
Without this participation by the people, it will be endless war against the Republicans, much like the endless war on drugs, the endless war for the American Empire around the world. As long as the Republicans have their money backers, they will provide a united front to obstruct anything the Democrats come up with as solutions to the problems we face here in America.
As long as we buy into “fear of Republicans” as somehow an inherent part of our political process, that our political decisions should be based upon this fear, we lose and continue to suffer from this endless war.
It’s long past time for us to have the courage to take off the blinders and see who is really running the show. Bernie Sanders is the only candidate running for President of either party who is not afraid to tell the truth about this and who owes no fealty to the ruling class.
Here’s a thought experiment.
Bernie wins the Presidency. He relentlessly introduces legislation that he has promised to fight for, from single-payer to free college tuition to real environmental protection, i.e., keeping the oil in the ground kind of stuff, you know, all those unicorn ideas.
Imagine what that would be like, to have those issues actually put on the table with zero compromise in their introduction. Only Bernie can do this because only Bernie is not owned by the big money power players. He is free to do this and he has the courage to do this.
The media would cover it, they’d have no choice.
If Bernie does win the Presidency it would be because a yuuuge number of people came out to vote. When more people vote, Democrats win.
Imagine more people becoming involved in the political process.
Imagine the big money being exposed for what it is.
A direct attack on what enables Republicans to have such unity would be far more destructive to their plans than the endless compromise and faux pragmatic incrementalism that we have seen from our party thus far — compromises which may benefit some, but always leave others out.
Imagine someone fighting for all the people, not just one group pitted against the other, and our being told that fighting for all the people can’t happen until we destroy the Republicans, all the while having to watch even the Democrats take the money.
I can imagine all those possibilities. What I can’t imagine is buying into the endless political war that no one ever wins and which constantly diminishes our democracy.