Top Five Reasons We Should not Force Bernie Supporters to Vote for Biden

And why they should stop forcing Biden to be Bernie

By Sasha Stone and Ryan Adams

In 2016 I was one of those people who tried to strong-arm Bernie supporters into voting for the only Democrat left standing, the woman who had prevailed. Why? Because I’ve witnessed the way divisions in the ranks has led to defeat for Democrats far too many times. In 2000, most especially. Imagine if the anti-establishment factions driven by people like Michael Moore, Bill Maher, and Sarah Silverman had instead supported Al Gore.

But four years after we let disarray put a sociopath in the White House. the fear of actual fascism has made me change my mind on the tactic of chasing stray liberals. I’m now convinced that America has created a slice of the electorate that believe their vote is an expression of who they are rather than a crucial tool to use to gain power and retain it. And you know what? That is absolutely their right. If that’s their overriding desire then it’s futile to try to dissuade them.

Maybe they think “both sides are the same,” or maybe they still believe the Susan Sarandon doctrine that Trump will make people so mad he will “bring the revolution.” That was too high a price to pay and now that it didn’t exactly work out well for Bernie and his movement, Bernie himself is now more committed than ever to removing Trump from power.

This election is the most important election of most of our lifetimes. If Democrats lose to Trump in 2020 we will be closer than we have ever been to sinking into the quicksand of fascism.

Trump only governs the citizens who like him, only listens to the news that supports him, only helps the state governors who do not challenge him. Being so blinkered enables Trump to see himself as a supreme ruler, a king or an emperor. This is due to his fundamental lack of education about what the presidency represents, why American’s fought a bloody revolution 245 years ago, and how it’s his not his to rule OVER the American people, but instead to work FOR us.

The brute maxim that says “when you’ve got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow” applies to just how bad a second term of the Trump presidency will be. With no further worry for electoral sentiment, he can abandon his need for approval or respect from voters across the spectrum and will devote himself fully to serving the darker forces that want to turn America into a nativist, isolationist, nationalist country. France blocked Marine Le Pen with a definitive rejection, but the UK teetered on the edge, buckled under, and tipped in a disastrous direction to put Boris Johnson in power. America has fallen the wrong way on a similar precipice, but we’re about to get another chance to fulfill our obligation to the world to stop Trump to halt this current global wave of right-wing extremism.

Of utmost urgent concern is climate change and how that upheaval threatens to send millions of migrants fleeing uninhabitable lands. Equally ominous is the surge of white panic in reaction to predictions that white people will be the minority by 2040. In essence, this is less about illegal immigrants suspected to have criminal intent, and more about stopping desperate people fleeing from Mexico and Central America to seek refuge in the USA as their countries collapse. In Europe and America both there is the added factor of anti-Muslim alarm that fuels fears of non-Christians forced to leave regions that are fast becoming too dangerous or unlivable.

None of these will ever be easy challenges for Americans to confront, these paths to uncertain futures that lie ahead for us. But history has taught us what nationalist solutions look like and we should have learned by now that they always somehow end in genocide. At this crucial moment for mankind, we must resist the impulse to isolate ourselves from the global community, but rather face our future bravely, with open minds and big hearts to bend humanity’s destiny away from fascist oblivion.

Even now, as the Coronavirus rages across the globe, Trump blames the World Health Organization, China, the governors — he is incapable of rising to the call of being the leader of this country. He will use this crisis to justify all manner of unacceptable policies if he is allowed a second term. But enough is enough and it’s time for Trump and the cowardly GOP to feel the full force of our battle station. The bottom line is this, we don’t have time or energy to waste on those who don’t get it, or worse, are digging their heels in now when need all hands on deck.

Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders are good friends. Biden has always shown Bernie respect and admiration and has already adopted some of his policies, along with some of Warren’s. The angry Bernie supporters will continue to believe that is nowhere near enough, because they want Biden to become Bernie Sanders. But that’s never going to happen. This long lingering list of demands will include tantrums about the VP choice and unyielding squalls for Medicare for All. It will go on and on, up to and including the convention. We’ll just have to walk on past while they thrash around on the floor of the candy aisle.

So here are my top five reasons to leave those particular voters alone in 2020.

1. They feed off our anger and our pleading and our begging. They see the election as an us vs. them paradigm. The more we shame them, mock them, cajole them, or urge them — the more they love to loudly proclaim they won’t ever vote for Biden. To them, this protest is how they give their own life and identity meaning. Who are they? They are the people who won’t vote for centrists. It doesn’t matter if that means Trump gets elected — in fact, all the better because that really drives it home and bloody and painfully. FUCK YOU, they are saying, for not wanting to join our exclusionary us vs. them revolution.
2. Focusing on the Sanders supporters is a waste of time. Rather, make better use of our time and energy to cast a wider net, to seek out and embrace people who don’t really involve themselves much in politics but generally understand the looming threat of Trump.
3. The Never Trump coalition and millions of moderate Republicans are a more powerful alliance if we’re looking for motivated voters. They have already been uniting with us to help bring down Trump — they do this every day on Twitter (Rick Wilson, Tom Nichols, Charlie Sykes, Joe Walsh, Max Boot, Jennifer Rubin). Their vision is not clouded by in-fighting or policy: they are focused only on Trump to restore the dignity of their own party. These allies don’t scold us by demanding that we have to “earn” their vote, because they’re grownups who don’t hold their ballots for ransom.
4. There has always been a subtle, not overt, racism behind the Bernie Sanders movement. Folded into the disturbing idea that Bernie could do what Obama couldn’t is Bernie’s own blunt accusation that Obama’s historic ACA legislation wasn’t good enough. Not to mention the way they shrug off the key voting demographic of black voters in the South. The Democratic Party is big tent, no doubt, but black voters are should never be taken for granted or sidelined, rather they should be the central focus of any campaign for the Democratic nomination.
5. If all they want is to not vote for Biden, give them that. But nothing more. Not a single thing more. This is their country too and they are making the choice that Trump’s version of America is acceptable but the Democrats’ isn’t. That is a choice and it is their right. It’s their right to refuse to eat their vegetables and it’s their choice to invite colon cancer. We can’t teach them that; they have to learn it the hard way.

It will be great if a number of them find the maturity to suck it up for the greater good but many of them can’t and simply won’t.

Someday the young ones fooled into thinking Bernie’s “all or nothing” approach to politics was the right one will understand that those of us who put country before personal expression fought for them and their future. Maybe then they will thank us. The other ones who just want to watch the world burn? Well, you can find them in the dim corners of the internet, raging against the machine. And that too is their right.

Our freedom means we can do whatever you want with our time, our energy, and our votes. The foolish have a right to choose foolishly. The wise have a duty to choose wisely.