It Will Take At Least Sixteen Years To Make Real And Lasting Change

So the big treat of the "Bernie Sanders Delegates Network" - whose co-chair said they didn't care what Bernie Sanders asked them to do - given so much free publicity amounted to a few dozen delegates walking out of the convention and right over to the press table where they vented a bit.  That's what the threats of disruption and massive abandonment of the Democratic Party from the supporters of Bernie Sanders has amounted to.   Normon Solomon got his name in the media, so did Karen Bernal and a few others, that's all these things ever end up being, if we're lucky.

I am encouraged that, apparently, most of the Sanders delegates are grown up enough to not fall for the worst of the nonsense that the children among them spouted to a delighted media, an easy story is what those guys want most of all.  And if it could provide a bit of Hillary Hate click bait, so much the better.

Bernie Sanders has, in the last few weeks, stepped up and acted responsibly, for the most part.  He's a politician, he knows what real politics is really about.  It's the difference between trying to do something in the real world to make things really change and running your mouth and fingers about change.  You are not going to get all the change you want but it's infinitely better to get as much of it as you can instead of worse than none of it.  That's the choice, Hillary Clinton will deliver some of what we want and some of what we don't like, anyone who would have become president of the United States would do that.  Bernie Sanders, Tom Harkin, Mo Udall, even that great and good man, George McGovern. The alternative is Donald Trump who will be a disaster if he is elected.

There is nothing progressive or liberal or leftist about losing an election to the Republican-fascists. Even the worst person to have ever had a D after their name, even someone like the putrid and, thankfully, gone Joe Lieberman, at least has the potential to keep the likes of Mitch McConnell from running the Senate.  That's a huge deal as we can see from his term running the Senate.

As another real politician, Barney Frank, has pointed out, to make real change we will have to win this election, taking back the congress, AND THE NEXT MID-TERM ELECTION to make a lot of change.  I think if Hillary Clinton wins she has a far better chance of doing that than Barack Obama did.  She will be under no illusions that she can win over Republicans who have tried to destroy her and her family for the past three decades.  I strongly suspect she will be a far more effective president because she is tough as they come.   I hope she inspires people to come out and vote in the mid-term. If the Democrats held the Senate and House and the Presidency they could break the Republican-fascist strangle hold on the judiciary as well.  Then we might see some real change.  We've gotten to where we are over the last half-century.  It's going to take more than two years to turn it around, it will take at least two presidencies, sixteen years.  I probably won't be around to see it, I hope my nieces and nephews will be.