I have been monitoring the Bernie Sanders cult after his decision to drop out, sort of. Some of the things posted the past day said he was going to "remain on the ballot" which will certainly not help much.
Most of the hard-core Bernie cultists are, predictably, having a never-Biden, fuck-the-Dems tantrum, Sam Seder and Michael Brooks taught me one thing I hadn't really realized, how much of the Republican-fascist aiding play-left has been fueled by affluent brats, most of them white men who are ready to burn everything to the ground if they don't get their way.
That's not going to be an insight that goes away, now that I've realized the extent to which we can thank asshole brats like them for the damage to the real left and, so, democracy, I am realizing that has been a theme of the secular left in the United States going back into the 19th century. While there have certainly been members of the American left who have been wealthy, white men, they have almost always been motivated, strongly, by their religious beliefs, not by the substitution of that with Marxism or some other ideology.
But that's for another time.
The non-brat Bernie supporters who have pledged to support Biden have been making the demand that Biden should listen to and be influenced by Sanders and his supporters. Which, I have to point out, isn't being accompanied by them accepting that Sanders and his supporters have an obligation to listen to and be influenced by the large majority of Democratic voters who were not Bernie Sanders supporters.
Sanders supporters are a significant part of the Democratic Party, the ones who are Democrats or who will vote for Democrats, BUT THEY ARE NOT ANYWHERE NEAR AS SIGNIFICANT AS BLACK VOTERS, DEMOCRATIC WOMEN, OTHER RELIABLE AND DEPENDABLE DEMOCRATIC VOTERS. Or as due the deference of party leaders and candidates. The just beneath the surface racism on display among some of the Bernie bots on Majority Report and other places, especially in the comments, in the wake of Biden's support by Black voters in South Carolina played a huge part in my realizing what a bunch of spoiled brats the white-boys and gals of the Bernie Sanders cult are. No rational, or more importantly, moral Democrat would think of offending those constituencies to please that fraction of the Bernie Sanders support, I have been absolutely disgusted with Sanders for not trying harder to quell their excesses and offensive behavior.
If Sanders had stayed in the Democratic Party after he lost the nomination in 2016, he would have had a far stronger claim to be a nominee for its presidential nomination, if, as he reportedly has every intention of doing, again leaves the party after this, he has no right to demand to be listened to by the Democratic nominee. He has a right to ask for that, he has no right to demand it because he is not a Democrat except when it suits his purposes.
Sanders supporters who are Democrats have him and his Bernie-or-Bust supporters to blame for any deficit of influence they might want to complain about. Those like Seder and Brooks, Konst, etc. who will be having tantrums and encouraging people to not vote for the only person who is going to stand between us and having four more years of Trump can be rationally seen as nothing but a very good reason for Democrats to not trust them or want to work with Sanders supporters who aren't part of that anti-Democratic cult.
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