I support Bernie Sanders, whole heartedly. His M4A program speaks to me as someone who nearly died in the hospital in 8th grade due to flesh eating virus, only to recover and watch my entire family toil running a paper route just to pay off the medical bills of a 4-day visit. I support student loan forgiveness, because my wife and I have 200,000 dollars worth of student loan debt just so we could both get masters in social work. There is no way we will ever be able to pay off that entire balance on a social worker’s salary alone. I support extreme efforts to combat climate change, I support sweeping structural changes in the United States that would lift poor people up from poverty. Income inequality is my main issue, being poor most of my childhood and adult life. I chose Bernie Sanders because he has fought for people like me for years and years. I remember listening to Brunch with Bernie every Friday before he became big time on Thom Hartmann on KPOJ. What he said, the way he framed issues seemed to make so much more sense than anything else any other democrat was putting out there.
I saw him live in 2015 at the Moda Center in Portland, despite my extreme social anxiety and fear of crowds. I voted for him in the 2016 primary, and I plan on voting for him again in the 2020 primary.
That being said, it makes me absolutely sick to see my fellow Bernie supporters dumping all over primary voters because they simply voted their conscious. It sickens me to see fellow Berners treating ALLIES like this because our guy lost. Stop it. Just stop. You are not doing Bernie supporters like me, people who have deep personal connections to his platform, any favors at all. In fact, you are making us look like shitty people.
The most disappointing aspect of this to me is the sheer racism embedded in some of the nasty comments against southern states. “Low info”, “uneducated”, thats horseshit and at the very least regional bigotry and at worst out-and-out racism against the black vote in the south. Its disgusting and I will have absolutely no part in it. Yes, I am disappointed that more people did not agree with Bernie’s message. Yes, I am disappointed that Bernie’s path to the nomination gets much, much harder from here. I am not, however, dangling off a cliff willing to throw this country to Trump for 4 more years (possibly a lifetime if Trumps “25 year term limit” was a trial balloon and not a joke) just because my guy lost. I am not willing to beat up on the frontrunner (and piss off other democratic peeps) just because I am upset that people did not vote my way. I am not willing to say terrible things about allies just because my dude lost. I am not willing to throw away unity, I am not willing to burn bridges or talk shit about Democrats.
We have one shot at dethroning the would be orange price of Murrica and whoever we collectively pick in that endeavor will get 100% support from me. I would hope that since Trump isn’t just a theoretical threat but a REAL LIVED THREAT to every single life-form on this planet that my fellow Bernie supporters would feel the same way. But judging by the, quite frankly, disgusting reaction of some of his supporters online, I really feel alone in this thought process.