“Meh!?!”
“I’m speaking from my heart. Writing/tweeting/posting my heart out and all you can say is “Meh” !?!”
“Meh. I can’t comprehend “Meh” in this election. Surely you feel something.”
My friend who is passionate about all things politics is stunned. We were at a deserted coffee shop that has sofas and coffee tables. I thoughtfully sunk into the sofa. I’m not flipping out about “Party Unity”. I’m not running around with my hair on fire. I’m just not freaking out over the lack of unity within the Democratic Party. I do feel, just not passionately at this moment in time. I threw her a bone. “oh, I care, but it’s too soon. Hillary is my second choice this year, but I’ll vote for her in the fall. I’ve always said that.” I shrugged, “Don’t worry about it.” I was looking forward to the gazillion calories in my caramel macchiato with extra whipped cream, thank you very much.
It must of been the shrug that earned me a whole bunch of scorn. “You’re part of the problem! I never thought you’d disengage in politics. We need you to vocally and enthusiastically support Hillary Clinton right now!”
That earned her an eye roll. I sardonically retorted, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I have caramel macchiato with extra whipped cream to enjoy and a text book that won’t write itself. Chillax. We got months to go. I’ll come around sometime in September….maybe.” I took a sip, still too hot.
Her jaw dropped to the floor (after all this is me who’s doing the talking here), “Remember when Hillary Clinton and Obama were going at it about this time in 2008? We both wanted HRC to win the primary. You posted a diary supporting her. You posted multiple comments for Clinton only to be shouted down.” She was fussing a little bit with a brownie she got with her coffee (she likes her gazillion calories in two food items whereas I like to cram them all into one cup). Yes, I do remember being kinda shouted down for being pro-Clinton in 2008 and nodded my agreement. I was happy to support Hillary in 2008 and I’m supporting her now, but I’m not going to freak out about Bernie Sanders staying in the race through the convention. Been there, done that in 2008. There’s no reason to be flipping out before the Democratic National Convention.
“Ya know, I’m just not that engaged right now. I’m more interested in discrediting Donald Trump. He’s a flip flopper at best and more likely a liar. To me, he’s a narcissist who looks at the Presidency as an award to be collected or a notch on his belt. I don’t feel like being a notch on any guy’s belt, especially a guy like Donald Trump. I don’t think he cares about anything other than himself and I sure don’t want him having the full force of the U.S. government behind him as he pursues every petty grievance, serious prejudice or ill conceived policy position based on his dangerously ignorant understanding of the issues.”
She was sure she had me here! “Exactly!” She could hardly contain herself, “That’s exactly why you should call for Bernie Sanders to leave the race. He can’t win! We have to gather our forces now! We have to defeat Trump!” I was taking a sip of my coffee that was still a bit hot.
“Oh, Bullshit!” I waved her down because I didn’t want her to think I was angry, because I’m not. I’m done with this line of thought, but it’s not something I’ll wind up on. “This is an election, not a war. I’d be happy to vote for either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders in the fall. I’m not buying into the media’s bullshit narrative about the Dems being divided. Bernie or Bust folks need time not buckets of ice water or insults hurled at them. We need them. They need us, too; but they don’t see it that way right now.
She was sitting on the edge of the sofa because it was easier to deal with both the brownie and coffee that way. She twisted toward me, “Well, they need to wake up. This is a serious election that will have consequences. Berners don’t have the luxury of feeling sorry for themselves.” (she has no idea of how grating that comment is to a Bernie supporter — just, none.) “They need to look at reality and decide who’s on their side and it’s HRC more than it is Trump. (From her posture I’m pretty sure, she has discounted or discredited any remark that challenges that idea in the past, so I let it go.)
I sat up to put my macchiato on the table. It bothered me that someone I’ve known for years was being so dismissive of a differing political view. She normally is more accepting, “Speaking of now, I’m focused on figuring out what the media’s angle is — why they are manipulating their coverage to get a Trump vs. Clinton mashup? The media has been anything but objective. What’s in it for them? ...aside of fear Bernie Sanders really could do something about corporatism’s malignant effects on the middle class. What’s their deal? Why are they stirring the shit pot?” I paused and sardonically said, “Oh, yeah, readership, ratings and advertising revenues.”
She had got a bite of her brownie and had to swallow it before retorting, “I don’t care what the media’s angle is. I’m more interested in making history and having the first woman president. Hillary Clinton is the most experienced in dealing with foreign relations. She has a long resume of accomplishments and has helped a lot of people including women, children and veterans.” I was sipping my coffee that was finally cool enough to enjoy.
I cradled my cup and leaned back into the sofa. “I have no problem with Hillary Clinton’s resume. She’s got more successes than a lot of people. What’s more important to me is healthcare, which Bernie Sanders has a better opening position than HRC’s caving in mentality.” I stopped there because if I started to run down Hillary Clinton, she would stop listening. “I care about national security, which HRC has the best chops out of all the candidates. I think Sanders sees corporatism for what it is better than HRC, but Clinton thinks she can harness them better — I’m not sure on that, but …” (again, running HRC down wasn’t my point here) “like Trump is going to help the average Mom keep her job and family at the same time or help her with things she needs like paid maternal leave or a safe water supply. I care about the environment which both Democratic candidates have better positions than any of the GOP or Libertarian tickets. The same goes for women’s rights, minority rights and reproductive rights. Bernie Sanders needs to keep on truckin’ with his message because it’s going to help shape the Democratic platform telling people what they are voting for, not what they are voting against. We need Bernie’s vision.”
She went on a little sarcastically, “Well, it’s so nice to have your support. When we lose in November I’ll be sure to thank you for it. Your “principles” won’t matter then. We need you now. Your position makes no sense to me.” I was really tempted to tune her out at this point, but I was watching her use her fork to punctuate her points (who uses a fork to eat a brownie?) “It makes no sense to me to stay in a race that mathematically has no winning solution for your candidate. It makes no sense to me to support someone who has no chance of winning. It makes no sense to me to keep the Democratic Party divided. It makes no sense to me why we can’t unify the Democrats now and focus on the general election now.” She was on a roll...and I think she could tell she was losing me; so she changed up her attack. Look, Sander’s will never get even one tenth of what he’s promoting through Congress!” (insert my thought here….like HRC is going to have a cooperative Congress if she also has a GOP majority) “Sander’s is losing fair and square! Hillary has 3 MILLION more votes than Sanders. That’s not rigged that’s real votes. Sanders can. not. win.” (Insert another thought from me here, As if talking slower and louder is going to work.) She finished up with a resounding, “We need you to support Hillary Clinton NOW!“
She also knew that I wasn’t persuaded and offering me a piece of brownie wasn’t going to help. I also knew I wasn’t going to change her mind either. I waved off the brownie and drank more of my coffee, and calmly said, “I don’t have to make sense to you. I only have to reason this out for myself.” She widened her eyes and I continued, “It is true that HRC has 3 million more votes than Bernie. I still want Bernie to get all the pledged delegates he can through the June 7th primaries because I want to know what the base line is for Democratic votes in November. Too me, that’s respecting the individual voters. I wasn’t a PUMA in 2008 and I’m not a Bernie or Bust, now; but I know people who were then and are now. You do, too. I think the convention needs to go through without tricks and manipulations which is probably beyond Debbie Wasserman Schultz’ abilities, but hey, I can hope cooler heads will prevail. This will work out…..”
She couldn’t let me finish, “But you don’t understand. If we don’t focus on the general now, the GOP could win. We have to get people to understand the best strategy is to unify behind HRC right now, so we can focus on the general election now. The GOP will use Bernie Sander’s words against HRC in the general election. He shouldn’t give them more clips to use against her! Supporting Sander’s is senseless!”
“Telling me or anyone, for that matter, “you make no sense” is no way to get more voters to come out for the general election; because what you are really saying is “Don’t bother. We’ve already lost the election”“There’s no sense in continuing”“We’ve lost already.” I’m saying that’s no way to win. Telling people that supporting Sanders now is a vote for Trump is both presumptive and inconsiderate of the realities of presidential election processes. Insulting people for their political choices is hardly an effective way to “Win Friends and Influence People.” She winced at that. We both worked at the same company that circulated dozens of copies of this excellent book in an effort to improve our customer interactions. (It worked.)
She stopped, and thought….probably in Dale Carnegie terms. “So you’re thinking that the only way of getting more support for Hillary Clinton is to stop arguing, start agreeing — accepting… let people come to the idea of supporting Hillary Clinton on their own terms. ...which means in part taking the time to let the process play out and then moving onto talking about voting for Hillary Clinton in November.” She trailed off.
“Yes, I need to find agreement. Yes, Hillary Clinton has 3 million more votes than Bernie Sanders. Yes, she has just about all the Superdelegates. Yes, she can probably win the nomination in the first round.” And I stopped and looked at her.
She thought a second, “but Bernie Supporters are passionate. He has vision. Hillary Clinton will need that passion after the convention. Muscling through the nomination in the first round by over reliance on the Superdelegates will….”
uh huh, she was almost there.
“Pissing people off is no way to get people over to your way of thinking. We need to let this primary process play out.”
Bingo.
It was too soon to celebrate, “But there’s no time! We don’t have the time to let Sander’s supporters feel sorry for themselves! (She was oblivious as to how insulting that comment was.) She looked me in the eyes, “How can you be so calm?” She flipped out her hand and gestured, “We don’t have the time for this!”
Staying true to the concept is difficult but here’s what I grasped at, “Like you say, party unity is very important. I’m not sure I see a down side to Donald Trump tearing himself in two alternately tearing down HRC then Sander’s and back again over the next...what? 6 weeks? Keep him guessing who he’ll face. He’ll have to increase his costs in opposition research while he’s “broke.” I used my fingers to add the quotation marks. I smiled, “He’ll have trouble deciding who to target, so he’ll continue to target anything and anyone who tee’s him off and I predict that he’ll continue to say unpredictable remarks that will have ill considered consequences. I don’t see that as a waste of time. Meanwhile, if the Democratic Party can exercise some patience, we’ll come together without tearing ourselves apart if we stop playing into the media’s talking points. ”
She leaned back into her seat, “Ok, so you think the media is egging the Democratic Party split story….”
I grimaced, “It’s more a GOP talking point that the media is enthusiastically embracing and some Democratic pundits are parroting.” oooops, that last was a mistake. Can’t take it back now, “Sorry, a point that some Democrats are repeating instead of trying their hand at cooperative fence mending.”
She shrugged, “Ok. All right, soooo, “ Then the light bulb lit up, “drama sells better than unity. The media needs a divided Democratic Party, so they have something to talk about; which will make the kum ba yah moment more poignant when it happens weeks from now. Meanwhile they have some serious concern trolling to do.”
I smiled at her and nodded. “Pretty much how I see it.”
You gonna make some GOTV calls?
“Prolly come October. It would be nice if the 10 million calls to the Sander’s voters go pleasantly instead of hostilely.”
“True that. We can work on party unity after the convention in July. Meanwhile, Coffee.”
I smirked to myself as I asked, “What are you going to do if Bernie wins?”
“We’ll still come together. Chill.” But, she couldn’t stop herself, “Yeah, but It’ll never happen.”
Well, we have time, yet.