I've gotta say this.
Sending as many Sanders pledged delegates as possible is about demanding a New, New Deal in America. It is a declaration that we are out here, and are a force to be contended with.
Threatening to withhold support from Hillary undermines that message. It is NOT the way to be heard. Cynics are not taken seriously as a political force. People so ready to "pick up their ball and go home" are not taken seriously. Cynics don't inspire action. They do the opposite.
It is the ULTIMATE in cynicism to believe all is lost without Bernie. It is the ultimate in cynicism to believe WE are POWERLESS to bring about real change in the Democratic party. It is the ultimate in cynicism to believe there is "no difference" between Clinton and Trump.
There is a difference. Bernie sees it. He has said repeatedly that on her worst day she is 100 times better than Trump. He has committed to do everything in his power to make sure we do not see a Trump presidency. He recognizes that the damage a Trump presidency would do to this nation would take decades to undo. A Trump presidency would undo and undermine the things he as fought a lifetime for; things he has kept fighting for despite set backs. It mystifies me that so many who profess to be such strong supporters discount his convictions on this point.
We need to cultivate the hope and confidence in our own power to fight for a New, New Deal. Even if, against the odds we are up against at this point, Bernie is nominated, we would be facing an uphill battle to reshape Congress, and get the necessary legislation through.
I've generally refrained from expressing my frustration, but can no longer keep quiet and watch as the thing most central to Bernie's campaign -- empowering people -- is being stamped out by his own supporters.
I have zero expectation that anything I say is going to change any minds, but the level of cynicism and pessimism expressed by many of the Bernie supporters here has gotten too painful to watch. The attitude is the OPPOSITE of what Bernie stands for.
He tells us it was NEVER about him. He means it. It was about lighting a spark in us. He fought to be our torch barer, but it looks like that is not to be.
If the hopelessness expressed in predictions that Trump will win against Hillary takes hold it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. I can't remain silent in the face of the apparent glee some appear to take in seeing an outcome that Bernie shudders at. Where is the confidence that WE can make sure that does not happen?
If enough of us stand up we CAN reshape Congress. We CAN get good legislation through. If we do that, who do you think is more likely to sign that legislation into law? Trump? I don't think so.
It is not about voting for lesser of two evils. It is about maximizing OUR chances of success. It's about setting up the most favorable conditions possible. Sitting it out and allowing Trump to take the White House sets up the most UNFAVORABLE conditions possible. Enabling Republicans to determine the make up of the Supreme Court sets up the most UNFAVORABLE conditions possible.
On the notion of going "third-party." We do not currently have a functioning multiparty system and Bernie knows it. It's why he ran as a Democrat. The way to create a multi-party system is to implement instant runoff voting. Unless and until that happens, the barriers to third-party success are almost insurmountable. But that is a subject for another post. With regard to Bernie, I don't think he would ever even contemplate a third-party run. If he did, I would lose respect for him. The chances of victory are too low, and the consequences of loss are far too great.
So, What Do We Do?
We fight for every vote from here on out. We send as many Sanders pledged delegates to the convention as possible. We leave any lobbying of superdelegates to Bernie's campaign. Harassing them is damaging the cause.
It's not about Bernie. Stop making it about him. It's about what he stands for. And it's about telling the Democratic Party that we want them to commit to making the Big Goals a reality. We know it can't happen overnight. We are not idiots. But it will NEVER happen if our party writes off real change as impossible, and tells us to just shut up about it.
A vote for Bernie is a way of saying, Hey, I'm not going to shut up about health care as a right; I'm not going to shut up about the need for workers to be paid a living wage; I'm not going to shut up about demanding that the wealthiest among us pay their fair share in taxes; I'm not going to shut up about cutting carbon emissions. These things are too important to our future. They are too important to our children's future.
Declaring that you are bowing out of the fight if we don't win this time around is NOT the way to get that message across.
Bernie delegates on the convention floor are there to stand for real change. They may not be a majority, but if we are committed to getting as many votes as possible in the remaining states, at least 45% of the pledged delegates on the convention floor could be Bernie delegates. And those kind of numbers are hard to ignore. (You don't "dis" that many people at a televised event.)
Apologies for the length, but my frustration has been building for awhile.
On Edit: Related thread (clarification and a possible way to keep the fight going):
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1280&pid=188164
= new reply since forum marked as read
... but after a few years, I stop sending invitations to those who never show. 
during those months I hardly touched the internet; no DU, no facebook, no reading the news.
hell, even my guitars collected dust for months.
grief did not hit me right away, it took a few months to kick in, so I am still struggling. but I am trying to get a little better every day. I hope i'll eventually be back to full capacity...
My other half is a nearly life-long guitar player... so you saying your guitars collected dust really drives it home for me. Ill never forget what it was like watching my step-father die of pancreatic cancer. He declined so fast it was almost impossible to process. Like watching Steven Kings "Thinner" happen before your eyes. To a loved one.
I have no doubt that youll claw your way out of the hole completely. You might get a little dirt under the nails but its worth it.
Not for anything, the people who actually ARE conservative and right wing, and thus probably know more about what they stand for than you do, typically describe Hillary in the most leftist, socialistic terms, so I'm not sure where this meme of the Hillary conservative even comes from. Even when Bill was president, his critics always said she was way more left.
... is amusement. Yeah, there's the occasional tiny thread of annoyance, but nothing enough to really raise my blood pressure. It's the kind of annoying when you see those people in horror movies running into where the killer is and you're screaming, "no, no, no." It's not the kind of annoyance that changes your life or anything.
But mostly yeah, it's been full-on amusement, like watching clowns fall over each other coming out of a clown car.
Mind you, amusement only has so much of a shelf life. There is a difference between it and entertainment. Entertainment is a trip to Disneyland. Amusement is that carnival that comes to the local parking lot.
I am hoping this site becomes a little more entertaining. I am guessing it will on the day that Bernie finally crashes and berns, but until then.
Her sort of leadership requires a wet index finger to feel
which way the wind is blowing. As she said in an interview:
"My feeling is that if you're going to be a leader,
you have to carefully assess where your people are
and where they want to go."
http://swampland.time.com/2011/10/27/qa-hillary-clinton-on-libya-china-the-middle-east-and-barack-obama/
Edited to add:
Re: Free Republic
Your mention of that website caused me to realize I haven't nosed around
over there since I supported Hillary in her campaign against Obama! So . . .
now y' dunnit---piqued m' nosy-nelliy side. Be back later!
Edited again to add:
When she says, "...you have to carefully assess where your people are....",
I wonder who she identifies as her people: The 1% or the 99%.
Why don't YOU fuckin' stop with your persecution complex?
Outed yourself as a sock?
Oh my...
Yeah, I'm sure he/she was just lurking for 8 years and then suddenly became a prolific poster.
Go Bernie!
d'oh
I have to admit that I started reading with a bit of a jaundiced eye, but that cynicism quickly disappeared as I realized where you were going with it. So well said and covering all the bases, I am left with nothing to add. I'll just say that I've bookmarked this post for future reference.
Thanks for taking the time to share your frustration with us. I'm sure many of the responses will add to your frustration, but not this one.
Kudos.
The fracture lines here on DU are clear and set in stone. The Progressives need our own site to work on enacting progressive policies where we won't be disrupted by conservative Dems. This will also free up DU for them to use unencumbered by the incompatible ideals and issues of progressives.
I don't want to lose contact with all the independent progressives who joined the Dem party and DU solely because Bernie inspired them to be part of the political process, but are now disenchanted and intent on leaving. This would be a way to retain them on the left side of equation.
Please think about joining me in this request.
There a number of ways this thing could go yet. But he's in a very tight spot, and I can admit the probability isn't very good while still fighting. Hell, why fight when you're convinced there's no need to?
I understand what you're saying.
I'm not sure I agree with your perspective on cynicism, but I can respect it. I would argue that the basis for a person's sense of cynicism (what is the person cynical about?) matters a great deal in terms of whether it motivates people to action or not. But fear and anger are the two most powerful motivators in human experience, and the things that people accomplish as a result of fear and/or anger tend to be very destructive.
Cynicism is generally the result of a person's experience with ugly reality overcoming unrealistically positive perspectives on a subject. We spend our whole lives zeroing in on things that provide us with positive feedback in a universe composed, almost entirely, of stuff that kills us. We're instinctively positive thinkers, in that sense, although what provides one person positive feedback might also cause great harm to another person.
We're often confronted with aspects of reality that threaten perspectives that we rely on to frame our lives in ways that help us to keep having positive experiences. We have some remarkable methods of dismissing apparent reality in favor of highly valued, but flawed, perspectives on how things work and how we fit in the world/how the world fits around us. Many people live their whole lives quite comfortably buffered against challenges to their fixed perspectives. Lots of very religious people live that way. Serious racists often do, as well (and I'm not equating them with some religious people in any sense other than the tendency to hold strong fixed perspectives that are not subject to challenge by reality). We all live that way to some extent.
So, to me, cynicism suggests maturity. It requires disappointment - if you're not shaken up a bit when something you've valued turns out to be an illusion, then you're not going to get cynical about it. And disappointment like that isn't a bad thing. If you realize you've lost something you believed you had, but never really did, a healthy human being is going to experience disappointment and maybe grief.
I don't know that I consider cynicism any different than wisdom. Wisdom isn't something easily obtained. It's usually the result of the experience of failure. And both result from a realization that reality isn't quite as pretty as we once thought it was.
Who really is likely to be a good leader and faithfully represent those who back her/him? In my view, that person is someone with a fair share of wisdom and a bit cynical. People who have experienced hard knocks, been bruised and shaken a bit, and understand that loss of fantasy can hurt, but it won't drag you all the way down unless you let it.
Most of the modern so-called 'highly successful' class of people (rich, happy and wielding power over many) aren't wise or cynical. They're narcissists and expect reality to accommodate their needs. When it doesn't, they blame someone else, then get right back out there and take what they want. And lying comes very easily to people who naturally value advantage over others' well-being. The human species has plenty of narcissists, and they can serve important functions, achieving goals that most people consider to be too risky to strive for or potentially harmful to achieve. But... we shouldn't make them our leaders, not in an organized, civil society. They're the ones who are most likely to say 'pick me, I'll get things done,' and the least likely to assert themselves toward anything resembling the common good.
So... my advice to you would be - don't be so hard on yourself! (It might sound trite, but it isn't. Just FYI - I spent years dealing with a disabling panic and anxiety disorder. I recovered, even though I was certain for many years that my life was over and nothing good would ever come of it. I know that of which I speak...) You seem like someone experiencing a lot of disillusionment It's OK - you will find a kind of new equilibrium when this stuff has made its way through your system. You won't quite be the same person you were, and you probably won't expect people to behave as you once did (that's why you're so frustrated about what's going on right now - the behavior you're witnessing is very disappointing to you), but you'll be wiser and when you take action in the future about things that matter to you, you won't be relying on people to behave in ways that, it turns out, they generally don't. Don't expect people in general to do good things - it's nice when they do, and it may happen at times and in ways that will surprise you, but you won't be dependent on their behavior when you decide something is worth striving for.
There are many Sanders and Clinton supporters whose writing on DU seem to be limited to variations of 'big win for my team' and 'monster fail for your team.' And I guess that's human nature - we're inclined to group-association as a species. So a lot of people waste a lot of time cheering and jeering, when they would be much better off reading what others who have been through scraps they've never experienced have to say. And a lot of narcissist politicians love them for it. Without crowds of cheerers and jeerers, they'd actually have to make rational arguments about why people should trust their judgement. Which would probably sound a lot like crickets chirping.
Well, that sucks, but it's the way people are. Understanding how people are is the first step toward useful change. If you want to get the attention of a lot of people and persuade them to act in a manner you consider worthwhile, you'd better first understand our tendency to arbitrarily divide up into teams, then fight like hell against the other side. Some else will be trying to use that to keep people from even paying attention to you. And that's when cynicism is valuable, because you're not expecting people to behave differently than they have for a very, very long time. You'll be ready for it, and when you fix your aim on other aspects of people: the capacity to value and strive for a better future for us all, the power of the drive to help others while at the same time helping yourself, the ability to make sacrifices to shape a better future.
Take care of yourself, pat
Perhaps the term cynicism doesn't quit fit. I use the term to refer to people who have a general lack of faith or hope in the human species. I think of it as distinct from realism. For me, one who doesn't expect people to "behave in ways that, it turns out, they generally don't," is a realist. I think of a cynic as one whose loss of faith in people goes beyond realism. In the context of politics, it manifests as a belief that anything we do to change things will be futile.
The root of my frustration is the seeming incongruity between (1) being a Bernie supporter, which seems to me to require a good deal of faith in the ability of people to effect change, and (2) an absolutist belief that with Hillary in the White House any effort to bring about change is futile. It's the folks whose posts express these incongruous beliefs I have trouble with. In my judgement, the latter belief goes beyond realism into cynicism. My judgment may of course be wrong. Any effort to bring about change with Hillary in office may in fact be futile.
That said, adjusting my expectations, and gaining a better understanding of where people are "coming from" through the exchanges I've had with folks who replied to the OP has gone a long way to resolving my frustration.
Tempering hope and confidence with realistic expectations is tricky. Your advice is well taken. ("Don't expect people in general to do good things - it's nice when they do, and it may happen at times and in ways that will surprise you, but you won't be dependent on their behavior when you decide something is worth striving for."
Thanks again.
