The Bernie Sanders movement was an amazing thing for progressive politics and the achievements it made dragging Hillary to the left on so many key issues cannot be over stated.
However it is sad to see what is known as the “Bernie or Bust” brigade claiming they will never vote for Secretary Clinton even if that means contributing towards the election of Donald Trump.
The way I see it, while the “party platform”* agreed at the Democratic National Convention isn’t supposed to actually mean anything, one of the basic tenets of the Bernie outlook is to shake up what is known as the “status quo” and having gotten so many progressive policies onto the platform, his supporters should first vote for her, then make it very clear they voted for her and finally let her know from the day of her inauguration that they’ll be watching for her to get cracking on their agenda from the White House because it won’t be that long before she’ll be looking for their votes again in mid-terms.
But anyway…I have been wondering in recent times that because Sanders isn’t exactly a “spring chicken”, there must be another politician ready to take up the baton and having seen this interview on The Young Turks I reckon Alan Grayson may be stepping forward, though by all accounts I’m not so sure the Democratic establishment are too crazy about him (which probably means more donations & votes for him from Bernie followers!
Watch the clip and see for yourself. Good luck to him I say.
* = I find it interesting that they use the word “platform” … here in Ireland we say “manifesto” but God forbid Americans refer to something that is often used alongside the word “communist”!!!
First Person Plural 