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I confess, I did not watch the election results last night. I had already cast my vote and the overall end was going to come to fruit regardless of my attention or not, so I chose to go to knit group with my daughter where we had a politics-free zone and I chose to stay off the internet so that I could sleep.
I am disappointed. But not in the manner you might think. I’m disappointed because the blame game has already begun with peeps shaking their heads and blaming the green party voters and the no-voters and the millennials for the state of things as they are on this dawn.
And none of them are taking responsibility for their own actions. The DNC rigged the primaries. We know this. The evidence is everywhere on the internet. And the Democratic rank and file chose to ignore it and gave their support to the behavior with their silence. There was no outcry against it from them. There was no demanding the DNC remove Hillary, no demand of Obama to nullify the primaries and start over. Not one whisper from the camps of Hillary. It wasn’t your voices being silenced and so this told too many of your peers that you did not care if the Democratic process was nothing more than lip service as long as you’re getting what you want. The results aren’t so shiny now, when you are looking down the road of your choices and seeing your rights being trampled and your voice being silenced. And what do you do? You point fingers. You lay blame because your party leadership didn’t get to cheat its way into the WH.
This. This is what happens when you stand by and allow your leadership to trample on the foundations of democracy. This is what happens when you thumb your nose at 43% of the voting block which overwhelming in the past had voted Democratic and support a party leadership that had to lie, cheat and steal to nominate the candidate of YOUR choice and not the choice of the majority of your voting block. This is what happens when you take the stand of “I got mine.” EVERYBODY LOSES.
Now everybody is in the same boat. Including you. Women, minorities, LGBTQ, the environment, etc. et. al. Everything is on the table. EVERYTHING is at risk.
I voted for Bernie. When that avenue was stolen from me, I voted for Jill. If I could go back, knowing then what I know now, I would still vote for Jill. Because regardless of the outcome, I still believe in the tenets of Democracy, that for ensure the rights for everyone, then EVERYONE’s rights must be defended even if that means I don’t get what I want. Bernie was and still is my first choice but Jill was and still is the only candidate that was available. Freedom belongs to EVERYONE and the democratic process deserves better than lip service.
So my question to all of the folks who voted for Hillary, are you going to continue to point fingers and lay blame and screech, cry and whine about not getting the first woman president this time around or are you going to dig in and fight to defend everybody’s rights, everybody’s voice? Are you going to defend this country from the bigots and racists and hate mongers? These next four years will be the tempering for each and every one of us because in the end, all we are is raw ore. Will you stand up for the rights of all? Or will you ignore it like you did the actions of your party leadership? What will you become? Will you become a weapon of Hate? Or Love? I chose Love. #NeveGiveUp #NeverSurrender
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The above essay was originally posted on the author’s Facebook timeline and is republished here with permission from the author.
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Photo credit: Getty Images
Bernie was robbed!!
Door #3 :
I don’t blame Bernie supporters for sticking to their guns any more than I blame Trump supporters for sticking to theirs. At the end of the day, if you don’t vote for what you think is right, you’re betraying yourself over anything else.
*edit* Door #3 : the one that reads EXIT.
If my health insurance courtesy of Obamacare lapses for more than two months, I’m a dead man. Since the Presiden-Elect did his little disability dance on camera and more than one Trump supporter has told me that I should be euthanized to save taxpayer dollars… well, please excuse me while I hedge my bets.
You vocalize a lot of what I have been feeling and thinking.This campaign has shown that a lot of Clinton supporters are not the champions progress that they market themselves as. Every time Trump said or did something mean to nasty Clinton supporters were all over it. Demanding Trump supporters answer for it and spitting out a fresh batch of articles. When a small subset of Sanders supporters were spewing hate at Clinton her supporters were hot on the trail to call them “BernieBros” and demanded Sanders call them out and separate himself from them. And he did just that.… Read more »
I’m not the only member of the MRM who believes that Sanders was the Democrats Donald Trump, the anti-establishment candidate. I’m not the only one who believes that Sanders would have trounced Trump. I’m not the only one who would have voted for Sanders. I believe that the democrats decided to rig the primary for Clinton. Not all because she would be the first woman president, but there definitely were those. Many though wanted an establishment candidate or felt that it “was her turn”. How did that work out? One of the things I’ve seen is that men’s issues have… Read more »
’m not the only member of the MRM who believes that Sanders was the Democrats Donald Trump, the anti-establishment candidate. I’m not the only one who believes that Sanders would have trounced Trump. I’m not the only one who would have voted for Sanders. Im not fully convinced that Sanders could beat Trump. He wasn’t as well established as Clinton. His official track record isn’t as clear cut as Clinton’s And while I think his heart was in the right place I fear that even if he had won both the Dems and Reps in Congress would likely unite against… Read more »