Will you please shut up about the Bernie or Bust folks? Just stop it. I'm tired of the condescending tone I see you taking towards the Bernie or Bust crowd. I'm tired of the memes.
You got the lion's share of us Bernie supporters behind you now. You won. However, in victory, you are starting to sound just as bad as Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh at their absolute snarkiest.
Quite frankly, it's embarassing. You're better than that.
Those Bernie supporters who are left, the die-hards, the #NeverHillary's, are not really enough to make a statistical difference one way or the other. The Washington Post, just a few months ago said in no uncertain terms that Hillary didn't need the support of Sanders' people. Well, you have at least 85% of us on board now. Take yes for an answer and shut up about it. If Hillary loses in November, it will not be because a handful of Bernie supporters voted for Jill Stein.
Seriously, you're starting to sound like Trump supporters: there is no real difference between telling voters to vote for Trump or else brown people will rule the world and telling them to vote for Hillary or else brown shirts will rule the world.
Most importantly, the Bernie or Bust campaign is made up predominantly of millennials who just took part in their first major political activity in many of their lives. They also just suffered their first major political defeat.
Give them minute.
My first major political activity was to vote for Bill Clinton when I was 21. It wasn't until I was 30 that I had my first major political defeat. That the DNC email dump now suggests the defeat may have been orchestrated from the start is not helping matters.
Whether it was a rigged game or not is irrelevant. It appears to have been, and that's what stings the hardest at this point. Remember how upset we were when Bush won in 2000 through apparent dirty pool?
Instead of calling them crybabies and whiners and creating oh so pithy memes, then using this to prove your own misbegotten narrative of millennial entitlement, you need to check your own privilege. These kids are not slinking back to their skateboards, video games, and questionable music. Instead they have made the decision to remain in the political process and vote a third party.
So let them vote third party. It is their right. Quit giving them shit about it. At least they're not voting for Trump. Again, especially in an election that is seeing Republicans switch to third parties in record numbers and others even campaigning for Hillary, it's not likely to make a dime's worth of difference one way or the other.
Instead of denigrating their decision to remain in the political arena, you of all people, should be praising them. They stood up to fight and got their noses broken the first thirty seconds in... And are standing up to fight again. Most likely to face defeat again.
If you don't see hope for our political future in that, you're not looking hard enough. You are no better than Trump supporters if your response to youthful idealism is to denigrate and call names.
Finally, you need to shut up about Bernie or Bust folks because, though it may feel good to strut around like King Cock in the chicken coop today, in four more years, regardless of who wins in November, you will need to court those votes again. The kid you call names today for voting his or her conscience will remember that four years from now when you come knocking for support.
In short, party unity starts with us, the adults who have spent our lives learning how to deal with political disappointment. It is our job to hold out a hand to these kids when they're ready to take it.
It is impossible to hold that hand out in support if you are also using it to back-hand them for not instantly jumping to your candidate.
