What We Need from Bernie Sanders
Dear Senator Sanders,
As someone who has donated, volunteered, and spoken up for you, I thank you. You have brought the working class back into American conversation, and uplifted social democratic ideas like universal health care and living wages. We desperately need you as president and organizer-in-chief, but it’s increasingly obvious that the DNC will not allow you their nomination.
Supporters like me wonder if and when you are going to fight back. From what I see on your FB groups, I’m not the only one reconsidering support for Our Revolution because of your passive responses to attack. Your opponents use every dirty trick in the book and then write their own, and you have kept quiet. There has been documented suppression of your voters in youth and people of color communities. There have been highly questionable, statistically impossible computer vote counting anomalies going against you. Your ally Tulsi Gabbard has been systematically censored and virtually blacked out in corporate media. And you just keep telling people to focus on the next primary.
This isn’t about being angry vs. being nice. You have said you wanted to “radically transform the Democratic Party” into a party that represents working people. That goal speaks to millions, but those who control the party like it the way it is now, serving the rich. They profit from it; they create it. So, how can this transformation happen without resistance and hard feelings from these leaders, some of whom, like Joe Biden are your friends? It can’t.
My friends and I do not expect you to save us. We want to fight for Our Revolution; we’re willing to change our lives or even give them up for our country, but you are currently our leader, and you have to lead. I have read from former staffers of yours that you do not like conflict and like keeping Democrats as friends, even when they attack you. I can relate; I live the same way, but it’s hard to believe that people-pleasing can work in a shark tank like Washington DC.
This is not the time for being a nice guy. It is time for revolution. As you have said, we are in a battle for our future and our children’s future and for all that lives on planet Earth. Without radical change, we can look forward only to increasing poverty, war, mass incarceration, and continued destruction of the world’s forests, oceans, and farmland. Soon, there will be no place left to live.
I know we’re asking you to go far out of your comfort zone, but we need at least three actions from you to even have a chance at this victory :
1. Speak up about the vote suppression, computer miscounts, all the anomalies that have been reported, all of which have gone against you. Gather what evidence you can, then tell the world. Of course, they will demonize you even more than they already do; they may throw you out of the race, but election fraud needs to be addressed if we hope to make any change through democratic means. If the DNC will not let you win, we must at least expose the corruption of the system, so that people can find other ways to fight back. If you are concerned about shattering people’s faith in the electoral system, you’re on the wrong side. We need to see things as they really are, not pretend they’re OK when they are so glaringly dishonest.
2. Speak up TODAY and demand that Rep. Gabbard be included in the debates. Every time she meets the standards for the debate, they shift the goalposts to keep her out. When you keep quiet about this, it makes you look ungrateful and weak. She has stood up for you several times. More than that, she will speak truth about Vice-President Biden and strengthen the progressive side of the debate. I realize the DNC will never go along with including Tulsi, but you have to take a stand for fairness and for airing her positions. Most of us share her antiwar foreign policy views far more than we do yours.
3. STOP talking about Russiagate, Ukrainegate and the other conspiracy theories created by the CIA with the help of the DNC and corporate media. Russia is not our enemy. Keep the focus on Wall Street, and the MIC, on healthcare and people’s needs. All you do by supporting the intelligence agencies’ narrative is guarantee Donald Trump’s re-election.
We know these steps are dangerous; we know they’re hard, but doing the right thing often brings support from places you wouldn’t expect. As a fighter, you will bring the country together. Speaking truth about the electoral system frauds, defending Tulsi, and letting go of Russiaphobia will be a psychological and political challenge, but it’s what the world needs now. Not everyone will be happy about it, but your movement will. Give us an opening, and we’ll push Our Revolution through. Please don’t hold us back.
