USADaily -
Bernie Sanders got roundly booed today at the Democratic Convention by his own supporters.
Speaking to his own delegates at the convention today, before tonight’s big speech in which he’ll formally endorse Hillary, Sanders called on his supporters to join him in getting Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine elected.
That was met with a very loud chorus of boos.
Now, it should be noted that a recent PEW poll found that 90% of “consistent” Sanders supporters already support Hillary.
And keep in mind that only the most die-hard Sanders supporters are going to spend the money to attend the Democratic convention (airfare and hotel can easily cost over $1,000).
Still, it’s disturbing that these same Sanders supporters hardly booed at all when Bernie mentioned Donald Trump, a man who will single-handedly undo everything these people claim to care about:
Bernie Sanders created a movement, but he fed that movement with a little bit of crazy. All the talk of how the election was stolen, and how corrupt Hillary was, was taken to heart by his followers. And now, understandably, 10% of them aren’t terribly interested in hearing Bernie’s “never mind” speech to the convention.
In some ways, I get why the Bernie ten-percenters are so upset. He did say some awful things about Hillary and the party, and he refused up until the end to say that he’d support her if she were the nominee. So it’s understandable that some of them are mighty confused at this point, especially if they’re new to politics.
If you’ve been around politics for a while, you know that primaries are vitriolic. I won’t say that our candidates “lie,” but they are prone to hyperbole when attacking their fellow Democratic opponents. And you simply have to get by that hyperbole in the fall, when the primaries are over and it’s time to take down the Republicans.
Unless your party’s candidate is working for America’s enemies — Donald Trump’s ties to Putin come to mind — or the candidate is calling for, oh I don’t know, the mass deportation of an entire class of American citizens simply because of their faith, you have to get over the primaries and start focusing on the greater evil.
And that’s ok. Because sometimes elections simply aren’t about voting for your favorite candidate, or even a candidate you like. Sometimes elections are about stopping a really bad guy from ruining everything you cared about in the primaries, even if you think the woman running against him ain’t that great either.
Now, I happen to think Hillary Clinton is awfully great. But you don’t need to agree with me on that point. You simply need to realize that Donald Trump poses a unique danger to our democracy and our values. And that he must be stopped. And if that requires the ten-percenters to hold their nose through November, then so be it. We’ve all been there.
Follow me on Twitter: @aravosis — Win a pony! (not really)
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