General Discussion

Of course other should be able to do so as well.

I accept that Hillary won the nomination, worked for her in the fall, mourned the result and fully respect her as a senior Democratic figure.

That said, it's not like the nominating battle ends the discussion on the issues and the future direction of the party though, and there's no reason the ideas behind the Sanders campaign should be excluded from our party's future. In the passage of the book that was often quoted this week, Hillary acknowledged that the ideas themselves are valid and relevant.

My focus has been on keeping those people from the Sanders contingent who are with us with us, with making nonvoters(most of whom are a bit to our party's left) into Democratic supporters, and creating a platform that persuades people to vote FOR us, as opposed to our focus in most years(other than 2008 in recent memory) of simply hoping the voters will elect us to stop the GOP from winning.

I agree that some(not most, but some)Sanders supporters could find a better, more constructive way of communicating with others in the party. At the same time, I think Sanders people are owed a collective apology for the repeated insinuation that they were disrespecting women and people of color simply because they preferred Bernie over Hillary. In truth, they were always just as antiracist, antisexist, pro-LGBTQ and pro-choice as HRC supporters. And there should also be an admission that Bernie's Jewishness should never have been used as a talking point against him. There were and are pro-Sanders people who've been inappropriate-there was inappropriateness on the other side. Apologies are due from both, because heated things are said in the midst of a campaign and no one should double down on them.

That's why I want a dialog process started-to educate people on both sides of that on how to communicate respectfully and recognize the large amount of common ground they share. It's in our interest as a party to end the hostility between those factions and get everybody together on a level of civility and common ground.