2016 Postmortem

I'm a long game Democrat, as well. My idea of unity is probably about outreach to independents and non-voters, in the larger sense of actually having a more perfect union called the 'united' states. I still believe that the 49% who didn't vote, along with 20 million women and significant percentages of minorities would be inclined to give a winning party a chance.

Technically, Bernie is not a 'winner,' but Bernie shows up. And his fight shows far more spine than the politics of way too many of the Democratic Party regulars. Blue dogs have cost us too many fights for working class interests.

I'm probably confused, yes, but I'm not looking from the old school lenses anymore. Yes, the Dems need to get back their working class voters, and that's where Bernie reminded Schumer about how out of touch the party's been. He got union endorsements. He got people of all ages at his rallies. He spoke of working class interests consistently, not just to get votes.

Bernie's base got confused, as well, by a message that he gave them that a political revolution was theirs to win, and that they only had the two-party path toward the presidency. There was much media distraction and theater, with help from the FBI and hackers.

None of this is easily mapped for future strategy building, but I'm sure that Schumer is doing the right thing by making Bernie a force in the Senate now. Got to curb those sellout blue dogs, for one thing. Unity means more loyalty from them or else. After all, Bernie's votes with the party are a higher percentage than are those of Dems who actually claim to be IN the party.

There is nothing, ever, to be gained by putting Bernie down around here but tired, old school cheap ego points. The politics of scapegoating and character attack are a loser's game. The game has changed and people here had better know and appreciate any savvy, fighting allies they have.