Lotta hostility in the webmosphere, from both “sides” in the Bernie/Hillary contest — if, strangely, a bit more from the “winning” one — and I think it’s because both of us still feel helpless. When that happens, blame is what balms us, because that’s always something to “do,” after the fact, when we feel we can’t do anything beforehand. For weeks, I’ve seen some Bernie supporters talking about who they’ll “blame” once Trump gets elected, since Hillary seems less likely to beat him in polls; ever since Hillary claimed victory, the posts warning Bernie-ites to vote for Hillary or be responsible for everything from mass deportations to nuclear war have increased exponentially. We all fear this country is in an irreversible decline, and are focusing on the recriminations.
Whether Bernie or Hillary became president (and Hillary still might), it would be the beginning of 4-8 years of hard work for every one of us, either to hold them to their promises or make sure they can get anything done (we all went to sleep after Obama won in ’08, thus ceding the the country, and maybe the future, to the extreme right in 2010).
Blame is a passive sport. Bernie supporters, it’s A VOTE; voters’ choices in a democracy are sacred, and I don’t consider any of my friends who chose Hillary to be agents of military intervention or mass surveillance; only the leaders themselves do those things, and we citizens have to stay on (free-)speaking terms. And Hillary backers, it’s A CAMPAIGN; candidates fight it out and raise controversies and stay in for the sake of the many people who supported them, and if they don’t win, they sometimes continue to lead their constituency, because all voices are supposed to be at the table in a democracy.
Let’s all keep talking — to each other — and working, rather than just talking. As to November, Bernie-ites, if the system is rigged, then I guess those who pull the lever for Hillary aren’t “culpable” anyway (spoiler: they aren’t in any way either); and Hillary-ites, since Hillary “got more popular votes than anyone,” then if the relative minority who didn’t vote for her in primaries don’t vote for her in the general, it won’t affect her chances, let alone be an endorsement of sexism and genocide. To both “sides”: do the math.
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