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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe bernie lovers, the hillary lovers, the sincere folk, and the ratf**kers
Let me be blunt, for all the collusion and corruption that the GOP did, that Fox did, and oh yes, that Russia did, there is one ugly truth everyone to the left of Trump has to own: we were divided, we were overconfident, and therefore got surprised in a race that Trump never should have had a chance to win, period. We played the hare to the turtle, and if this was any other election, it might not have been so bad, but this one, we know the GOP will cheat, either by vote shaving or making sure the right amount of armed "patriots" are at every polling station, an army of "lone gunmen."
Simply put, both sides can talk about how everything would be good if we just eliminated the other side, while the most resistance the GOP puts up is maybe the occasional McCain style dissent. Simply put, we need to squash the 2016 strife in 2016, we cannot carry it to 2017, because we will lose 2018 and 2020.
Yes there are people who SINCERELY believe that either Moderates or Progressives have to be stopped because they will make us lose. Also, there are people who PRETEND to be those, but are good old fashioned well paid ratf*ckers. i remember being in Tampa where the triumphant folks in 2000 would call then local hero, Glenn Beck, and brag in detail how they maintained a facade to be democrats or greens. They bragged about becoming regular call ins on shows, making fake dialogues. This was way before the internet was what it is now. Just because people are sincere on all sides does not mean there are not people who want to lie, cheat and simply make a mess.
It is also NOT being anti democrat to sim,ply want to make sure that whatever we did this year, we do not repeat it. Regardless of bernie or Hillary, can we at least make sure whoever did the raw strategy of campaign running does NOT get to drive the ship? They got a ton of money and crashed, and that is not something good for ANY democrat.
VermontKevin
(1,473 posts)And by "unite" I mean "Vote for the Democrat."
yallerdawg
(16,104 posts)2016 presidential election results (NYTimes).
Michigan won by 10,704.
Johnson 172,136. Stein 51,463
https://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/michigan
Wisconsin won by 22,748.
Johnson 106,674. Stein 31,072.
https://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/wisconsin
Pennsylvania won by 44,292.
Johnson 146,715. Stein 49,941.
https://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/pennsylvania
leftstreet
(36,119 posts)The time is right to strike strategically
The masses of people turning up at town halls and in representative offices, protesting to stop the repeal of ACA
WERE
REPUBLICAN
CONSTITUENTS
What part of that ready-made campaign to return to power don't the Democrats understand?
Thinkingabout
(30,058 posts)All of progressive and liberal ideas will fall into a ditch and it will be years before they can return to the center of attention. I am not willing to allow the Tea Party, Republicans or Russians to squash these ideas. Don is right, time to put the 2016 election to sleep, it is history and work hard in the future to rise up again.