I am a new member, and a Hillary supporter. I endorse Hillary for many reasons but one of the big ones is that she is a woman. I do feel that it's not easy for a woman to get to leadership positions in USA, I am a female, I have two daughters and I do want them to grow up knowing it's possible.
That said, I liked a lot of what Bernie said during the primary. I have never understood how it would all work - however, I am down with the concept of certain industries cannot/should not be for profit - health and state education two among them. I agree with wall street influence, corruption, campaign finance issues, health and education aspect of Sander's talks. I think it's not that Hillary disagrees with them, she feels that it's not something you can change overnight, you have to change it on the inside, slowly, incrementally. I have never understood, even if I agreed with, how Bernie's ideas would work. The only way for it to work is when the entire country (or a majority) decides that's what they need. Revolutions are messy, and they require everyone to participate. Right off the bat, 40-50% of the country (Republicans) don't like that since it would raise taxes and they think the government should not get involved. That leaves maybe 50%. 25% of those (more establishment folks) are not 100% into this - they think they can make incremental progress. How did Bernie think it was going to work? Was he going to change minds of all the democrats? And then, why is everyone upset? It was SUCH an uphill task to begin with - changing hearts and minds. There were no specifics Bernie gave with respect to numbers. My takeaway (and that could be entirely wrong) was that taxes would go up astronomically. Not everyone is okay with it without testing waters. In other words, we are not ready for one big revolution. No matter how upset one is, that's the truth. But we may be okay for it incrementally.
I have been keenly watching what Bernie will do after the primaries, and the grass roots efforts he will organize. I want to evaluate if I should be a part of it - it plays into my understanding and acceptance of incremental, grass root level change. For this to work, I think we need to be able to see what we are really proposing, hard specific details that can be reviewed by experts in respective fields and something we can all understand, not just aspire to. Then we need to do what Tea Party did - start at all the local levels, field candidates who understand, explain and make some positive changes that will give confidence to the country. In order to do all that, democrats must win down ballot tickets and take congress and senate. Looking at it another way: The goals of democratic party and Bernie are the same - the speed, methodology etc are different. The goals of republican party and Bernie and diametrically opposite.
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