2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Bernie Supporters - Please read my post [View all]cloudythescribbler
(2,586 posts)I agree exactly with the reasoning of the OP, which I understand, along with subsequent comments in threads, to be suggesting a different approach be taken by Bernie Sanders' supporters.
That too is probably spot on, but frankly, in an election campaign, it's generally about dealing with the general public, including activist circles, as they are, which is very hard -- I am not exactly a great practicioner of that concern, having been a terrible canvasser back when. I think that the OP's better strategy is to trawl (not to be confused with troll) for like-minded individuals and focus on convincing a few people, that is Bernie Sanders himself and a few key people around him. You could spend half a lifetime trying to convince a half-dozen posters at DU and at the end of the day, even if successful, it doesn't really make any historic difference.
I think both Bernie Sanders and many of his supporters on DU do fail to be attuned sufficiently to the issues and approaches that the Sanders campaign needs to win over more black and latino supporters, who in many key states are clearly the majority of Democrats, and in many others total close to or about half. The New York Times, buried deep in an article that started on page one on Aug 1 really picked up on this problem. Here's the link -- and it's two short paragraphs about Bernie Sanders near the end that a whole wave of Sanders supporters need to pick up on and COLLECTIVELY hammer Bernie Sanders privately and if necessary publicly to modulate his approach in a major way.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/01/us/politics/hillary-clinton-hits-jeb-bush-first-and-hard-in-speech-on-race.html?_r=0
The New Jim Crow matrix of issues should be one of three or four (along with plutocracy and climate catastrophe eg) that are highlighted in an important progressive campaign. As someone at the progressive end of the Democratic Party (and outside it frequently) this is a given. If Bravenak and some like-minded friends organize a group of Bernie Sanders supporters focusing on getting the candidate (NOT DUers who don't readily agree) to get his campaign cracking, while also vocally and repeatedly demanding a full roster of debates, I would be interested as a supporter. I could imagine a Bernie Sanders campaign that has seen the strategic light trying to get Michelle Alexander's support among many others, and raising the Black Lives Matter and New Jim Crow matrix of issues, in the broadest possible way as part of the regular stump speech in most locations. At any rate, some kind of organized systematic pressure on the candidate and those close around him is the only way I see this might happen. Just those reacting to that NY Times article w/in his campaign and other tweaks will NOT do it. And the Network Nation protest was crucial, and the 'all lives matter' (O Malley I think said this) is just tone deaf, as is the notion of "stunt". Not everyone's lives are equally at risk at the hands of cops. There are more blacks and latinos in America dying (and being otherwise abused) at the hands of various kinds of security personnel than the number of lynchings per year even 100 years ago. Either the Bernie Sanders campaign will modulate the way Obama the candidate did when issues came up or he will be hardly any serious challenge to Hillary Clinton at all. Even if the campaign does not secure the nomination, like the Rainbow Coalition, there is a potential for the progressive, "democratic" (in Dean's phrase) wing of the Democratic Party to build something important, hopefully into something sustained. Otherwise the Bernie Sanders campaign will be little more than a trivia question for political mavens in future years.
I say all this as a Bernie Sanders supporter who has already donated the first of multiple (modest) times to his campaign, like I did for Obama starting early (he DID turn out to be a neoliberal, like the Clintons, though a bit more progressive, but that's not the issue in THIS campaign)