Dear Senator Sanders,
With all due respect, sir, and with full appreciation for Debbie Wasserman Schultz falling on her sword for the good of the party, as well as for your continued endorsement of Secretary Clinton, I have a few bones to pick with you about your statement today.
You say, “the party now needs new leadership that will open the doors of the party and welcome in working people and young people.” The Democratic party has leadership that opens the doors of the party and welcomes working people and young people. The Democratic party is the same party that nominated Barack Obama. Twice. This is the same Barack Obama who turned a message into a movement, who turned slogans into policy. This is the same Barack Obama whose grassroots movement was the biggest. Ever. This is the same Barack Obama who rose to prominence within his party and clinched a hard-won nomination in 2008, essentially, overnight.
And that’s my point, Senator. Barack Obama started out as a Democrat. He worked within his party. He worked for his party. He toed the party line because being a Democrat mattered to him, shaped his beliefs, his policies, and his treatment of those within the party.
Senator Sanders, you became a Democrat in 2015. Prior to this — for years prior to this — you benefitted from Democratic money, attended Democratic fundraisers, accepted contributions from the DSCC. And while your opponent, Secretary Clinton, has routinely and generously donated to other Democrats running other races this year, you have not. You took money from Democrats when you weren’t one, but you have largely failed to give money to other Democrats now that you are one.
That sucks, Senator Sanders, and it, frankly, weakens any claim you or your campaign have to moral authority over progressivism if you don’t support candidates who seek to do progressive work where it matters the most: at the local and state level. As a voter who doesn’t just show up once every four years — more importantly, as a Democrat who doesn’t just show up once every four years — I’m insulted by this, and if people in the DNC were, too, I don’t blame them.
As a newly-minted Democrat who admitted to joining the party for media coverage in your campaign, you immediately set your sights on undermining and dismantling the party from without (but only because you didn’t have the clout to do it from within). You praised the least-democratic part of the process when it favored you (caucuses), sowed mistrust in the process when it didn’t (primaries and super-delegates), and demanded unprecedented influence over the platform of a party you openly despised and encouraged your supporters — many of whom also weren’t Democrats — to destroy. Your campaign stole your opponent’s data.
You say that the DNC was internally rooting against you. I say this: You’re right. And why wouldn’t they? You say that they should have remained impartial. I ask, why wouldn’t they want the Democrat to win the Democratic nomination for the presidency? You were not a Democrat. I will be surprised if, when you next run for the Senate, you do so as a Democrat.
You were not an innocent bystander looking for an open door and encountering closed ones; you walked through our open door and then started throwing our furniture through the windows. In what way did you ever ingratiate yourself to anybody in the Democratic party? In what way did you ever make yourself anything less than a willful outsider, a political couch-surfer, refusing to pay your share of the rent and stealing food from our fridge?
Were the emails exchanged about you kind? No. Were some of them even downright awful? Yes. Did any of the swipes taken by the people who are literally professional Democrats who help elect other professional Democrats result in anything close to a well-oiled machine with the single, programmed purpose of destroying your campaign?
No.
They didn’t trust you. They felt used by you. They felt abused by you. They were pissed off at you. And I don’t blame them.
We are heading into a convention in which you will extend your endorsement of Hillary Clinton, because you know that she won, fair and square. There will be attempts at a voice vote. There will be attempts to make this a contested convention. They will fail, because in spite of what too many people believe, the system worked. The candidate who got the most votes won. The Democrat will receive the Democratic nomination.
And here’s the thing, Senator Sanders: If you and your supporters think Debbie Wasserman Schultz wouldn’t get in bed with your bullshit, you have not yet been formally introduced to Donna Brazile. So enjoy the convention, and then get the hell out of my party.
Sincerely,
A Democrat
A version of this post originally appeared on Medium.
