as sanders suspends his campaign, must we? #notmeus
from now on (even as the general election campaign for Biden may ramp up) a mail-in version of the democratic primary can safely be a referendum not on who will take on trump but on our vision of america. every vote for bernie sanders from here on out sends a message to joe biden and the dnc of what democrats really stand for and want from a president and a congress. although he didn’t say it, the subtext of bernie sanders’ suspension of his campaign for president today was that if there weren’t a raging pandemic making it immoral to ask people to go to the polls and requiring all hands on deck in washington, despite an almost impossible path to victory, he’d stay in the race.  he left us with a reminder that he is on the ballot in the other states that haven’t voted left and he will continue to accumulate delegates which he will use as leverage in the convention.
this made me realize that while bernie has suspended his campaign for president, that doesn’t mean i or any of who have supported bernie have to suspend our campaign for bernie’s ideas. see below the huge list of states (and people) that haven’t voted yet in the democratic primary. bernie will remain on the ballot in all those states (they can’t take people off that quickly, it’s a process). if you haven’t yet had a chance to vote and can vote absentee (and pretty much everyone who hasn’t voted needs to request an absentee ballot immediately), please vote for bernie sanders.
because bernie suspended his campaign, and because of how far ahead joe biden is, there is now no chance that bernie will be the nominee. therefore, if you like bernie’s ideas but you feel that pragmatically biden has a better chance of beating the incumbent demagogue (i don’t agree, but that’s irrelevant now), this is your chance to vote for bernie’s ideas without risk of nominating someone you judge as unelectable.
why is this worth it or important? because even those who overwhelmingly have voted for joe biden in the last few primaries when polled have favored medicare for all, $15 minimum wage and higher education as a human right, and a green new deal. yet, joe biden has yet to embrace those ideas as part of his platform or his vision of america. from now on the democratic primary can safely be a referendum not on who will take on trump but on our vision of america’s future. every vote for bernie sanders from here on out sends a message to joe biden and the dnc of what democrats really stand for and want from a president and a congress.
