Galindez writes: "It is our job to give voters a reason to vote for us. Bernie showed us the way. We have to take the baton and pass it on. It's not time to give up on the political revolution."
Senator Bernie Sanders. (photo: Reuters/Brian Snyder)
09 November 16
just have to say it …We told you so. I was a team player the last few months and did what I could to try to convince people that that they had to vote for Hillary Clinton to beat Donald Trump. I fell into line after it was clear that Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump would be president. Prior to Bernie’s concession I fought with everything I had for the candidate who I believed would be the strongest candidate in November.
What we saw was that more people were motivated by coming out to vote for a cause they believed in than for the candidate they thought was the better option but not what they really wanted. In poll after poll last winter and spring, Bernie Sanders trounced Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton beat him by smaller margins. It isn’t rocket science: Bernie Sanders was the most popular candidate running for president, and Hillary Clinton had over half of the people rating her unfavorably. Supporters of Bernie Sanders matched the passion of of the supporters of Donald Trump. Its too late to do anything about it now, but I believe Bernie Sanders would be heading a transition team right now, not Donald Trump.
Our Revolution, Bernie Sanders political organization released the following statement:
“Tonight’s election demonstrates what most Americans knew since the beginning of the primaries: the political elite of both parties, the economists, and the media are completely out of touch with the American electorate.
“Too many communities have been left behind in the global economy. Too many young people cannot afford the cost of the college education. Too many cannot afford basic necessities like health care, housing, or retirement.
“Those of us who want a more equitable and inclusive America need to chart a new course that represents the needs of middle income and working families. The most important thing we can do is come together in unity and fight to protect the most vulnerable people of this country. Just like we did yesterday, Our Revolution will be on the front lines of the fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline and the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal tomorrow morning. We will do everything in our power to ensure that the president-elect cannot ignore the battles Americans are facing every single day.
“Tonight Donald Trump was elected president. Our job is to offer a real alternative vision and engage on the local and national level to continue the work of the political revolution in the face of a divided nation.”
Don’t Mourn, Organize
Get involved in local community groups. The result of this election has to be a wake up call. It is time to once and for all say enough is enough to the corporate leadership of the Democratic Party. There is the old saying that the voters voted for the real Republicans. It doesn’t work to act like them. I am not saying that Hillary Clinton acted like a Republican, but in a change election, playing it safe and saying nothing on issues like the TPP, the Dakota Access Pipeline, student debt, institutional racism, and income inequality is not a formula for success.
Last year, Bernie Sanders articulated what the American people wanted. We must continue to fight for that message. We must not surrender and in fact must double down our efforts. We must protect our immigrant brothers and sisters. We must protect our Muslim brothers and sisters. We must continue to fight against the Trans Pacific Partnership. We must make sure that no oil flows through the Dakota Access Pipeline. We must fight to make sure millions of Americans do not lose their health care coverage while we fight for real universal coverage. We must fight to protect a woman’s right to choose and for pay equity. Black lives do matter, and fighting institutional racism has to be at the forefront of our agenda. We have to fight climate change …
We must continue to fight for a people’s agenda. It is also the time to take back the Democratic Party. The corporate Dems barely held on in the primaries. They lost the general election. We must seize on the platform we fought for this summer and appoint leaders that will fight for it. How?
1. Donna Brazile must resign and be replaced by the choice of Bernie Sanders wing of the Democratic Party. It is time for a clean break from the Clinton wing of the party. If the party nominating process was not rigged in the Clinton wing’s favor she would not have been the nominee. I’m hearing rumors of Jennifer Granholm for Party Chair, but that is not acceptable. Senator Tulsi Gabbard was right when she resigned her position in the party to support Bernie. She is one option who could begin the transformation of the Democratic Party.
2. Find out when your next local Democratic Party meeting is. Go there and take the open seats on the central committee. Most of you live in neighborhoods that are not fully represented. Once we fill those seats we can reshape the party. The establishment Democrats rely on the fact that they are more active in the party machine. We can change that, and the next time your county selects a chair we can empower a true progressive. That builds to State chair further down the road. It is not enough to continue to say the Democrats are a lost cause. We have to become the Democrats. Democracy is not a spectator sport. The Democratic Party is what the people doing the work make it.
3. Get involved in local groups fighting for what you believe. Our fight has to be inside and outside of the Democratic Party. We have to be in the streets. Join frontline groups like 350.0rg on climate change, Black Lives Matter, etc. Joining establishment groups like the Sierra Club is okay, but won’t transform our country. We need to be in the streets pressing for real change, not waiting for politicians to agree with us.
4. Support independent media. We saw this coming.… We saw the excitement gap. The problem was the media bought into the narrative that was sold to them by the establishment. As bad as Trump appeared the establishment media ignored the lack of excitement for Hillary. I was guilty of underestimating that in the last few months but was right earlier in the year:
Note to Establishment Media: Bernie Can Win
I remember a week before the Iowa Caucus correctly pointing out that he would win. I wrote this:
That sums it all up. Bernie Sanders is inspiring people. When people see him they say, “That guy is right, and I believe he wants to stand up for me and make America better.” Hillary wants to continue the status quo. Over the next 10 days, the Clinton campaign will show their true colors and throw the kitchen sink at Bernie. It will be a mistake, because when Hillary slings mud at Bernie, she will be slinging it at the rest of us. Bernie’s campaign is a movement. An attack on Bernie is an attack on the revolution. We won’t sling mud back, but we will fire back on caucus night and pack the rooms at 7 p.m. and win.
Okay … after a few coin tosses, Hillary overcame what was a tie. My point is that the same passion the mainstream media ignored was present a year ago. The mainstream media dismissed it then and they dismissed it with Trump.
Remember Michael Moore’s warning in June? He nailed it in 5 Reasons Why Trump Will Win:
1. Midwest Math, or Welcome to Our Rust Belt Brexit. I believe Trump is going to focus much of his attention on the four blue states in the rustbelt of the upper Great Lakes – Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Four traditionally Democratic states – but each of them have elected a Republican governor since 2010 (only Pennsylvania has now finally elected a Democrat). In the Michigan primary in March, more Michiganders came out to vote for the Republicans (1.32 million) that the Democrats (1.19 million). Trump is ahead of Hillary in the latest polls in Pennsylvania and tied with her in Ohio. Tied? How can the race be this close after everything Trump has said and done? Well maybe it’s because he’s said (correctly) that the Clintons’ support of NAFTA helped to destroy the industrial states of the Upper Midwest. Trump is going to hammer Clinton on this and her support of TPP and other trade policies that have royally screwed the people of these four states.)
We must fire up our base again in 2018 and 2020. Over the past few months we became divided over process. Let’s move past who was right or wrong. We must come back together and take our country back. Trump fired up his base, which was angry white people who felt betrayed by the establishment. They rose up and gave the finger to the establishment. We had some of that energy last year. White working class voters can be won back, but not by corporate Democrats. Donald Trump got fewer votes than Mitt Romney. He won because Hillary Clinton ran against Trump. She told us why we shouldn’t vote for Trump. She failed to make the case for why we should vote for her.
It is our job to give voters a reason to vote for us. Bernie showed us the way. We have to take the baton and pass it on. It’s not time to give up on the political revolution.
Scott Galindez attended Syracuse University, where he first became politically active. The writings of El Salvador's slain archbishop Oscar Romero and the on-campus South Africa divestment movement converted him from a Reagan supporter to an activist for Peace and Justice. Over the years he has been influenced by the likes of Philip Berrigan, William Thomas, Mitch Snyder, Don White, Lisa Fithian, and Paul Wellstone. Scott met Marc Ash while organizing counterinaugural events after George W. Bush's first stolen election. Scott will be spending a year covering the presidential election from Iowa.
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