While DNC Chair Tom Perez and Senator Bernie Sanders are traveling the country on the “Unity Tour,” centrist Democrats are using the opportunity to once again trash Bernie as not being a true “Democrat” and for allegedly being the one who is turning people away from the Democratic Party. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses this.
Transcript of the above video:
This past week, DNC President, Tom Perez, and Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont launched this Unity Tour where they’re going around speaking to crowds, talking about the need to unite the Democratic Party, the hardcore progressives and the more centrists leftists everybody needs to come together under one roof. That’s supposed to be the message that these two men are out there promoting. But here’s the problem that we’re starting to see. Yesterday, I read a piece by Paul Waldman in The Week. I want to start by saying I highly respect Paul Waldman. He is a great writer. He has, in the past, been a great thinker, but I disagree with 100% of what Paul Waldman says in this article. He’s talking about is Bernie Sanders good or bad for the Democratic Party. Then, he goes on to mention that Bernie Sanders isn’t a Democrat. He only ran as a Democrat because that’s where he aligns. But he thinks the Democratic Party is pretty bad because they’re too corporatist. If you don’t pass the Bernie Sanders purity test then you shouldn’t be a Democrat, people shouldn’t vote for you.
There is no Bernie Sanders purity test. As a human being, there are people that he likes and there are people that he doesn’t like. Just like Paul Waldman has people that he likes and people that he doesn’t like. But Paul Waldman represents all of the horribleness within the Democratic Party today. I’m not talking about just their beliefs. I’m talking about the fact that they’re out there demonizing Bernie Sanders simply because they wanted Hillary Clinton to win. When you get down to the heart of it, that is the only reason these people have for disliking Bernie Sanders. I know Bernie Sanders has taken a lot of heat right now this week because he supports a pro-life candidate, something I personally disagree with, but I’ve disagreed with Bernie Sanders on other issues as well. Just like most Bernie Sanders’ supporters have and most people who’ve ever supported a political candidate can do. It’s okay to disagree with somebody on some issues. That’s what being a human being is all about. We don’t have to agree with one another on everything. It’s okay to have disagreements.
But the disagreement here with people like Paul Waldman and David Brock and Peter Dow and that whole Hillary bunch is that they’re trying to attack a man who’s out there working to make this country a better place. All because their candidate for president didn’t win. This makes no sense. You know, I get that you guys are bitter and that you don’t like the fact that you grew up with a certain brand of Democratic Party that we’re trying to change so that it can survive, but attacking Bernie Sanders isn’t going to accomplish your goal of keeping the party the same. It’s going to push you further to the fringe to where people no longer agree with you, people no longer read your writing, read your books, listen to your podcasts or whatever the hell it is you’re doing.
Because Bernie Sanders is out there making a difference. He is doing his best and seems to be working, right? I mean, poll after poll after poll has shown that Bernie Sanders is the most popular politician in the United States, but, yeah, let’s say that he’s a trader and not a real Democrat and blah, blah, blah. Yeah, because that’s really helpful. Or we can acknowledge why he’s popular and jump on board with those ideas. You don’t have to support him. You don’t have to emulate him. You just have to understand why voters, why young people are attracted to his policies and then you need to say that this is where our party needs to go. The problem with people like Waldman and Brook and Dow and all of the other Hillary Clinton supporters who are out there on Twitter every single day attacking Bernie Sanders and still defending Hillary Clinton as if the election’s still going on.
The problem that they have is that they don’t want to change. They don’t want to acknowledge that Hillary lost the election because she wasn’t a very good candidate. They want us to think it’s any one of a million other reasons, but do not blame them. Don’t blame those establishment Democrats. Don’t blame the people who work night and day on her campaign. It’s not their fault. Well, you know what it is. It really is your fault. You guys did this. You helped run the campaign. You helped promote it and it failed. You failed.
Now, a realist would look at that and say, “What can I do better?”. Instead these whiny little babies are out there trying to figure out who else they can blame so they don’t have to look at themselves and see that they failed at something. But you’re going to have to do that. If you want the Democratic Party to survive, you have to look at yourselves, realize where you went wrong, how you went wrong and what you can do to fix it, because until then you’re going to keep losing. You lost to the least popular candidate in modern presidential history. I don’t think that that’s Bernie Sanders’ fault. I blame you. I blame people like Paul Waldman and David Brock and Peter Dow and Sally Albright. These people who do nothing all day other than bitch about Bernie Sanders and moan about Hillary Clinton.
She was the most qualified presidential candidate ever is what they say. She was qualified absolutely, but most qualified person ever to run for president, no. You’re lying to yourself if you think she was the most qualified person ever. Eight years as an elected official, four years as Secretary of State, that’s qualified. That’s not most qualified. Stop lying to yourselves and stop lying to the American public. You guys screwed up and Bernie Sanders is the one out there trying to clean up your mess.
