I can’t believe I have to even write these words.
Let me perfectly fucking clear: I voted for and supported Bernie Sanders. But I’m getting my elbows into this pit right now. Stop with the shit against the Warren supporters.
The online cruelty needs to stop right the fuck now.
First of all, NO ONE in Elizabeth Warren’s position would’ve dropped out of the race. Not Bernie, not Biden, not Obama, not JESUS — Politicians drop out for TWO reasons: they are out of cash or their best days are behind them. Those were abso-fucking-lutely the case for Pete and Amy. NEITHER were true for her.
Some polls had her winning Massachusetts, and other polls had her in second place in California and Colorado. She was in play in Texas. In a best case scenario she was poised to take 200 delegates on Super Tuesday. You don’t scrap for 10 months on the hardest stage in the world to get to that point, see those odds, and understand the leverage those odds bring when you are fighting tooth and nail for things you believe in with your whole heart and then just throw in the towel. She wasn’t a Bernie surrogate, she was Elizabeth fucking Warren.
And she had 29 million CASH on hand from (among other things) her SPECTACULAR MORTAL KOMBAT take down of Mike Bloomberg (which, btw, Joe Biden — and the rest of us — owes her a big fat THANK YOU for). Even without her Super PAC, she took in a gargantuan February haul. She was PAID.
And yes, her “path” likely involved a contested convention, and she said she’d take it there, but if you’ve ever been in a negotiation once in your life you don’t hedge your own opening. Of course she said it, she had to say it. Bernie said it once upon a moon! It wasn’t the convention she needed to get to, it was the next election, and the next debate when she could shine again— when it would be just her and two men on the stage. And she would’ve brought a tarp, a bucket, and a hammer. Actually, spite her enough and she just might stay in until that debate, just for the show.
With polls and cash like that NO ONE DROPS OUT.
Second of all — if you think ALL OF HER SUPPORTERS would’ve jumped ship to Bernie, then YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND WARREN’S SUPPORT. Her whole point was that she was able to present a progressive platform for progressives and progressive-curious. And she was DOING IT. Supporters like her not because she is “female Bernie” or some nonsense, they like her because she is an extraordinary politician, and fucking sharp, they like that she follows up talk with plans, and she’s a pragmatic progressive, and unifying, and could crack heads. Not all of her supporters were warm on the idea of political revolution, if you can believe it. If you have serious doubts that a bunch of her support would've gone straight to Biden, given the options a day before Super Tuesday, then you don’t really understand her supporters.
In fact, on Monday, some of her support probably DID slip to Biden.
And can we talk for a fucking minute about BIDEN? This dude out-performed every single expectation he had. This should give any progressive a gracious moment of pause. Without spending a single dime, without a single campaign office in some states, with precisely ZERO ground game, Biden crushed BOTH Bernie and Warren.
Can we talk for a minute about how Biden is actually winning? And that he did something really spectacular? Biden’s outsized performance has nothing to do with the wonderful and smart voters who backed a once in a life-time candidate.
For all the progressive talk about how the 1% pits the 99% at war with each other to take our eye off the ball, we sure seem to forget what color our fucking jersey is right now.
Stop the shit.
Lest we prove the world right that the real goal here is not to win but only to divide.
Eve Ensler said at the Sanders rally in San Jose this week — perhaps a little too charitably — that we should break the myth of the Bernie Bro. She said — with roaring passion — that the men she’s met in this movement are kind, and gracious, and open, and wonderful.
Can we please act like it?