Saturday, February 01, 2020

OR ASSUREDLY WE SHALL ALL HANG SEPARATELY

Stop. Just stop. Now is not the time for this:
Hillary Clinton said on Friday in a podcast interview that Senator Bernie Sanders and his supporters did not do enough to unify the Democratic Party after the prolonged 2016 primary, calling the behavior of his supporters “distressing” and saying it affected the general election.

“All the way up until the end, a lot of people highly identified with his campaign were urging people to vote third party, urging people not to vote,” Mrs. Clinton said in an interview with Emily Tisch Sussman for her podcast “Your Primary Playlist.” “It had an impact.”

Mrs. Clinton also drew a sharp distinction between her efforts in 2008 to bring the party together after her bruising primary battle with Barack Obama and the efforts by Mr. Sanders in 2016: “Night and day,” she said....

Mrs. Clinton already caused a stir last week when footage from an upcoming documentary revealed her saying of Mr. Sanders, “Nobody likes him, nobody wants to work with him, he got nothing done.” When promoting the film, she initially declined to tell The Hollywood Reporter whether she would endorse or campaign for Mr. Sanders if he were the nominee; hours later, she clarified on Twitter that “I will do whatever I can to support our nominee.”
I don't want to silence Clinton. She's free to speak out, hold forth, endorse a candidate, whatever. But for the sake of the country, she should use this power wisely. This is not the time to be dividing people -- not when we need to come together. And if you say that she may as well be divisive because Sanders and his campaign are, well, your mother probably told you when you were in second grade that two wrongs don't make a right, and she was correct.

Hillary shouldn't continue sniping at someone who might well be the Democratic nominee -- and his backers need to stop doing what they did at a campaign event last night:
... three of Sanders’ supporters in Congress, Reps. Rashida Tlaib, Pramila Jayapal, and Ilhan Omar, came on stage to discuss policy with local activist Dionna Langford. When Langford mentioned that “someone by the name of Hillary Clinton” recently remarked that “nobody likes” Sanders, the crowd booed. It seemed cathartic. Langford tried to reign in the conversation. "We're not gonna boo, we're not gonna boo,” she said. “We're classy here.”

Tlaib interrupted. “I'll boo. Booo!” she said. "You all know I can't be quiet.” Jayapal grabbed her hand and laughed, seemingly trying to get her to tone it down. "The haters will shut up on Monday when we win,” Tlaib said. The crowd loved it.
Michael Moore, at the same event, was also not helping:
"The fact that ... the DNC will not allow Cory Booker on that stage, will not allow Julian Castro on that stage, but they're gonna let Mike Bloomberg on that stage because he's got a billion fucking dollars!" Moore said, drawing yet more boos from the crowd. "I'm sorry. Those days are over. Those days are over."

An audience member shouted, "Fuck Bloomberg!" Others responded, "Yeah!"

... Moore didn't leave it at that. He then mocked a recent television advertisement by Joe Biden characterizing the former vice president as a safe choice. "I'm like, what? That's how low the bar is right now? You just have to be safe? You don't have to be on work release? You're not on a list of offenders? You're just safe?"

Then he really dug in the knife.

"I’m here to tell you, Joe Biden, here’s who's not safe: those who voted to send us to invade the nation of Iraq. You did that, Joe Biden. You’re not safe," Moore said. "Every time we have run a Democrat who voted for war — [John] Kerry, Hillary and now Biden — we’ve lost. We lose when we put these Democrats on the ballot in November. I'm tired of losing. Aren't you tired of losing?"
Followed by this:



Now is not the time. The obviously guilty president of the United States is about to be acquitted in an impeachment trial -- and this is what the candidates running to replace him, and the candidate who ran against him four years ago, are doing? Forming a circular firing squad? Really?

Stop it -- all of you. We need to concentrate our anger on the Republican in the White House and the Republicans in other offices. If you're Team Nobody But Sanders, you're hurting America. If you're Team Anybody But Sanders, you're hurting America. We need to row in the same direction.

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