Drem wrote:Throwing your vote away at this point because you think it's sacred is ultimately just selfish. You know what could happen. It's not what the majority wants. There is no majority, there's a big 3-way split this time
I think seeing how big of an impact Bernie's movement has made is really amazing. Seeing Obama take him in to chat about the future of this movement gives me a little hope. I also think some of his policies or ideas will ultimately make it into Hillary's platform. She'll have to do it to not alienate all of his followers. I think he'll be back in 2020 with a win
to the first point: yes and no. if i lived in a place like ohio or florida or virginia or michigan where it might actually matter, you would have a perfectly valid point, and i would have a much harder time weighing the sacredness of my vote against the well-being of the nation. but living in nebraska, which is guaranteed to go trump by ~35 points, my vote ends up in the trash bin no matter whether i waste it on clinton, johnson, stein, or even vermin supreme. giving my vote to clinton won't do anyone any good, but giving my vote to stein actually helps the green party, which is the only party i truly care about. if stein gets 5% of the vote she'll unlock federal funding and automatic ballot access in all 50 states for 2020, and then maybe we can finally start to undermine the 2-party stranglehold
to the second point: i'm wary of what will happen to the sanders movement in the future. the huge list of individual donors and the primarily grassroots nature of his campaign support can either maintain its momentum as an outspoken force for anti-corruption and horizontal small-D democracy - or it can be appropriated by the DNC and turned into something hollow and subservient (as with what happened to the obama train after he first took office). i see it going either way from its current crossroads, honestly, but i also think/hope that if enough berniecrats either stick to their guns or don't find the DNC's bait appetizing enough, they'll walk. maybe to the green party, maybe to a new progressive alliance, but walk we will.
as for the convention, sanders has forced his way into the discussion for sure. in particular, the five (out of fifteen) slots he was allowed to pick for the national platform committee went to strong and brilliant progressive activists like keith ellison, cornel west, and bill mckibben, as well as elijah cummings and a few others - even though HRC and DWS mostly picked lobbyists for the other ten slots. even so, despite the presence of lobbyists, it'll be a strongly progressive committee, so he'll definitely get concessions at the convention. the real question is whether there will be any teeth left in the planks his organization forces into the platform, or if they'll just be nonbinding feelgood gimmes that they can just ignore
