Thread by @kai_newkirk

I have a few things to say about the Bernie-Warren conflict and this moment.

THREAD

I want to start by recognizing that if MLK had not been assassinated, he might've turned 91 today. For me, King’s leadership is a North Star. He taught us not about a sterile “civility” but about revolutionary love!

King showed that we can engage in fierce conflict –– marching, sitting in, boycotting, going on strike, shutting it down! –– and still love and respect our opponents: even those who hate and seek to harm us.

We do this not because it’s nice or comfy or proper, but because it’s awesomely powerful. Because we understand that political struggle is always a moral struggle for the allegiance of the people, and people tend to support those we believe are most right and most righteous.

What does King’s legacy mean for this moment and this conflict?

Part of what it means to me is that I must go to Iowa in the next two weeks to help get out the vote for Bernie Sanders.

When King was assassinated, he was in the midst of organizing a multi-racial Poor Peoples Campaign...to confront what he called the “giant triplets" of evil” –– systemic racism, poverty or extreme materialism, and militarism or war.

Bernie is not perfect. I have and will likely again constructively criticize him. But I believe that his record, policy vision, and practice as a leader are most in line with Dr. King’s, especially on the question of militarism and war.

Organizers I deeply respect disagree. They believe Warren is the best progressive candidate. That's fine! Another lesson of King’s legacy for this moment is that we must be able to lead w/ love, disagree w/ mutual respect & *put the suffering of those who are hurting most first.*

When King was killed he was in Memphis, supporting some of the most vulnerable, "the least of these," black sanitation workers — the garbage men, two of whom had been crushed to death by a garbage compactor — who were on strike in a fight for basic dignity.

Who is hurting the most in America today?

There’s no one answer, but a group that comes to my heart are the migrant children who have fled desperate circumstances only to find themselves detained in cages by our government, forcibly separated from their parents.

How do we act in this moment to put those who are hurting most first?

#1: we are crystal clear that we must defeat Trump at all costs. Even if, despite all our work, the nominee is Biden or Bloomberg. We bite the bitter bullet & do all we possibly can to elect them over Trump.

Like # BernieorBust before it, the moral insanity of # Never Warren abandons the most vulnerable––it chooses kids in cages, climate suicide, Muslim bans, & other horrors over dealing w/ our negative emotions as mature adults & backing an opponent who'll do incalculably less harm.

My fellow Berners, remember: to win the nom & Presidency for Bernie, we need to go from our current ~18-25% of the Dem electorate to over 50% & then mobilize a strong majority of ALL voting Americans. The vast majority of those we need aren't yet committed to voting for Bernie.

Many of them are committed to Warren, inc most of our natural allies in the Party. To win, we'll need to bring those folks into our movement. How? By hurling the # WarrenIsASnake epithet at a leader they trust? That will only push the allies we need away & stir up toxic backlash.

If you truly respect Dr. King, ask yourself what he would do now?

We must lead with love. Rather than assuming the worst in others, we must reach graciously for the good in them.

If MLK could live & die to build a beloved community of justice in which the racists who threatened his life might also be redeemed, we can rise above this toxicity to show what principled, generous, mature leadership w/ our eyes on the prize of political revolution looks like!

What about the substance of the conflict? What if, instead of differing, honest accounts of a complicated, charged conversation that was exploited by unprincipled staff and biased media, Warren made a calculated deceitful attack on Bernie’s credibility on the eve of the debate?

Even if it was motivated by reaction to the misguided Bernie campaign call script that was mildly if not-entirely-fairly critical of Warren, such a disproportionate, destructive response would be a hugely disappointing betrayal. But the truth is *we simply don’t know.*

Interpretations are unavoidably speculative and worst-case assumptions are dangerous. If you say you do know the truth of Warren’s thoughts and motivations, well, I lovingly suggest you consider sharing that with a therapist or a pastor or your mom.

What we all definitely do know, I hope all honest observors can agree, is that the objective impact of this escalating feud is harmful to both campaigns and to the prospects of progressive unity to defeat the corporate Dem forces and then Donald Trump.

By escalating the Bernie-Warren feud, REGARDLESS of how you feel about it, you’re ultimately helping the billionaire class, the establishment, and the fascists

What we need right now are principled progressive leaders and organizations with pull in either or both campaigns to insist on de-escalation and a clear show of solidarity to settle this.

If that doesn’t happen, then it will be the all the more important for all of us to avoid inflaming the conflict and to focus instead on waging a positive, honest, fair organizing campaign that strengthens progressive unity to make sure a Biden or Bloomberg doesn’t win.

Principles before personalities. Movements before saviors. We are the leaders we must rely on to set the example. #NotThemUs

This election is too important. For our democracy, for the climate and our planet, for the prospects of a just, multi-racial America.

MLK said, “We are confronted w/ the fierce urgency of now... there is such a thing as being too late." Being too late. This is our last, best shot to elect a transformative progressive President & turn the tide in America before it may truly be too late. We must not squander it.