Thread by @AlexandraErin

"You shouldn't need to be courted to vote for progressive policies."

For a lot of people who aren't ready to vote Bernie, they're weighing trying to survive Biden vs. watching Bernie fail and being stuck with more Trump.

Which is a sucky place to be, but that's the calculation.

Others are weighing the idea of Biden's ineffectual and incremental plans vs. the possibility that Bernie will get in... and get nowhere with his more ambitious plans.

This is why you DO have to sell your candidate. That's part of the fight. You are here to fight, right?

With Warren out, I'll vote for Bernie. My vote goes to the progressive in the race that I think would make the best president. The fact that Bernie wasn't my first choice is because I do have doubts about his odds of success (in the race and in the office.) But they're secondary.

I'm for Bernie in the primary for the same reason I was for Warren: my belief is that in the primary we should vote for the person in the race we'd most want to see as president. Trying to play Prisoner's Dilemma with the rest of the electorate waters down the end result.

As a Bernie supporter, the main thing I see as my job, the biggest thing I see that I can do to help him and the progressive cause, is to try to build bridges, mend rifts, and draw new people into coalition with him.

And yeah, I'm new here. I brought Bernie one new vote already.

I brought Bernie one more vote than all the snake emojis in the world can. I brought Bernie one more vote than crying "neoliberal" and "shitlib" and "shill" and accusing others of wanting people like me (disabled trans woman) to die for not trusting him as a politician will do.

Earlier in the week, when I was a Warren voter, I asked: do you want to keep being FOR Medicare for All, or do you want us to HAVE it?

Because we can be FOR it forever. We can do that. It's easy, it's satisfying, it doesn't require us to be nice to anybody ever.

If we're all willing to do whatever it takes to get Bernie elected except for what it actually takes, we can be FOR good things and AGAINST bad things until our dying day, which won't be terribly long for a lot of us.

And I'm not addressing this to the people who are knocking and writing and banking and making connections already but to the people who are sure that Bernie's victory is inevitable, and who are already ready for who they're going to flame when he loses.

Recruitment is the work.

There is nothing any of us can do that will help Bernie in the primary more than reaching out to others and making positive connections, and when it comes to the general, voting a straight party ticket, blue all the way down, in every race. Even for the rats and snakes.

Because the very long odds of getting the platform built in reality get worse with every Republican who wins anything.

If you'd refuse to vote for any downticket Democrat because they haven't earned your vote... you understand the Warren voters who aren't ready to come over.

Spite can be a powerful motivator, wielded correctly. I'm a big fan of spite. I think spite helped drive the amazing turnout on Tuesday.

But bitterness is a terrible one.

Convince people that Bernie can win. Convince people that he will succeed. Convince people that his base is more than the worst, loudest parts of it and that his agenda will not be driven by them.

That he is more than his worst decisions and least flattering soundbytes.

If the only people willing to be proxies on the ground for Bernie The Person are the people piling on harassment and vermin emojis and demanding fidelity and surrender... I mean, those people are doing "outreach" to Warren supporters every day. I'm told they're not representative

I'm here to build bridges. After this thread I aim to be talking way more to my fellow were-waiting-to-vote-for-Warren voters than anybody who was already voting Sanders.

Because that's the job. Build bridges, mend fences, open doors.