The left is tearing itself apart and, if the schism is to be repaired there will need to be some bluntly honest talk about what the divide actually means and about how to proceed pragmatically while winning through that pragmatism what must be won if justice and equality are to be re-established in this nation. The divide is about truly important differences in the way people understand what is problematic in the society as it currently is, the effects on real people’s lives that those problems cause real people, and what must be done to insure that all of the people benefit from both the economic and political systems that should be shaped by the people’s will and not by a few who buy power with their wealth.
The divide is what divides those who the article says need to find a way to get together. This could happen if an honest and straight to the point discourse is established, one that is not restricted to a party line that must be followed, punishment meted out by the party for those who do not in the form of condemnation for harming the party and standing in the way of it achieving ITS goals.
What needs to happen if any kind of healing is to take place is a lancing of the wounds so that we can know what the real nature of the infection is. As with any wound that has festered over a period of time, there is bound to be some ugliness released and it is the cause of that ugliness that must be examined and understood before remedies can be found. It will be found, I think, that, for the party that should be representing those whose thinking causes them to think left needs to remember that a decent political party wins elections by putting before the public ideas that those who make up the public are helped to understand to be good ideas, ideas that have the potential to make lives better, all lives and not just those of a few.
I have experienced the wrath of those who think that I should shut up and get with the program, who think I and those who think somewhat like me brought Trump to office. They let me know this on a regular basis calling me a Bernie Brother or asshole, a Hillary hater and a misogynist. I continue find in the ideas Bernie Sanders puts forth the solutions that I know the right ones. I do not love Bernie because he is Bernie but because he speaks to a truth that I have, through considerable bouts with thoughtfulness come to believe to be a properly generous and humane one. I never hated Hillary and said many times throughout the latest run and the one before it that she is a brilliant human being who would be a better leader of the nation than most anyone else. However, studying her politics I am as well convinced that I cannot trust that she would go far enough to change the conditions that I understand need to be changed if the society is to move toward real betterment, toward policies always based in social justice because such policies are the only humane kind of policies.
And the misogyny accusations? There is not a sentiment that is mine that would have caused me to not vote for Hillary because she is a woman. The accusations? They make me seethe because they end the possibility of any kind of honest conversation.