Growing a pair of principles

These are not principles. Bernie and Jane Sanders by
Gage Skidmore, 9 January 2016. Courtesy of
Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 2.0.

The following is a response I recently posted to a friend on Facebook after reading one of many comments from her that we Democrats who supported Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election had abandoned our principles and this is why we had lost. Why we deserved to lose.

The discussion had been proceeded by a couple of weeks of back-and-forth on why Jill Stein was the the preferred candidate for progressives, the only "clean" one in the race, now that Bernie Sanders had been sidelined. If only the Democratic National Committee had not "stolen" the election from Bernie during the primaries, he could have beaten Donald Trump in the national election!

Or rather I should say just "forth." I didn't respond for a long time, mostly because I didn't want to engage. But I didn't engage because I've grown weary and wary of being bullied in various forums by the Bernie or Bust crowd. Believe me, I haven't gone out looking to criticize them. In fact, I've tried to say as little as possible to them directly or indirectly about their preferred candidate. But sometimes the scorn, antagonism, and sanctimony come looking for you. 

And sometimes you feel impelled to respond.

I am not bothered by who you voted for or didn't vote for. But I am exhausted (to put it kindly) by the self-satisfaction and "hands clean" approach to this election by some on the self-identified left of the political spectrum. 

For all the claim that Democrats abandoned our principles, I would argue that many on the far left abandoned us solely so they could keep polishing, adoring, and showcasing their principles. So now none of us on the far left or middle left or anywhere left of center has anything that we want. 

I have principles, and I certainly haven't abandoned them. I don't need to "grow a pair" of principles or anything else. My principles include being able to recognize and accept compromise, not sticking to my way of seeing the world and wanting it to be just so and rejecting any other approaches, and not expecting my preferred candidate to do only what I want him or her to do to keep me happy. 

This is one of the things that has driven me crazy about the Obama years--the right would never accept him, but the left wouldn't either. He was a moderate from the beginning who tried to be everybody's president and yet in time he took some pretty bold actions--instituting a nascent if imperfect system of almost universal health insurance, same-sex marriage, opening the country to Cuba again, and even transgender rights. 

Maybe with a little more support and patience along the way, he would have accomplished more. Maybe Hillary Clinton would have as well. And maybe Bernie Sanders would have made some very centrist choices and compromised with others to make small improvements, in order to draw at the battle and win the long war. 

I don't think I'll ever get the appeal of Bernie Sanders, but if he had been the candidate this year, I would have voted for him. Not out of a sense of party loyalty but because I think he, in competition with anyone put forward by the GOP, would be more likely to support liberal/progressive values. And while initially Hillary Clinton was not my preferred candidate, I was proud to stand by her and vote for her for the very same reason--her support of liberal/progressive values.

Would I have been happy with the results if she had become president? We'll never know. But if my actions are evidence of a lack of principles, then yes, I am unprincipled. 

I, however, think I'm just pragmatic. The US is a conservative country, much more than I would like it to be, so I don't know that I ever expect it to become even Canada, let alone a socialist workers' paradise. And the US sometimes is a country that spits in the face of the notion that all history is progress--it's certainly not looking like that now. 

So my expectations are not high but I am often hopeful. I don't think we are that different in that respect--that we are both hopeful--but we do have different approaches to how to achieve our vision. 

Consequently, I would like to ask you to consider not denigrating those of us who didn't approach this election the same way as you. It's not that my feelings are hurt--I am much tougher than I look. But I deeply resent being scalded and scorned at every turn and dismissed as needing to grow a pair just because I don't happen to see the world the way that you see it.

Righteous indignation is fast becoming my muse. Just wait until I get to my thoughts on the recent Glenn Beck opinion piece in the New York Times. My advice? Invest in some flame-retardant clothing.