@wickedsm here is my rationale, sorry for the delay.
The neg was because of how the post was framed and the poor politics underlying it. Bernie has not been out there caping for white workers as a specific subset of the working class saying that their needs are separate and apart from the class as a whole, or that their experiences should be given credence over other workers. He's not saying they are the most oppressed people in the country. Bernie has not, and does not, have a kneejerk reaction to any mention of Afrikans, other ethnic minorities, or sexual minorities as "identity politics" -- on the contrary, during the campaign, he called killer cops "terrorists" and said that our communities are occupied by them. What other mainstream candidate has used truthful language like that? He's been very vocal about not scapegoating immigrants and has supported LGBTQ rights.
What Bernie
has said, in the aftermath of the election -- when elements of the white working class in a handful of states swung the election to Trump instead of Hillary -- is that those elements of the white working class have been ignored by Democrats and Democrats no longer even have their ear. A week after the election, he said something along the lines of, "It deeply pains me that the Democratic Party cannot speak to the people from where I come from." I agree that those cacs are suffering and I'd rather engage them as part of rebuilding the labor movement in the U.S. as opposed to just giving them up to Republicans or further right (fascist) elements. I mean, if you're talking Black nationalist politics outside the confines of electoral politics, I can fukk with the "fukk those cacs" sentiment, but if you're not talking about separatism, the best way to fight racism is by building a cross-racial labor movement.
For obvious reasons I reject your slander against millennials.
Bernie isn't a Dem, and for good reason, why would you proudly associate with a party founded by slaveholders and which has, since the 1970s, presided over the bipartisan weakening of the working class?
I actually agree that progressives and workers need an independent party outside of the Democrats, but the United States isn't a democratic system and the laws on the books are highly restrictive for third-parties. So, as a practical matter -- if you want Bernie supporters out of the party -- good luck winning any elections moving forward and pulling the large chunk of people who currently don't vote into the political process (they largely don't vote because they know the system as it is, is a sham).
