My eye is better now. I don’t feel the scratching since I woke up. Surprising.

After that utter crushing of Bernie Sanders in #NYPrimary (not even restoring the voter rolls would have gotten him a victory, AFAICT), his birthplace, I’m rethinking the movement behind him.

The “money-in-politics/anti-corruption” focus is incredibly myopic and monomaniacal. To be honest, “money-in-politics” is not my biggest focus. My focus is on civil and human rights, and clearing all possible impediments to those rights.

Right now, those impediments are coming from the 50 states which exercise more control over cities than the federal government exercises over them. State politicians are falling over themselves to stigmatize the autonomies and powers of women, LGBT people, people of color, non-religious/minority-religious people, and organized labor.

But Sanders’ focus is on moneyed interests in the federal government, not the state politicians who are spearheading these terrible experiments in the “labs of democracy” which act as little fiefdoms for the White Male Christian Supremacist orders which have controlled them since colonial times and violently fought the federal government when compelled to change their ways of governance.

Universal health care is also being heavily resisted at the state level, as are the restoration of the VRA, the closing of wasteful local military installations and the drawing-down of our military expenditures, the banning of fracking, card check for union elections, non-discrimination laws, the abolition of the death penalty, the abolition of felon disenfranchisement etc.

All of the vested interests which seek to protect the social status quo and rage against what could bring us together seem to emanate directly from the state governments and their landed gentry, while D.C. merely tries to hold them together with sweetheart deals and gentleman agreements. Oh, and the majority of the federal spending that is ballyhooed by the reactionaries representing these states goes to funding the expenditures which keep these states afloat. Hypocrisy.

While Clinton is already signaling how she will deal with recalcitrant states (in which she will likely follow Obama’s model), Sanders is not addressing what the progressive agenda should be on and in the states. Clinton will most assuredly keep much of this status quo with many allowable incremental changes around the edges, but she, by her platform, is more likely to apply those changes to matters of a civil or human rights concern through executive action than Sanders, by his platform, seems to be.

Sanders’ singular focus on “big banks” has carved out a core constituency of true believers and populists across many states, the majority of whom have not had to live under the oppression of their home state. Similarly, their focus is either on “big banks” or how “Hillary is bad because she takes money from such and such”. I don’t share that concern.

Right now, big banks and Fortune 500s who donated to bigoted state politicians and ALEC are having “buyer’s remorse” and successfully rallying the proletariat against these same politicians’ bigoted legislations. They’re becoming unlikely, problematic but necessary allies of the civil rights constituency in Southern states, where the civil rights movement never ended.

Right now, Fortune 500s are facing off against nasty rural politicians who seek to other and stigmatize non-normative human beings who happen to be employees of these companies. That’s what I and everyone who lives in Columbus, GA live with. I’m not concerned with big banks right now. I’m not concerned with Super PACs right now. I’m not concerned with who donated how much to what foundation, unless they’re doing something to screw with civil and human rights here or abroad.

I VOTED FOR BERNIE SANDERS, liking his progressive bonafides but hoping that he would broaden his platform and address how fundamentally, institutionally unjust we are as a country beyond mere money economics.

I was hoping that Sanders’ social media supporters, even the ones who wear their “independent” label on their sleeve, would retreat from conspiracy theories, utter crankery, poor knowledge of both the Democratic Party’s operations and our massively-unjust 1787 Constitution, massive condescension to Democrats of color, and other *ahem* BS. He hasn’t. They haven’t. And now I’m having “buyer’s remorse.” #AbolishTheStates #AbolishTheSenate #MadamPresident

I will vote early in the primary tomorrow.

I’m having jitters about voting bragging rights. I confess: I didn’t vote for Barack Obama in 2008, my first time voting in a presidential election. I remember writing in Nader, as a protest against the two-party system, but I felt at the time that Obama, with his story and his meteoric rise to the top of a presidential coalition, was inevitable at some point.

Now, in liberal circles, it’s a bragging right to say that you voted for Obama in both primary and general elections both in 2008 and 2012. I didn’t buy the hype in 08 enough to vote for him, and I don’t remember voting in the Democratic primary that year,

Now, because of how impressed by him I have become over the years, I sorta wish I did buy that hype in 2008. But at least I voted for him in 2012, the same year I met Fenika Miller and created the Houston County Democratic Party website as a personal project.

Now we’re talking about that inevitability with Hillary Clinton in 2016, and Sanders is the primary challenger for the nomination. But that has been undercut by voter turmoil and a lower Democratic base turnout for both Clinton and Sanders.

It was easier for me to go for Bernie Sanders when he announced his candidacy, but this cycle has soured so much for me. I just saw two Facebook friends break up hard over this rivalry the other day.

In my feed, on Twitter and Facebook, I’ve seen pro-Sanders people wax conspiracist and cranky in a right-wing way against Clinton, I’ve seen pro-Clinton people wax anti-socialist and paternalistic in a right-wing way against Sanders. And I say “in a right-wing way” because this all sounds like shit you read on FreeRepublic or Breitbart. Like, STOP IT PEOPLE. STOP BEING ASSHOLES. Gods.

You know what? I’d vote for Obama again. Third freaking term. But he’s graying at the speed of light. Argh. I don’t know about bragging rights, saying that you’d voted for one who you knew was the “right one”. I don’t know if that makes you a better person. I don’t know if that makes you psychic. But I know that I’m not voting to keep Republicans in check. I know that I’m not voting to prevent anything from happening. I’m not going to vote my fears, or for strategy or tactics.

I’m going to vote for the things I want, the ideas I want to see become flesh. They can come from either candidate, but they must have a liberal Congress to make them happen. I implore you, all my friends: don’t vote your fears, your strategy or your tactics. Fear is the worst choice. They tear you apart, just as they’ve hit me at points this election cycle. Vote for the change you wish to see in the next four years. Press your candidates on these issues.

Vote for more liberals and progressives in office, people who will vote for the Equality Act, an amendment to overturn Citizens United, an increased minimum wage, a Right to Vote Amendment, the Equal Rights Amendment, decriminalization of marijuana, for renewable energy, for expanding Medicare to all people, and so on. Vote for people who will bring those laws into the state and local level, too. Vote for those solutions. Vote for constitutional change. Vote for equality. Vote for hope. #YesWeCan