Rant Time: Bernie or Bust Yourself in the Spleen

American Crossroads meme designed for Sanders supporters

Look, we had some primaries. At some point in the process, you've called every form "corrupt." You've faulted Clinton for problems that didn't exist. You've faulted her for problems that were created by Republicans. You've faulted her for having friends that will help her pass her policies through Congress. You have repeated and reposted and reblogged and retweeted old and new sexist propaganda made by the GOP, often without even removing the credit to American Crossroads, Karl Rove's PAC. You have literally been doing Karl Rove's dirty work.

This is precisely what Clinton wants.

You have been tithing Sanders $27/month and insulting Clinton for taking lump sums, but Sanders is the only candidate who has taken excess money that hasn't been returned. You have yelled and screamed and conspiracy theorized until you've decided that there are blocks in Brooklyn that have been disenfranchised that only house Sanders supporters-- because Clinton is a cheater cheater pumpkin pantsuit wearer who identified those blocks in November, back when Sanders wasn't a threat anyway. You shout that Clinton doesn't want to overturn Citizens United, a ruling that allowed an anti-Hillary Republican group to get unlimited funding specifically to attack her. You have pretended that Clinton is unqualified and I'm fairly sure that you at some point assigned to Clinton every negative sexist trope about women that exists in US culture.

The resemblance is uncanny

And you've given Sanders credit for "changing Clinton" even though she hasn't changed stances because of him and even in cases where she's had the stance for decades longer than Sanders-- because when a woman does something, credit goes to the nearest male. She's not even worthy of being on the cover of a movie about her.

TW: misogyny, misogynist slurs, racism, ableism, and a lot of cursing.

You've insulted women, black people, and anyone who merely has different priorities than you. You have called us ignorant. You have mansplained women's needs to us and whitesplained Black people's needs to them. You insulted us for not having problems with things that you had problems with when they benefitted Clinton ("not the will of the people!"), that you insisted that Sanders should use when you thought they would benefit him ("sorta kinda maybe not the will of the people!").

You have, over and over, referenced vaginas to insult women who support Clinton, while simultaneously reminding us that Clinton and we are lesser than you because we have vaginas. You have told us that we are "voting with our vaginas" in response to informed, logical arguments that we state to back our stances, because you can't get past our anatomy long enough to listen.

You've even faulted people for not supporting Sanders "enough," including Elizabeth Warren who for some reason, is required to follow your will instead of her own, as though you are entitled to her for some reason. I wonder why you're entitled to a woman that you don't even know.

You have, for this entire process: insulted, demeaned, denigrated, slurred, attacked, harassed, and berated us. For some reason, we didn't find this convincing and you lost. Strange. I wonder if there's a lesson there (that we told you from the beginning).

When it became clear to you that you lost, you started making demands. Now, in order to appease you, you insist that Clinton change her stance to what her stance has been for 30 years but you still can't be bothered to Google. You demand that she change her stance or you will vote for Trump instead, without mentioning or more likely without realizing that Trump's stance is far worse than Clinton's, by your standards. You want to take this to convention. You need to keep your "ideological purity." You'll write in Sanders' name just to make a point, just to tell us that we can't boss you around even though the only bossing around that we have tried to do is get you to stop trying to boss us around, which obviously, you are entitled to do because you are you.

My vagina votes.

You require that Clinton change her stance; you accept Trump even though his only consistent stance is hatred. It's funny how when your man lost, you decided to vote for the other man even though the woman is in near complete agreement with your man and the other man doesn't actually have a platform for you to agree with but talks far right. Why is that?

You've Made Your Point

You're welcome.

You see, in yet another election, we have one party that is liberal (for the US) and one party that is far right (even for the US). We have a party that supports equal rights and a party that has stated intentions to eliminate equal rights that have been given by the courts to non-whites, non-straights, non-Judeo-Christians, non-masculines, and non-men.

We have two main candidates: a highly qualified woman with a long history of activism for women, children, LGBT people, the poor, and racial minorities; and thin-skinned, spoiled man-child who can't even admit that he's losing his hair, who has insulted liberals, educated people, women, Black people, Hispanics (who are all from Mexico, by the way), Muslims, disabled people, and anyone who can keep a thought in their heads for longer than a goldfish.

You're welcome again.

On one side, we have an accomplished woman who has sent out explicit plans about how she will implement campaign goals on issues on which she has worked for 40 years, who has many friends who will support her in achieving those goals. And on the other side we have a "pasta" candidate: he just throws policy at the wall to sees what sticks and insults anyone who merely reprints his words. He changed his abortion stance 5 times in 3 days. That's not becoming more informed and evolving; that's just not caring that he doesn't have a platform.

We have a woman who has excelled in education, who has worked hard to get where she is, who is one of the most accomplished women in the nation; and we have a literal poster boy for irresponsible waste of inherited money, dirty financial tricks, corporate failure, and fraud, who may as well be hiding a "1%er!" tattoo under his hair flip which requires a yearly upkeep budget approximately that of a small island nation.

So you'll know where to aim.

We have woman who has successfully negotiated deals with leaders of other nations; and a guy who insults foreign leaders and feels compelled to defend the size of his penis on national TV during official campaign events.

And the Stakes are Yuge

Yet again, people's rights are at risk due to this election. The Supreme Court has already decided that everyone is equal now so we don't need equal rights protections anymore, gutting voting ability for minorities, allowing segregation and defunding of minority schools, thumbing their noses at affirmative action, and laughing out loud at the thought of letting women know that they get paid less than their male peers.

This election is not a joke.

But then Scalia died and the GOP took advantage of that to make this election even riskier than usual. They're refusing to allow the President to appoint someone to the Supreme Court so that the next President can, hoping that they will win the election and maintain the previous conservative slant of the court, the slant that thinks that equality is for white dudes and only white dudes. After all, the Founding Fathers said that "all men are created equal" but women aren't men and at the time, neither were black people, so no rights for them! It will be difficult for the Dems to take Congress because of voter suppression issues and partisan jerrymandering, so if we get a Republican president, they will likely control all 3 branches of government-- all while opposing rights for everyone but upper middle class and higher heterosexual, cisgender, able-bodied, Judeo-Christian white dudes.

But that's you, so what do you care?

Translation from ASL: I'm a jackass.

And while we have elderly and disabled people denied the ability to vote in any elections even though they are provably citizens, you are screaming about voter disenfranchisement in Connecticut because you had to change from unaffiliated to Democrat too far in advance for some people, even though the deadline for that change was literally the day before the election. That's like me screaming "murder!" because you gently flicked me in the nose-- and quite frankly, I hope that disenfranchised and disembodied murder victims haunt you for this nonsense. That's the true power of the dead vote!

It's Just Not the Point that You Intended

So when you tell me that you can't vote for Clinton because you believe all of the lies and sexist bullshit that you've been spouting for months, that you will vote for Trump because "he's more liberal than Clinton" (for some definition of liberal that is conservative, for some reason) and "better for the country," or that you will write in Sanders' name because of your precious ideological purity, this is what you are telling me:

"I do not give a shit about your rights."

They even fattened her up and slenderized him. #nosexism

You, who have been calling us whores, cunts, and bitches, who have spent the last 5 months insulting us, harassing us, and generally being assholes, have now informed us that you don't give a shit about our rights. And now that you have lost, you demand that we take on your losing platform and kiss your asses because your one vote is just that fucking important, because you are so much more fucking important than the 12.6 million people who voted for Clinton, especially since we're women, black people, and other ignorant motherfuckers who simply don't count as people. You know, those people that the GOP is trying to disenfranchise and won't be able to vote in the next election if you get your way.

Color me completely unsurprised that the people harassing women online for supporting Clinton don't care about women's rights even though they are a core progressive value and the same people are running around the Internet "No True Progressive"ing.

You are stomping your feet and demanding that I give a shit about your opinion. And for some reason you are so convinced that your opinion is more important than my rights that you expect me to agree with that assessment. I'm going to say that again so it might sink in: you believe that your opinion is more important than my rights, more important even than the right for women, poor people, and racial minorities to vote.

But you know what? I don't worship you like you do.

Are you going to vote for Trump because you didn't get your way for once in your life? Are you going to vote for Trump because you have channeled all that you hate about women into Hillary Clinton and can no longer stand your reflection in her? Are you going to vote for Trump because men are always more qualified than women? Are you going to vote for Trump because you want to make things so terrible for people other than you that we will finally "see the light" and join your revolution, that we will "Bern It Down?"

Are you going to write in Sanders' name because you don't care to counter a Trump vote and your "ideological purity" is more important to you than my rights?

Then fuck off.

You are not special.

You are not even a progressive. 

You are not important. 

You are not better than me. 

You don't matter any more than I do. 

And you think that I don't matter, so you must not matter either. 

We are cogs in the machine. 

Get the fuck over yourself.
I'm over you.

Bernie or bust yourself in the spleen.