I will vote for Democrats, but I won’t support them.
And I’ll never “unite behind” whoever wins their primary.
But this is a lesson the Democrats steadfastly refuse to learn: just because I’ll vote for you, that doesn’t mean I agree with you.
See, in this electoral system I (like many other voters) really don’t get a chance to vote for a candidate very often; usually, I’m voting against another candidate instead.
Just because I personally think that Trump is terrible doesn’t mean I want Biden to be President (or Sanders, even).
(In my opinion, Biden would just be a return to the weak-sauce accomodationism that’s the speciality of Party Democrats. And I think that Sanders is just flat-out ineffective, though I do believe that at least what’s left of his heart is in a better place than Biden’s.)
And the Democrats are well aware of this.
Their status as “the closest this country has to a leftist Party” has sustained them for decades without actually requiring them to pursue any real leftward polices.
But, oh the rhetoric; they’ve mastered that.
They’ve gotten expert at speaking from the left side of the mouth while ruling with the right hand.
Ahem; got a tad flowery there.
But the point is: at least 30% (and probably around 50%) of the Democratic primary electorate want some real systemic change, based on the polling and voting results for Sanders and Warren.
And circling the institutional wagons around Biden is not a good look for inspiring those voters in November.
I will personally be going out to vote against Trump in November regardless of who the Democrat is, but mostly because I’m old enough to be used to that. I am concerned that younger, more idealistic voters may not be willing to go along with it, though.
At some point, most people will give up if they never have a chance to vote for.
So, Democrats: do not be surprised if you lose this one.
You have not earned us voting for you.
No one owes you their votes and eventually being less-bad will cease to be enough.
(And this is why we need a system that supports more than two political parties.)
