I am not here for ideas on how to get the mythical Bernie voter. They don't show up. They didn't show up for Bernie either. The avatar of Berniedom for me will always be the woman interviewed while in line to attend her 10th Bernie rally on the day she was supposed to vote.

The rally was not in her state and was a good ten hours away from home. She is the perfect Bernie "voter." Symbolic gestures of participation while substance is lacking. Many Bernie voters are going to be mature and will vote for Biden, or at least vote against Trump via Biden.

The subset that threatens to defeat Biden and vote for the selected, unelected Green candidate, Howie, or even to vote for Trump are louder than their size because they have several amplifiers with blue checks and magazine sinecures.

But every election in history has these neervotewells. They are the people who see power as corrupting and to make sure they never have the power to make the changes they want, they marginalize themselves by voting for lost causes and worthless candidates.

They want the purity of never being responsible for legislation. They want the ease of never having to compromise to win 70% of what you want. They want the moral clarity of never accomplishing anything. So leave them to rot in their stagnant pools of purity.

They will never be with us. They are the people who will, if you give them a concession, make a new demand, and after that concession, there will be a new demand. They are always in bad faith and nothing will be enough. You can cede a lot (platform 2016) & they will still betray

Because even if they got everything they asked for, they would ask for more. Their goal is not victory for their ideas. It's for their ideas to fail so they have something to bleat about. They do not want victory or progress, they want something to complain about.

Here is a real-life example. While we were talking about a minimum wage ballot measure with COLA, one organization in particular opposed the idea. They said if we passed a MW that increased automatically, then we would lose the issue as a tool for voter turnout and not be able to

gather signatures and organize on it every few years. I am hesitant to name names, but it was a Naderite organization. They lost, of course, because most of us working on minimum wage wanted to be able to move on to other issues, like housing, health care, and the environment

So, it was the so-called centrist labor, social justice, and community orgs that wanted the more permanent solution while it was the so-called leftie, youth-led org that wanted to keep MW static in order to organize on it forever.

We ignored them and did a MW initiative with a COLA and Oregonians have benefited for years now because we didn't listen to the far left who really wanted an issue more than they wanted progress.

Just so you know, I was in that meeting, and the shock at the cravenness was palpable. The head of the largest labor union asked, "You want to hurt workers so you can help them? What does that mean?" A Democratic politician said, "I can see what you mean about turnout, but

at what cost?" There was shock among experienced political types whom these rose leftists would call corrupted centrist shills that anyone would argue against progress just to raise money & leverage turnout.

These are not honest people and they are not honest brokers. Their work is about their feelings, not their accomplishments.

And if you have any doubt they are always, always, always seeking to lose, look at the British author Rebecca West describing the same mindset among those who opposed Hitler.

If you cannot compromise to win progress, then I don't want to work with you. Compromise is the essential ingredient in a democracy. Compromise is the recognition that no one person or party knows the secrets of the universe.