Welcome to my newest series, The Weekly Bern. As the title implies, this series will recap everything happening related to Bernie Sanders and the movement that he spawned. The idea is to get out a piece every week to recap what is going on, because if you couldn’t tell, there’s a lot of shit happening.

At the time of writing this, we have just come off of what I am calling Super Tuesday Jr, where we basically had a similar result to last week. Biden won most of the states, but Bernie hasn’t fallen TOO far behind. A lot of people have already begun to despair and given up hope, but many of us are forgetting that only 47% of the delegates have come into play right now, and we still have a long way to go. If we continue at the same pace we are going now, then we’re going to lose. The plus side is that we’ve already seen how quickly the tide can turn in this race.

All we need is for Biden to slip up during a debate for it to have a major impact on his perceived “electability.” We’ve already seen how quick normie Democrats are to switch their vote, and a large number will just vote for who they think has the best chance to beat Trump, regardless of policy. This means that we have a few months to sway the vote in a way that will get Bernie to that 1991 delegate threshold, and if we do that then he’s the nominee; the only issue is how.

A lot of this depends on the strategy of the Bernie campaign, but I also want to once again emphasize that he needs ALL the help he can get. So please, do all the obvious stuff like send text messages, knock on doors, volunteer, donate, etc, but the question is if there is anything else that we can do?

I can’t speak for everyone else, but this is why I’ve decided I’m going to kick things into high gear. I’m starting with this series precisely to engage and inform my fellow Bernie supporters of what is happening, and to point out what we can do to help. Everything that I said in my Super Tuesday Pandora’s Box piece holds true.

I am also hopeful that the title of this piece has not been lost on anyone. You know, the significance of that golden flower after a cataclysmic event. Because even if Bernie is screwed out of the nomination again, we’ve passed another point of no return. No candidate in the history of this country has backed the establishment into a corner as much as Bernie has, and nothing motivates these corporate scumbags more than fear.

Just recently, we saw Justice Democrat Jessica Cisneros lose by a few points to incumbent Blue Dog Democrat Henry Cuellar. One of the key criticisms of Cuellar was that there was a point where he had voted with Donald Trump 75% of the time. The article linked was from 2017, and that percentage has now sunk down to 44.2%. Do you realize how many votes have changed for that score to go down that much? Since the start of 2019, Cuellar has only voted with Trump 10.1% of the time, compared to his 68.8% rate from 2017-2018.

And if that’s not enough for you, keep in mind that Cisneros will most likely run again in 2022 with more campaign experience and an already established support base, and will proceed to slaughter him. And that brings us to the subject of next week. Not only do we need to make sure we vote for Bernie in Arizona, Florida, Illinois, and Ohio, but the latter two states also have congressional primaries.

We have TWO Justice Democrats who are mounting primaries next week. The first of these is Marie Newman who I am still certain will win even after Cisneros‘ loss, and the reason for that is because this is Marie Newman’s second attempt. She has more experience, more support, and more money this time around! She’s out-funding Lipinski by over $400,000 this time. I won’t lie and say that I’m not at least a little on edge, but I think she has the edge in this one.

The other candidate is Morgan Harper who I don’t think has as much of a chance as Newman, but she has a shot nonetheless. At the very least, it will be another nail biter like with Cisneros that will push Joyce Beatty further to the left, and considering that Beatty isn’t a Blue Dog like Lipinski or Cuellar, it may let others in her position know that they need to be more talk and that we aren’t going to tolerate any more of these Elizabeth Warren fake progressive types.

While I don’t have time to write a Pink Tsunami piece for Ohio before the primary, I would like to at least shout out the rest of the progressives running there. I won’t go into as much detail, but I’ll try and get the important stuff.

Two of these candidates include the Brand New Congress endorsed Nick Rubando who is running for the Democratic nominee for Ohio’s fifth district, as well as the Rose Caucus endorsed Xavier Carrigan who is in the same primary along with some nobody named Gene Redinger. Of these two, Rubando seems most likely to win the primary given that he is vastly out-funding Carrigan, but whether he can beat Bob Latta and his corporate donors is another story.  Latta won his last race with 62% of the vote, so be sure to give Rubando (or Carrigan if he manages a primary win somehow) your support either way!

Another candidate include Joel Newby who is running for the nomination for Ohio’s 15 congressional district. He’s running against “progressive liberal” Daniel Kilgore who claims to support Medicare for All and a Green New Deal, but also backs Elizabeth Warren and doesn’t even live in the district he’s running for. I’m hoping that Newby wins the nomination over Kilgore, but at the very least Kilgore supports the right policies and should do fine as long as he doesn’t do a post primary pivot.

The last two are Pete Rosewicz and Eric Moyer who are running in Ohio’s 9th and 10th districts respectively and have no chance at the nomination unless they get a major boost in funding before election day. Anyway here’s a donation link to each of their pages.

Morgan Harper – Donation Link
Nick Rubando –  Donation Link
Xavier Carrigan – Donation Link
Joel Newby – Donation Link
Eric Moyer – Donation Link
Pete Rosewicz – Donation Link

Remember folks, even if Bernie doesn’t get the nomination, that just means we should focus on the rest of our candidates. The Presidential election is big, but it’s not everything. We already saw how much public consciousness has shifted just by getting AOC, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Ayanna Pressley through, and if Bernie doesn’t get this nomination, we are going to need someone to carry that torch for him in 2024!

And let’s not act as if we don’t already have people to rally behind even if every progressive from this point on loses their primary. I’ve seen how much money you are throwing at Bernie right now, I know you can afford to throw a couple extra bucks to Shahid Buttar if we want to take down Pelosi! I know you can afford to throw some at Daniel Whitfield if we want to prevent a future Trump Mk2 presidential run. I know you can afford to throw some at Charles Booker so that we don’t have to take a chance on a “Pro Trump Democrat” to take down Prick McConnel!

Imagine if we had that kind of organization behind Sema Hernandez or Jensen Bohren? Just imagine how fucked the establishment would be if we backed our congressional candidates even a fraction of how strongly we back our Presidential picks. And that is our weakness. We can organize well when it comes to Bernie, but we don’t always have the same level of organization for down ballot progressives.

But it’s not too late for that to happen! I’m confident that Bernie can turn this race around, but we can’t bet everything on him. We need to organize and make sure that we get our Senate and House candidates through. It’s for this reason that I’ve spent several months compiling a list of progressive candidates for House and Senate. While I can’t say I’ve throughout examined every candidate on this list, I highly encourage you all to check to see if there is one in your state or district. And if there is, rally behind them as passionately as you are doing for Bernie!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JJRicHSSge-Ye9Nwo_ND72YdkgFY9MkClmY4p4-TsPg/edit?usp=sharing

Our candidates need you just as much as we need them. Bernie may not have performed as well as we wish the past few weeks, but we STILL have some candidates that have made it through the first round, and their names are Audrey Denney, Shahid Buttar, Rishi Kumar, Angelica Dueñas, David Kim, Michael Tolar, Liam O’Mara, Ammar Campa-Najjar, David Wilson Brown, Mike Siegel, Russell Foster, Greg Sagan, Adrienne Bell, Julie Oliver, Christine Mann, Donna Imam, and Antonia Elisason! And I predict there will be many more to come.

If there is one thing to say to my fellow Bernie supporters, it is that we owe it to ourselves to see this through to the end. Don’t stop donating to Bernie, don’t stop volunteering, don’t stop making those phone calls, and most importantly, DON’T STOP VOTING!!

Next Installment

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