It’s Super Tuesday. This is why I’m not a Democrat. It’s not about the issues, it’s about the way the Democratic Party treats people who don’t kowtow to its leaders. Like we don’t matter and we need to get in line. We need to “unite” for the common good.

“Unite.” I cringe when I hear that word. When politicians use it, they really mean this: “Do it my way, or else.”

It doesn’t mean getting together and solving problems in an actual give-and-take. It doesn’t mean collaboration or even compromise. It means either you get with the program set by our corporate donors, or you’ll be labeled a troublemaker or worse: a poser or a backstabber or a spy.

Oh, Democrats don’t come out and use these words the way, say, Donald Trump does. But they exert the same kind of political pressure under the table to make sure you don’t rock the boat. They badmouth you on social media and blame you for elections they lost through their own incompetence – because taking personal responsibility has never been their strong suit.

Whenever Trump talks about unity, what he really means is loyalty. Blind loyalty. And the events of the past few days show that Democrats, for all their talk of openness and inclusivity, operate by exactly the same code.

We know where blind loyalty got the Republicans: It got them Trump, a president who’s made a mockery of our nation in the eyes of the world and more than half our own citizens. But not only that, he’s also run roughshod over ideals the Republican Party itself once held sacred, whether you agree with them or not, like free trade and fiscal conservatism.

And now, the Democratic Party is doing precisely the same thing. It’s easy to think of Democrats as the party wrought by the Clintons and, to a lesser extent, Barack Obama – a party of caution that teeters on the verge on paranoia about the mere possibility of offending anyone. Don’t offend the PC police on the left, but don’t offend your corporate donors on the right, either, by daring to defend people who are being forced to choose between the cost of their prescriptions and bankruptcy. Or death.

The idea of free healthcare isn’t “revolutionary.” Every other civilized country does it (or perhaps I should say every civilized country does it and omit the “other,” because any country that puts profits over people isn’t civilized in my book).

The media labels Democrats who hold this position as “moderate,” but that’s a relative term. You’d probably consider the coronavirus as moderate when compared to ebola on the one hand and a common cold on the other, but that doesn’t mean you wan’t to catch it. Letting people die for lack of healthcare isn’t a “moderate” position, it’s an inhumane one.

Democratic devolution

We forget that it wasn’t always this way. The Democratic Party wasn’t always a creature of Super PACs and safe spaces. Once upon a time, it was the party of bold ideas that shone a spotlight on inequity and dared to dream of a better world – and not just dream of it, demand it! Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson fought for the kind of programs today’s Democrats are fighting against. Hell, Republican icon Teddy Roosevelt fought harder for equality and social justice than any of today’s “neoliberals.” These are men and women who give lip service to such ideals ... while taking money under the table to maintain the status quo.

Correction: Not under the table. The rules now make it perfectly legal to pursue financial conflicts of interest. This is the world we live in.

I remember a time when a gay politician named Harvey Milk died fighting for equality. Today, a gay politician named Pete Buttigieg would let Americans die to protect insurance company profits.

And he’s not alone.

In fact, the “neoliberals” spawned by Bill Clinton’s shift to the right a quarter-century ago are fighting harder against the idea of universal healthcare than they are against Donald Trump’s corporate giveaways.

Want to talk about unity? Why is the Democratic Party uniting against Bernie Sanders – a candidate whose platform builds on the bold social and economic ideas of FDR and LBJ? And why are they willing to do so on behalf of a two-time loser known for verbal gaffes who hadn’t won a primary in 32 years of trying before Saturday? A candidate who voted in favor of the Iraq War and didn’t stand up for Anita Hill?

Protecting their turf

There’s an easy answer to that.

But first, I’ll tell you why they’re not doing it. They’re not doing it for “Uncle Joe.” They’re not even doing it because they think it’s their best chance of defeating Trump. Oh, that’s their excuse, but it doesn’t hold up against polls that show Sanders does just as well against Trump as anyone else in the field.

Lately, they’re also saying it will hurt down-ballot candidates to have Sanders at the top of the ticket. Of course, they have zero proof of this, and it fails to take into account that the Sanders’ base is far more energized than the Biden base could ever dream of being.

Energized voters drive turnout. Democrats saw what that did for Trump, but they don’t care about that, either.

Nor do they care about the “next generation.” If they did, they’d be fighting for free education (something we’ve managed to provide at the primary and secondary levels for more than a century) and the forgiveness of student debt. No, to them, the younger generation is a nuisance, just as it was in the 1960s when they were protesting Vietnam and demanding equality for minority citizens. Back then, they said young people should be seen and not heard. They were too loud and cared too much, just like Sanders’ supporters today.

That’s why the old-guard Democratic leaders don’t like them. They like them even less than they like Trump.

They may say they’re fighting against Sanders because they want to beat Trump, but that just doesn’t pass the smell test. Otherwise they wouldn’t be following the exact same losing strategy they did in 2016, when they nominated the least popular Democratic candidate in history because she was the darling of the donor class. Like Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden the kind of candidate that loses every time – establishment hacks who rely on big-money donations and believe they should inherit the presidency because it’s “their turn.”

Hubert Humphrey. Walter Mondale. Al Gore. John Kerry. Hillary Clinton. What do they have in common? They were all career politicians. And they all lost.

The candidates who’ve won for the Democrats in the last half-century have all been outsiders who galvanized the youth vote: Carter, Bill Clinton and Obama. Bernie Sanders fits far better into that tradition of winners than does Joe Biden, but it scarcely matters, because, again, Democrats don’t want to win. (Remember, they wanted Hillary Clinton in 2008, too.) They’d rather keep the younger generation in its place and keep the money flowing in.

Incidentally, that’s another reason Sanders scares them: He’s a heretic who relies on small donors rather than super PACs. He’s cut the purse strings. And to make matters worse he’s not even a Democrat.

Oh, the humanity!

What scares Democrats

If Democrats really wanted to beat Trump, they’d be attacking Trump, not Sanders. But the fact is, they view Sanders as a bigger threat to their power than Trump is. And it’s their power, not the country, that matters most to them. Of course, this is the exact same approach taken by Republicans in remaining loyal to Trump – despite the fact that he’s a blithering idiot and a con man. They do so because they see Republican “Never Trumpers” as a bigger threat to them than Democrats. Trump himself referred to them as “human scum.”

Again, the Democrats aren’t as blunt about expressing themselves. They may not say Sanders is human scum, they just treat him like he is. Because they’re scared of him the same way Trump and his minions are scared of the “Never Trumpers.” They back Trump, not because they like him, but because they’re afraid what will happen to them if they don’t.

Democrats are backing Joe Biden for the same reason. These are the same Democrats who railed against GOP senators for their lack of courage during the impeachment proceedings. And they’re showing the very same kind of cowardice now.

Why? It’s not because they’re afraid Sanders will lose. It’s because they’re afraid he’ll win and remake the party the same way Trump has. Except he wouldn’t remake it as a protection racket with a two-bit mob boss at the top of a shrinking pyramid. He’d remake it as a party that values health, the environment and education as human rights, rather than as commodities to be exploited for profit or denied to those who can’t afford them.

The ones who are doing the exploiting are the same corporate control freaks donating to the Democratic establishment. They cover their bets by contributing to both sides: Dems and Republicans alike. It’s not that they care whether one side or the other wins: They couldn’t care less. They merely want to keep both sides in their pockets, so they win regardless of the outcome.

Democrats used to believe in things like bold social and economic reform, the programs championed by FDR, LBJ and, now, Bernie Sanders. It doesn’t anymore, and that’s why I’m not a Democrat. I agree with many of the ideals Democrats claim to espouse, I just happen to believe those ideals are more important than labels or tribal loyalty. Those are things Trump promotes, which is one of the reasons I’m not a Republican, either. I can’t speak for Bernie Sanders, but maybe that’s why he, too, is not a Democrat.

If the Democrats succeed in foisting off a status quo candidate on the electorate this fall, I won’t forget it, and neither will a lot of other people. They can talk about “unity” until they’re blue in the face, but all I’ll hear is a bunch of rich, bought-and-paid-for puppets trying to tell me what to do. Sorry, I’m not buying it. And I will never forgive the Democrats for forcing me to choose between two parties that have utterly abandoned their principles: one led by a corrupt corporate class and the other by a two-bit wannabe dictator.

If they lose, the Democrats won’t blame their own shortsighted, sellout strategy. They’ll blame voters who stayed home because they weren’t excited about the guy they nominated. Or they’ll try. If they do, most of the people they try to blame will probably just shrug and continue staying home. They’ll have had enough of the bullshit, and they’ll figure they just can’t make a difference – which is a shame, because that’s supposed to be the purpose of democracy: making a difference.

Even if the Democrats win, the damage to the party will be incalculable in the long run. Disillusioned young people will become more disillusioned and less engaged. But then again, I don’t think the donor Democrats really care as long as the money keeps rolling in. A New York Times headline said it all: “Democratic Leaders Willing to Risk Party Damage to Stop Sanders.”

It’s not a risk. It’s a guarantee.

Photo by Gage Skidmore, used under Creative Commons 2.0 license