Supporters cheer for Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders during a campaign event at W.L. Zorn Arena in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, April 2, 2016. (Photo: Eric Thayer / The New York Times)
The Democratic Party is facing a serious existential question. And if the party doesn’t make the right moves in 2016 — if it doesn’t hang onto the Independent voters and first-time voters who are turning out in droves to vote for Bernie Sanders and other progressive challengers to the Democratic National Committee establishment — the Democratic Party seriously risks alienating an entire generation of voters.
A full 42 percent of Americans identify as Independents, according to a Gallup poll from earlier this year, as opposed to only 29 percent of Americans who identify as Democrats and 26 percent of Americans who identify as Republicans, marking the fifth year in a row that more than four in 10 adults identified as political Independents.
Those Independents are playing a huge role in both the Democratic and Republican primaries. They’re turning out in record numbers to cast votes in open primary states, and many of them are re-registering to vote as Democrats in states with closed primaries.
So why are certain members of the Democratic establishment implying that Bernie Sanders doesn’t deserve to be the Democratic nominee, just because he’s been a long-registered Independent?
See more news and opinion from Thom Hartmann at Truthout here.
That sort of thinking from the Democratic establishment is incredibly narrow-minded. After all, what good could possibly come out of alienating Independents?
Can the Democratic Party really afford to cast aside Sanders’ supporters? Can it really afford to tell Independents that they are unimportant to the Party?
There’s no doubt that this primary has gotten tense, as both Sanders’ supporters and Hillary Clinton’s supporters have hurled caustic insults at each other on Twitter and around the internet.
Sanders supporters have accused Clinton of…