I've been pretty infuriated by the media's framing of Bernie's campaign, perhaps not surprisingly. But what bothers me most about it is the constant implication that Bernie's policy stances are fantastical, pie-in-the-sky, impractical fairy tales, and that Bernie's supporters are both childish and deluded to believe that they're possible. I've seen quite a few Hillary supporters posting comments that basically command Bernie supporters to grow up, give up our fantasies, support Hillary, oh, and, by the way, don't dare to expect that she'll change any of her actual policies in exchange for your vote. Because your wants and beliefs are childish. Because we have to be pragmatic about what's possible in this country. Because incrementalism is the way things work. Because you, the Bernie supporter, just have no ideas about the real world.

No matter who you're voting for, if you're a woman I'm willing to bet that you recognize all those rhetorical tactics. If you're a person of color, I bet you recognize them too. That's how people in power pre-silence other people, by devaluing what they say without addressing it. You're too emotional. You're too angry. You need to be quieter and more polite. You need to change your tone. Why are you making such a big deal about something that isn't a real issue (I.e., is not a big issue to me, the speaker). Ironically, given that Bernie is supposed by the popular press to be supported only by white men, his supporters are talked to and about as though they were irrational women. Which is to say, as though they were people who needed to be cut down to size. (I could go into a whole analysis of the framing of progressive as female, and that would be interesting, but it's not my point at the moment).

This treatment isn't unexpected if you really think about it--I mean, in a corporate based two party system, each party has to get slightly more than half the vote to win, which means they have to appeal to a wide range of people. On the other hand, they have to keep their policy discussions on economic issues within the boundaries of what Big Business finds acceptable, and that's only intensified since Citizens United.  So you have a couple of options. You can do like the Republicans, pick out a few issues that Big Business doesn't care about (abortion, gay rights, guns--part of the problem they're having right now is that businesses have started to care about gay rights), and focus your base on those, while teaching your constituents to view corporate friendly policies as good for them ("freedom," "success"). Or you can do like the Democrats and tell your constituents that of course you share their values, but it's just not pragmatic to hope for....anything that Big Business doesn't want (only you don't say it that way). You cut food stamps, but not by as much as the Republicans want, and you present that to those of your constituents who are progressive as a pragmatic victory--sorry, it was all we could do. It was all that was practical. Effectively, you claim that your actions are a matter of strategy rather than belief, and you teach your constituents to self-limit their expectations to "what's reasonable," which really means "what's corporate friendly." Reasonableness, similar to objectivity, facts over feelings, heads over hearts, is typically construed as a male virtue...and so it stands to reason that you can deal with those progressives who are threatening this distasteful compact ("at least we're not the Republicans") by treating them like suffragettes trying to get the vote. You can't engage with their ideas (because that legitimates them and also because you still need them to believe that you kind of share their ideas), so you talk about their personal characteristics as framed by the equation corporatism=pragmatism. You say they're just not mature enough to know what's possible.

Except that I'm not so sure the possible works the way we've been told. I've been thinking a lot recently about incrementalism and "values voters," particularly anti-abortion voters. Now, we're always being told (generally by Hillary and other members of the Democratic establishment) that we can't push too hard or advocate too loudly for anything that could be seen as anti-Business because progress is a stealth operation. You have to take baby steps. For Democrats that's most often taken the form of not even putting progressive options on the table because they're "impractical;" again, meaning they conflict with the agenda of Big Business. But let's take a look at the anti-abortion movement, which unfortunately has been very successful. They've shut down a huge proportion of abortion clinics in multiple states--in some states, all of the clinics have been shut down. They've restricted the time period when abortion is allowed. They've criminalized people who miscarry, or at least created the capacity for the justice system to do so in many states, and now they're starting in on women's right to access contraceptives. Whatever you think about abortion and choice (and I am adamantly pro-choice), you have to recognize that the anti-abortion movement has gotten things done. And yet their rhetoric is not incrementalist. They didn't start by saying, we want to limit abortions after 20 weeks. They started by saying, we want to overturn Roe v. Wade; and ever since it passed, they've been taking small steps toward rendering it meaningless or overturning it. With every incremental step, they remind themselves and the country of the ultimate prize--a country where abortion for anyone is illegal. I say this not to say that this is laudable--I find it frightening. I do say this to say that incrementalism is not the same as pre-censoring your goals to make them Business friendly. Of course, if you limit your goals to what is already acceptable, you are more likely to seem successful. But what about those of us who have other goals? What about those of us whose lives and needs are not included in the Washington Business Consensus? True incrementalism is about having larger goals and patience. It's been defined by the Democratic Party as a way of limiting the space in which people not of the elite can hope, but it doesn't have to mean that.

In contrast to the way Bernie supporters have been portrayed, as little children blindly following some kind of political Pied Piper, I don't actually believe that Bernie can just wave a magic wand and provide free college and a chicken in every pot the first day of his presidency, should he be elected--and I doubt that many of us do. I'm OK with incremental progress. But incremental progress in this case means chipping away persistently, patiently at the oligarchy while saying at every possible chance, our goal is a fairer country. What about the workers. What about human beings. What about people who aren't part of the elite. It means saying these things even when it's not comfortable for Big Business, even when you might lose yourself donations. Part of the way you make change possible is by preparing the rhetorical ground for it, by changing the way people think by making certain ideas common parlance in the public sphere. The anti-abortion movement has, genuinely, changed the way we talk about women, fetuses, and ovaries. We don't talk about abortions that married women get because they and their husbands decide they can't afford another baby. We don't talk about abortions women get because they judge for themselves that they're not in a position to raise a baby. If we talk at all, we talk about "good" abortions, meaning medically necessary abortions. Not even abortions due to rape or incest anymore.It's pretty horrifying, but it's how things happen. You don't make things happen by not talking about them, despite what Democrats have been anxious to tell their left wing for years. So I want to talk about progressive ideals. Loudly. I want a president who will articulate them without being afraid of what funders say. And yes, I know that a Republican Congress would be obstructionist (although why people imagine Republicans would work happily with Hillary is beyond me). That's not the point.

This is not just about Bernie. Remember Occupy Wall Street? Remember the "Ready for Warren" campaign? A lot of us have been looking for another option for a while now. For a lot of us, the state of the world and Citizens United have combined to tip the scale from that delicate balance where it seems just worth it to you to vote for a party that you don't like. If Hillary is the nominee, I honestly don't know what I'll do--but please recognize that it's not because I'm childish and it's not because I'm unrealistic or stupid. You can think of me as a values voter (and I can't believe I'm comparing myself to an anti-abortion activist, but I am). It hurts me. When I hear about how activists get killed in Honduras while we fund the security forces that kill them because Hillary Clinton installed a "pro-business" government by supporting a coup, it hurts me. When I hear Hillary Clinton talking about the Israel situation as though Palestinian lives weren't human lives, it hurts me. When I hear that Congress cut food stamps again (but not by "that" much?), when I hear Hillary brushing off a Black Lives Matter protester by saying to her audience, "And now let's get back to the issues," it hurts me. Just as much, perhaps, as the occurrence of abortions bothers the people who consider themselves "pro-life." I wake up in the morning and I can't believe I live in a country where those things are OK.

I have never heard anyone, no matter how pro-choice they are, say that someone who is anti-abortion should support someone who wants to expand access to abortion. I have never heard anyone saying that such a voter is childish for not voting that way. I have progressive beliefs. They are not religious. They may not match yours. And you can certainly disagree with them and tell me so. But please don't tell me that I'm being immature by acting in accordance with them when I have the chance. It's not particularly likely to bag Hillary my vote (and yes, I know all about Donald Trump, again, I am not actually uninformed-although given that Bernie outpolls Hillary against him in every poll I've seen, I'm not sure why everyone's acting like she's our only hope against Trump)--all it does is intensify a growing feeling that voting for the Democratic Party is voting for results I don't want and can't support. Contrary to all that talk about getting things done and pragmatism, the things I want done have not been happening--in fact, things are getting worse. I want things to get better. I want to act politically in accordance with a belief that it's not impossible that they could, even if it takes a while.