Thank you all. [View all]

So many of you made an effort to civilly discourse with me over my question. Even Magistrate!

I want to tell you all how much I appreciate all that you shared, all of the perspectives, all of the reasons, all of the feelings, all of the memories, all of the history, all of the statistics. ALL OF IT.

As I said a few times. I am NOT a Bernie supporter. I just like his efforts to give money to COVID-19 charities. However, my husband is a *rabid* Bernie supporter. My cousins are. I'm trying to hear and understand them. Because I believe that every vote counts, I want to convince them to support Biden in November. I believe that to do that, I need to be able to show that there are elements of Bernie's platform in Biden's platform. That is why I asked if Bernie *voters* (I know that some supporters don't vote.) matter. I think of 25% as a pretty big minority, and worthy of "being heard" when it comes to shaping the platform.

There are some pathetically ugly Bernie supporters. Some pathetically ugly Bernie campaign strategies. A lot of it is ugly. MAYBE the Democratic Party should ignore Bernie supporters, and just throw away those votes as unattainable. Some of them definitely are. My husband will not vote for Biden in November. He didn't vote for Hillary in 2016. We had a lot of fights about it. Still do. He's still convinced that Hillary would not have been any better. I get ill listening to him, and have to call truce.

All this to say, I believe in inclusion, I believe in collaboration, I believe in win-win. I want to win as many Bernie supporters as I can. Some cannot be won. But some can. The question is whether it is worth the effort. I think so.

I appreciate all of you who listened to me, dialogued with me, heard me.

I needed that.

Thank you again.

-Lauren (decidedly female! )