Signal and noise

I am not often overtly political online, but here goes.

From a Rolling Stone interview with Jane Sanders:

[Tearing up] We did everything we could, but we didn't win. And they were so sad about it. People have been making it sound like they're mad, and they should just get over it. No they shouldn't! They shouldn't just get over it! What do you expect? How do you turn on a dime? We understand that. We understand that we earned their support and their trust. Now Hillary Clinton has to earn their support and their trust. And we will hold [the Clinton campaign] accountable because we are endorsing her. We are that much more committed to making sure [she follows through on her promises], instead of saying, Oh, it's politics as usual, people change. We're not going to let that happen. Not without a big fight, if anything. If the Democratic Party starts backing away from the platform, ever, we will fight like crazy to support the work that all of these millions of people did.

From a Democracy Now interview with Eddie Glaude:

So, part of what we’re saying is that one of the things we have to do—we have to do two things simultaneously. One is keep Donald Trump out of office. And two—right?—announce that business as usual is unacceptable.

From me:

We get it. We need to keep to Trump out of the White House, no doubt. But stop pretending that there was ever a level playing field in the Democratic Party, stop pretending that this is just sour grapes, stop pretending that unity is all that matters now. And stop telling Berners to shut up. This campaign was about business as usual vs. real change and it's not over.

Every four years we complain that our system sucks, that there's too much money in it, that the two-party system we are stuck with eliminates real choice, that voting for the lesser-of-two-evils is just the way things work. We complain, and then we forget, and the system churns on, and then four years later when our choice is once again turned into a charade, we start complaining again.

Not this time.

I want to hear the complaints, I want this fire to keep burning. I want the noise to build and I want to see some real reform forced both in the ways we govern and the ways we chose who will govern. I want us to be constantly reminded that things are not right, that this system is not acceptable. I want disruptive innovation in our political scene. If a revolution came this close with a stacked deck, who knows what can happen with an ongoing movement.

And I don't want anyone to shut up.