Still #feelthebern? What to do now with that fire.

If you #feelthebern like I do, it probably made you a bit weepy to watch him endorse Hillary Clinton this morning in New Hampshire. While this moment has been coming for a while, it’s still difficult to acknowledge that the primary race is over, and that Bernie Sanders will not be the Democratic nominee or the next president of the United States. Sigh. It hurt a little to write that, but it’s therapeutic, I guess.

I’ve had a lot of mixed feelings over the past month or so when it became certain that Bernie would not be the nominee. There was anger at the system that tends to favor the established candidate. There was sadness that someone who made many people passionate and engaged in the political process would not be able to complete his goal. But the thing that I’ve felt over the past month, more than anything, is sorrow. Sorrow as I watched the news and saw dozens of men and women massacred, simply for being gay. Sorrow as I watched yet two more black men get killed in acts of police brutality. Sorrow as I watched policemen, who were doing their job protecting those exercising their first amendment rights, get killed by a sniper. Sorrow. So much sorrow. And amidst all that sorrow, there’s the realization that our proverbial house is on fire, and no one man, not even Bernie Sanders, can save it. It’s on us to keep fighting the good fight, staying engaged in the democratic process, even when it disappoints and disillusions us.

This fall, I will be volunteering for the Democratic challenger in my congressional district. Flipping my district back to a Democratic held seat would be a step in the right direction, because as we’ve seen in the Obama administration, when you have a legislative branch that won’t work with the executive branch, progress grinds to a halt. I will also be casting a ballot for Hillary Clinton. I did not vote for her in this primary, or in the 2008 primary, but she is the best option at this point, in my opinion. After researching third party candidates, I do not feel like the Green or Libertarian parties are presenting candidates that I align with, so Clinton will have my vote, despite the misgivings that I have had regarding her presidency. The house is on fire right now, and I believe that she is the best of the options that we have at this point. It’s hard to say that when I have felt as passionate about the Sanders campaign, but politics, like many other things in life, is a series of compromises.

I’ve seen lots of anger directed at Bernie Sanders by folks on social media, calling him a sellout and hypocrite. I don’t think that anything is further from the truth. In his endorsement, Sanders finished his campaign as he began it: focused on the issues. He has pushed the Democratic presumptive nominee to the left, and has demanded a far more progressive Democratic party platform than there has ever been. It’s not how Sanders supporters wanted it to turn out, but it’s not insignificant. It’s important that we remember that change, especially in America, is incremental and slow as hell. It’s frustrating, but it’s on us to keep going, and it’s not fair to place all of this on a 74 year old senator from Vermont.

I beg you, fellow Berners, don’t give up. We have to be the agents of change; not just in an election year, but in between. We have to remain engaged in the process, and lobby our elected officials, not just during an election year. If we walk away now, and don’t participate in the process, we are making a huge mistake. There is still so much work to be done, and we are the ones to do it. So let’s shed some tears, shake our fists, and get back to work. As a good friend of mine said, “One simply does not unfeel the Bern.”