If Bernie wants to educate people on a subject he really first needs to stress the fact that he’s not a spoiler or a splitter. And he needs to repeat this point at the outset of all his speeches and replies. He needs to work it in as an issue statement.
His biggest enemy is the perception that he’s 3rd party or splitter. People conflate his being essentially an independent with him running as an independent. People know he’s running democrat but most don’t really know that that means he’s safe to vote for in a way that greens aren’t.
He needs to remind voters that in the primary they can afford to vote for him without hurting the party, and that even democrats in republican states very much need to vote in the primary if not the general.
I’ve seen people in comments still talking like voting for Bernie is somehow like voting for Nader. People are already resigning themselves to voting for Hillary as if they don’t have two votes coming up. The primary and the general. When in fact the primary is more important.
Also I’ve seen people say that it doesn’t matter because they live in republican states. This is of course not true. And you should be talking about it.
Seriously, you guys should really add some basic primary information to everything you send out. Even if it’s just a single sentence to address the spoiler effect and the fact that you need everyone to vote in the primary. Like “Remember, your vote is important, even in the red states, especially in the primary.” Something.
I think you run the risk of getting people hyped about the general only to lose the primary because a large enough chunk of people just seriously had no idea. Make it so that your web page reads incoming IPs and feeds them primary data by location. Make it a banner across the top that scrolls with the screen. With a count down.
Make it impossible to come away from your content without knowing there are two elections coming up.
Because lets be honest. At this point, the hillary vote is the leftist low information tactical vote. The habitual vote. The preemptive compromise vote. The vote that doesn’t understand things are different this time.
You kind of touched on this when you started trying to educate people on democratic socialism, but that’s putting the cart before the horse. That’s for after you win the primary and your job is getting swing votes and inspiring turn out.
The primary/spoiler lesson is way more pressing, and easier to teach, than defining democratic socialism. Let people know that finally it’s safe to vote their conscience without compromise and that tactical voting isn’t needed this time.
