Our prime duty as Americans is to throw out the decaying trash currently contaminating the White House and fighting among ourselves is obviously counter-productive to that effort.  The way that most of the fights among Democratic primary voters get started is when supporters of one or more candidates start posting attacks on other candidates on social media. It isn’t long before the other groups of supporters retaliate in kind and a vicious fight is on.  Each time that happens Trump takes another tiny step towards another 4 years of making our lives miserable.

Some people obviously don’t have enough faith in their candidate to believe that he or she can win the nomination on his/her own merits alone, so they try to degrade his/her opponents in hopes of making it easier for their favorite to win.  And let’s face it, some people also enjoy picking fights on the internet to entertain themselves because they obviously have nothing better to do with their time.

However, if their objective is to assist their favorite candidate, giving the matter any rational thought at all would lead them to conclude that attacking the candidates favored by other Democrats and progressive independents is totally counter-productive to their own objective.  Here’s why:

• You should know by now that you are very unlikely to convince others to support your candidate by attacking the person they are supporting.
• When you attack someone’s else’s favorite candidate, you are inviting retaliation in kind. Every candidate has flaws.  If you want your candidate’s flaws plastered all over social media, press on with your attacks.
• If you attack someone else’s candidate you will just make them angry at you and the person you support. If your favorite wins the nomination, don’t expect them to line up to support him/her enthusiastically in the general election.
• If your favorite doesn’t win the nomination and the candidate you have been attacking does, you will come to realize that you have been doing Trump’s dirty work for him.

Yea, I know; some people reading this article are anxious to try to knock down one or more of the opposition who they believe stands in the way of their guy or gal getting the nomination.  They are probably saying, “Well, I have free speech and stating facts which will lead to discussions is the right way to vet candidates in our democratic process.  There is nothing wrong with that!”

Well, just keep in mind that those discussions will not be pleasant and what you and I call “facts” will probably be viewed by supporters of  the other candidate as vicious smears.  They are not going to be any happier with you if you believe that your “facts” are based in reality.  And keep in mind that they can easily retaliate with “facts” of their own which you will see as vicious smears.

Folks, what it all boils down to is this:  Attacking any candidate for the Democratic nomination is less than intelligent because it leads inevitably to fighting among ourselves which is totally counterproductive to achieving our prime goal – making sure we defeat Donald J. Trump.  We must be able to all unite behind the ultimate Democratic nominee once the primaries are over and infighting destroys unity.  It makes the supporters of  other candidates less likely to be able to enthusiastically support the nominee.  Need proof – think back to the quarrelsome 2016 primary process.

Yes, tearing down other candidates and infuriating their supporters is politics as usual.  But these are anything but usual times. I simply can’t take another six years of Trump and I don’t think you can either.

If you remember only one thing, let it be this:  Regardless of who ultimately wins the Democratic nomination, that person will be damn sight better person and better president than Donald Trump . . . and it won’t even be close. Why would you ever try to degrade anyone who could possibly be that nominee?”

Cajun     4/2/2019