Make America Debate Again

“Make America Debate Again” is what I saw on a meme the other day. Someone had taken one of the those red baseball caps that Trump likes to wear, and turned it into a blue and red work of Photoshop art. Really, we need to start talking again. But what I see more and more these days, is people trying to silence their opposition. And failing that, they seek to discredit their opposition without actually touching the facts.

Donald Trump is a master at this tactic. I have seen him time and again chastising, denigrating, even mocking his opposition without actually engaging in debate. At the same time I also see “old guard” Democrats doing the same thing to their progressive factions.

Just the other day, I saw this op-ed from David Brock, telling us that criticism of Beto O’Rourke will only have the effect of damaging the chances of any Democrat defeating Trump in 2020. I did notice how he closes his article by warning Sanders to focus on policy rather than criticizing Democrats, yet most of the criticism is not from Sanders himself, but from people who support his policy positions.

I was a fan of Beto after watching him debate Ted Cruz and after watching that debate, I began to watch for news of him. Once I heard that Barack Obama met with Beto shortly after losing the election to Cruz, I became suspicious. Then David Sirota wrote an analysis of Beto’s voting record and I flipped on Beto. No longer do I support him.

Now some of you may say that I need to be supportive of any Democrat who has a chance of defeating Trump. I was hearing the same chants during the last presidential election, too. I have also read articles saying that if I did not shift my loyalty from Bernie to Hillary after she won the primary, that I was sexist, as if I should be embarrassed for my preference. There was one guy on Google+ who made vitriolic comments to my posts whenever I was critical of Hillary. He wanted to change my mind at first, but eventually, he blocked me, preferring censorship to actual debate.

I will admit that I am #stillsanders. He is the only candidate who said, during a debate on national TV, that unless we get big money out of politics, there can be no other reforms. No other candidate has ever said this during a presidential debate. Big money in politics chills the debate.

I’ve written numerous articles in the past on this point and studied the role of money in politics. It is hard to do the will of the people if you’re…