Dear Bernie, Don’t 2016 -ize 2020. Please.

Dear Bernie,

I am asking you as a democrat and someone who wants both a chance to regain the decency of winning the election, and having a chance of accomplishing our shared goals.

Not to drop out. Your ideas are worth hearing. No question.

But to stop running your campaign against other democrats in such a way as to try to make them out to be the enemy.

That’s what you did when you undermined the trustworthiness of Hillary Clinton in 2016. You succeeded in creating questions about her honesty. Congratulations. She didn’t win.

Let me be clear. If you win the nomination, I will vote for you, and actively support you. But I don’t think you will win. Because, as honest, and caring as you are, as much as your heart is in the right place, the Republicans will not run against you.

They will run against Socialism. And they will win. They will not even mention Bernie Sanders. They will run against Nicolas Maduro. They will run against Fidel Castro, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Tse Tung. They will run against Kim Jung Un. And they will win.

Please look at my “Why I am not feeling the Bern” from 2016. I think the arguments are just as good today.

None of this is to say you shouldn’t run. You feel you have something to say. The things you say are important. If your arguments prevail, and you win the nomination, I will support you.

But please, for the present, please stop trying to attack other democrats who are at least just as likely to be the nominee. It undermines them. Makes it much less likely they can beat a sitting president in a time of relative prosperity.

I heard your speech.

It might have been gracious to have congratulated Joe Biden on some remarkable victories. But okay, let that go.

It’s one thing to race against the Greed of Wall street, drug companies, and the fossil fuel industry.

It is, perhaps not as helpful, at least to the chances for a Democratic victory, to attack someone who has statistically at least a fifty percent chance of being the nominee as having “voted for the war in Iraq”, imply he voted for cuts in Social security and Medicare, voted for ‘disastrous trade bills’, representing the credit card companies, and implying he is in the pocket of all those demonic Billionaires.

Just as a fact check, he didn’t vote “for the war in Iraq”, he voted to authorize the President to use the threat of force to compel compliance with UN mandates. He was wrong, and has admitted it. Bush had another agenda. History has shown that, and several of us, yes, myself included, thought it at the time. But let’s be honest, the measure passed overwhelming, it was supported by a large majority of democrats, including some well respected and prominent, such as two of our last three nominees, both of Obama’s secretaries of state, and our current senate minority leader. It was not the vote of a war profiteering war monger, and you should stop pretending it was a decision out of keeping with the majority of the members of our party. It wasn’t.

This attempt to cast your “establishment” opponent in morally questionable light is exactly what you did in 2016, when you joined with the Republican talking points to cast doubts on Clinton’s honesty, it is partially what kept her vulnerable to aspersions on her sincerity and trustworthiness, which reinforced Trumps ability to take advantage of the perceived weakness, and it is one good reason why President Trump won then. And, face it, he probably why he will win again. Even with a fully united front it is difficult to defeat an incumbent president in a time of relative peace and unquestioned prosperity.

A united, progressive, but still inclusive and consensus building party of decency, competency, rule of law and respect for national and international norms can win. But not if you continue to undercut the basis of trust. Hillary didn’t release transcripts of her talks to private banks. You hounded her on that until you succeeded in undermining trust for her. Congratulations, Bernie, Hillary didn’t win.

So if you go ahead and undermine Joe Biden, Trump can win re-election.

And, you know something. A re-elected, emboldened and legitimated Donald Trump might not be as kind, decent, truthful, law abiding and compassionate as he has been these four years. His phone calls, as “perfect” as they were already, might get even more “perfect”.

Perhaps you are playing the “long game”. Perhaps you think that if a moderate democrat gets trounced, democrats will wise up and turn to socialism.

I don’t think that is true.

What is more likely is that if socialists make it impossible for democrats to win, then centrist democrats will have to seriously consider becoming moderate republicans.

Not asking you to stand down. That would not be right.

Perhaps though if you could “tone it down”, and look for some mutual respect and consensus, we could run a democratic ticket with some chance in hell of winning.