SPRING FALLS, CALIFORNIA — Sherry McWilliams and Patrick Johnson have been friends for over a decade and a half. They met when Johnson moved into the house next door to McWilliams, and struck up a friendship that both say they are quite fond of. They both label themselves as progressives, and both are long standing members of the Democratic Party. However, at a recent block party an argument erupted between McWilliams and Johnson that threatens to tear their friendship apart. The subject of the argument? Which one of them is more annoying to an average voters.
“I think as a Bernie-bot that won’t hear any criticism of Sanders without blaming it on a media conspiracy to silence him,” McWilliams said, “that I am the more annoying person. But Pat thinks since he’s a Clinton fan that won’t admit that Sanders has a huge groundswell of support and that Hillary is just as in bed with Corporate America as Mitt Romney was in 2012 that he is the most annoying Democratic candidate supporter.” She said that her husband an Pat’s domestic partner asked they that declare a truce and “focus on their common opposition force” in the GOP, but neither was willing to concede that the other’s choice would be an acceptable alternative to the Republican nominee.
Mr. Johnson asked our interviewer why he “should have to capitulate to a Sanders supporter” when the Vermont Senator hasn’t been a part of the Democratic Party for years. “I mean,” he asked, “am I supposed to just admit that maybe Bernie is a better representative of the core values my party allegedly supports just because his campaign isn’t Hoovering up donations from bankers and he’s been a steadfast proponent of civil rights equality for men, women, and people of color his whole life?”
“Sure, I think that in the end as long as the Republicans don’t control all three branches of government after November’s election that we should be thankful period,” McWilliams told our reporter, but she said that “it still shouldn’t keep [her] from becoming a screaming, teeth gnashing sycophant” every time someone questions Senator Sanders’ record on guns or whether he can convince enough moderates he’s not a left-wing radical because they’ve all been indoctrinated to hate the word socialism in all its forms.”
There is one thing that both Johnson and McWilliams agree on — if the Democratic nominee loses, it’ll be the other sides’ fault. “I mean, sure right now they’re in a primary contest that isn’t impacted by the GOP race at all,” Johnson said, “and yeah, that should mean that both sides can agree to have a spirited but ultimately amiable debate about which candidate to support in the general election without it driving away moderate voters who recognize the Republicans are cray to the max, but I want to be right goddamnit! And doesn’t that mean something?”
When we asked Mrs. Johnson who she would be supporting in this year’s election, she grumbled after taking a long, deep breath. “Honestly, whoever the Democrats put up there, because I’m not about to hand the country over to the party that put us in Iraq, wants to roll back decades of civil rights progress, and destroy our planet’s climate in the name of profits,” she told us, “but honestly I don’t think it’s worth Sanders and Clinton people burning each other over it; don’t they have an entire political philosophy they disagree with to focus their ire on, instead of letting the minutae of the differences between the two drive a wedge into their own movement like the Tea Party did?”
With just under 10 months to go until the general election, Clinton leads Sanders in several nationally-recognized polls but her lead has been slipping as of late.
