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This is going to anger some of my progressive friends but here is the hard ugly truth; Trump supporters are united. Progressives are fractured.

Lets break it down.

According to a new ABC/Washington Post poll,96% of Mr. Trumps voterssay they would vote for him all overagain. This in spite of assaults on their health care, a gross diminishment of theprograms that they use, no legislation passed, staffing his cabinet with swamp creatures, possible war on several fronts, the evolving Russian collusionstory and a lumbering economy that is not improving.

Even though the polls show that Trump votersdo not like the nepotism, his tax secrecy and find him to be untrustworthy, they do like his image, his anti immigrant stance, his anti government fury, his war on the free pressand that he is anti gun control. Theycomplained continually about Mr. Obamas off-time while he was in office yet they have no problem that Mr. Trump seems to be constantly playing golfnor with the enormous amount of tax dollars we are spending so that he can.

On the other hand, I am still seeing that progressives are attacking each other wantonly. There are highly emotional, deeply biased and unreasonable anti Bernie and anti Hillary memes and fake newsstories popping up daily on my internet feed, many re-posted by hardcore progressive partisans.

Some claim that Bernie is anti woman in spite of the fact that he gets enormously high marks from national womens groups and of course others feel that Hillary stole the election from Bernieand the old guard that remains at the DNC must go. The poll numbers in regard to either candidate would not come close to Trumps 96% support at this time.

It is doubtful that either Hillary or Bernie will be the Democratic presidential candidate in 2020 but that is not the issue. Not by a long shot. The point is that unlike neocons, the left simply can not get it together. We are far too willing to believe bad or fake news about other progressives while neocons stridein almost cult-like unisonto nearlyany tune Mr. Trump plays.

The most obvious lesson from the last election seems to havebeen totally missed by many disgruntled progressives. That lesson is that we have a common adversary and that defeating that adversaryin the upcoming elections is the ONLY important thing. This is a message that is at the forefront on the right but appears to beonly a dream on the left. The truth is that too often progressives are theirown worst enemy.

This is a difficult column to write after such inspiring and successful protests likethe Womens March on DC,the worldwide Earth Day Science Marchesand the amazing town hall confrontations that Republicans are experiencing back home. It is clear that on the issues progressivesare united but that somehow we get hung-up in personalities when it comes to elections and that is when wefall apart.

This is the exact weak spot that the Russians exploited in the last election. It has been shown that the hard feelings in the Bernie camp (I was a supporter) were the happy hunting ground for Russian bots and trolls who pumped out nonsense and lies about Hillary at a yeomans ratein the lead-up to the election. Many Bernie supporters accepted the propaganda not because it was true, in fact many knew that it was complete BS. They accepted it because it was about Hillary and they could not stand her. As a result, they either supported Jill Stein who had dinner with Putin and Mike Flynn in Russia and who the European Greens see as badly flawed or they did not vote at all. This was one major reason Mr Trump won the electoral college and is now sitting in the White House.

On the other hand, Hillary supporters are still angry still angry because they feel that Bernie and his followers werea reason Hillary lost steam and then lost the election. That anger turns into a willingness to accept fake facts about who Bernie actually is and what he supports. In turn, thisdrives the wedge deeper into the progressive baseand is a foreboding sign coming up to the mid term elections.

Recently, Berniewent on the road with new DNC Chairman Tom Perez in what was billed as a unity tour. Both progressives were trying to stimulate the electorate on the left to find common ground and to work together. However, there are film clips where young progressives in the audience actually booed Mr. Perez who has a strong and reasonedprogressive record and whose policies most of those who booed him agree with.

I find it frustrating that almost none of the progressives who are anti Perez even watched the DNC debates wherein Mr. Perez was a stand out with concise and pionted answers to the questions put before him. If they had taken the time to research beyond a Facebook meme, they would have known that. However, it seems that having their own way can bemore important and so they consume one BS meme after the other and then pass them on.

In closing, I beseechprogressives to do one thing. Go outside and look around you. We live in a country that is still functioning on a high level. Most of us have a place to live and food to eat. The street lights work and the highways are clear. We are still living in a fairly open society where we can speak out without fear of arrest or worse. All of that is at risk, big time, if progressivesdo not unify and coalesce around issues instead of personalities.

We may not, in fact probably wont, have the perfect candidates we agree with 100% to run in the upcoming elections.. There will be things that our candidates will support that we do not like and things they will not support that we do. However, it is up to us to stop swallowing and passing on foulpropaganda about progressives who are not our choice simply because we childishly want it our way or no way at all. We must focus on the issue and vote accordingly. The counter productive intolerance for members of our own group is what Mr. Trump is depending upon and it is what the Russian trolls enjoyfeeding on.

Our priority has to be tostop satisfying Mr. Trump and providing Russia an easy target.If not, Mr. Trump and the Russians will surely appreciate anyeffort to divideus once again as Mr. Trumpenjoys a disastrous second term.If we wish to avert that fate, progressivesmust remember that resistance and unity go hand in hand, not foot in mouth.

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A note to progressives - Field of View - Blogs - Times Union - Albany Times Union (blog)