 So, let's talk about this article from The Nation, which I find absolutely fascinating. So it's written by an ex-Clinton staffer who was formerly a Hillary Clinton loyalist, but is now saying I've changed my mind about Bernie Sanders, I've had a change of heart, and I think that Democrats should not try to hobble his campaign. And the individual, as you all know who I am referring to, is Peter Dow. Now it's interesting because just a couple of years ago, him and I were on opposite sides of the Democratic Party Civil War. We exchanged insults on Twitter, not necessarily insults, but we argued with each other on Twitter briefly. And a lot of people kind of looked to him as the quintessential Hillary Clinton supporter, who basically, in my view, propped up Hillary Clinton and put her on this God level where she was above criticism and any and all criticism of her was just completely unacceptable. But now, over the last year or so, you've seen this measurable shift in his tone. And you notice that he's kind of had this political awakening, and in real time you see him going through this evolution where he realizes that really re-litigating 2016 isn't the best way to defeat Republicans, and correctly so he realizes, look, if Democrats are going to try to take shots at Bernie Sanders and bring him down, they're just helping the GOP. Now with that being said, do I think that he's saying Bernie should now be above criticism? No, because I've been critical of Bernie Sanders myself, but basically I think what he's really speaking to in this article is this concerted effort of these private dinners, these what to do about Bernie meetings between Chuck Schumer, Pete Buttigieg and Nancy Pelosi to figure out how to defeat Bernie Sanders. But what he essentially says in this article is if we're doing that, we're shooting ourselves in the foot. And I want to read parts of this article to you because it's fascinating. So the article is titled, I was Bernie's biggest critic in 2016. I've changed my mind. Bernie Sanders can beat Donald Trump. And it would be an epic act of self-destruction for Democrats to try and hobble his campaign. And he writes, if you had told me in the spring of 2016 that three years later, I'd be touting the merits of the Bernie Sanders campaign, taking flak from Hillary Clinton's supporters for not being loyal enough to her, I would have laughed and asked what alternate reality you lived in. But life and politics have a way of taking unexpected turns. And here I am writing about the considerable strengths Sanders brings to the 2020 election. I do so not to endorse Sanders or to minimize the large and diverse democratic field. It is early in the primary and voters should take the time to assess all their options. I am going through that process myself, studying how the candidates campaign, how they deal with the corporate media, what policies they're putting forward. The reason I focused on Sanders in recent weeks is because I am concerned that festering anger from the 2016 primary is causing a rift in the electorate that Trump and the Republican Party can and will successfully exploit. Bernie Sanders is unquestionably in the top tier of candidates for the Democratic nomination. And it would be an epic act of self-destruction for Democrats to plunge into an internecine conflict over his candidacy at a time when they need to marshal every asset to defeat Donald Trump and his GOP cronies. I am calling on Democrats, progressives and leftists to hit the pause button, to table our disagreements no matter how intense as we fight to preserve the rule of law and the last semblance of our democracy. We owe it to ourselves and our country. My political and personal evolution since 2016 has caught some people off guard. I'm often asked how a staunch Clinton advocate and former Sanders critic could reverse course. The answer is simpler than it appears. I spent 15 years before the 2016 election as a progressive activist, a critic of the Democratic Party's meekness in the face of GOP extremism and a supporter of the policies Bernie Sanders promotes. After months of self-reflection about my own role in the 2016 primary, I realized I was among the far too many Clinton and Sanders supporters who got caught up in an ugly family dispute that spiraled out of control. We've all experienced those explosive fights. By the heat of the moment, we see each other as enemies, rather than human beings who largely share the same goals, so I began to reach out to repair what had been broken. On Twitter, I unblocked Sanders supporters who I had argued with. I tried to see things from their perspective and I asked them to do the same. There's still some residual anger and skepticism, but the healing process has given me invaluable perspective and I can now look at the 2020 primary through a clear lens. Virtually every state and national poll shows Sanders at or near the top of the Democratic field. Polls are fluid at this stage, but Sanders is a known quantity and his base of supporters is solid. His proven appeal to young voters and independents is a powerful asset and his ability to deliver a well-crafted and unapologetic progressive message to Americans across the political spectrum is crucial if Democrats hope to take on an increasingly extremist GOP. Alarmingly, the ferocity of the GOP's attack on our norms and values is met with timidity from the Democratic Party leadership. Even after grassroots activists and voters generated a 2018 blue wave that swept Democrats back into power, in the House, the Party leadership has proven incapable or unwilling to rise to the historic challenge of facing down and crouching fascism. There are no saviors coming to rescue us. We must become our own leaders to defeat Trump and to reverse the rising tide of white nationalism that threatens the foundation of our democracy. We must have the courage to set aside old grievances for the greater good. Bernie Sanders is not the only candidate who can defeat Trump, but he's certainly one of them and he should not be treated as the enemy. Wow. So, just take a moment to reflect on this. These words were written by Peter Dow. Look, people can change. Now, if you look at any of his recent tweets, now he's being relentlessly criticized by Hillary Clinton supporters. So there's this question of, you know, is this a genuine evolution? Is this just to promote a book? And personally, I actually do believe that this is a genuine evolution because if you wanted to basically reverse course right now specifically to promote a book, you're kind of doing a bad job at promoting your own book because imagine if I suddenly flipped and became a Hillary Clinton supporter or worse, let's say I flipped and became a Trump supporter and then I said, hey, Bernie supporters, who've tuned in for years now by my book. I mean, you tell me to go fuck myself. You'd say, Mike, you're crazy. So I mean, if this was a career move, it would be a really poor career move. Now you can still make the case that, you know, he's doing this to garner attention for his book, whatever. But is it likely that, you know, this was a genuine evolution? I think so because people are capable of changing. Since 2016, I myself have gone through numerous political evolutions and I tried to stop being so defensive in the face of criticism and tried to be more introspective because I realized that if I were going to be one of the people criticizing the Democratic Party for a lack of self-awareness, then I also needed to practice what I preached. So I started to kind of do some self-reflecting. I started to read more books and I've kind of gone through my own, I guess, mini evolution. It's not a substantial one, but the changes that I've essentially gone through is now I'm more sharper in my criticism of capitalism specifically. I think I name and shame white supremacy more because I don't think I've spoken out as forcefully against that. And furthermore, I try to stop re-litigating 2016 because at this point, I'm so sick of talking about 2016. We can talk about that for hours and I think that in the event, Peter Dowell and I had a conversation about 2016, it would be an explosive argument. But if we just put that aside and talk about the policies that we presumably agree on based on the indications we got in this article and how to defeat Republicans, I think there would be a lot of agreement. And I think that this article, it really communicates that people on the other side are willing to partake in a healing process. And he's very careful here to not say, Democrats, let's come together. I think there's this message of inclusivity, progressives, leftists, because a lot of people don't identify with the Democratic Party. I left the Democratic Party in 2016 and I only re-registered reluctantly recently so I can vote for Bernie in 2020. Now the reason why I re-registered so far in advance was because I worry about any shenanigans that might come up, that might prevent me from registering ahead of time. But for the most part, I still don't identify with the Democratic Party. So I think that just collectively people on the left do need to realize that there should be this olive branch that we extend to one another. Now I, in saying that, acknowledge that I'm not willing to sacrifice any of my principles. I am still on the left and I'm not going to yield an inch, but in terms of trying to have an open mind and welcome people who I formally disagreed with, do I think that we should engage with those people? I do, because if we want to win, we've got to build a broad coalition. And I think part of that is not saying, well, you know, fuck you, Peter Dow. You were a Hillary Clinton surrogate, you know, not an official surrogate, but you certainly were one of her loudest boosters. So fuck you. I don't want to hear from you. And I don't think that's the best way to go about doing politics. I mean, the goal is to broaden your coalition. So if people genuinely want to change and reflect, then we need to welcome that. And I actually tried to foster a dialogue with someone on Twitter who was a supporter of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, but hates Bernie Sanders. To me, this is perplexing because, ideologically, they are the same. AOC maybe slightly to the left of Bernie Sanders on some issues, but I mean, by and large, it's inconceivable to me that someone can support AOC, but not Bernie Sanders. So I tried to engage in dialogue and this person, you know, in good faith told me the reasons why they don't support Bernie Sanders, but they support AOC. It had to do with race and how they don't think that he speaks to the issue of race relations good enough. And even if I disagreed with their assessment, I do think that what kernel of truth I was able to take away from that person and from that exchange, it was helpful because we have to tailor our message to broadcast it outside of our own progressive echo chamber, because we can talk all day long to each other in mainstream media or in in indie media about how bad the mainstream media is and about how our progressive message is the best. But we've got to try to find a way to market it in a way that will reach people outside of our own bubble. And I think that that's kind of what Peter Dow is doing here. And look, credit where it's due. If you look at what he's been saying on Twitter lately, he's been getting attacked for speaking the truth and saying things that we've been saying. So I absolutely welcome this evolution here. And you know, shout out to him for doing this because if he had this genuine like self discovery and introspective process, it's very hard to fight past your own cognitive dissonance. And it's very difficult to speak out about them and vocalize, you know, this change because you're afraid about how people are going to respond. There have been many times in my life where I've gone through these many evolutions myself, some of them monstrous evolutions. And I was very worried about, you know, me vocalizing my change because you don't know how that's going to come across. I mean, I grew up Christian. And then when I started to tell my family that I was atheist, you know, I was worried about that. When I started to, you know, come to the realization that I was gay, you know, I had to reverse course after living my life as a homophobe openly. So I had to then tell people, look, I'm actually gay. And the homophobia that I was projecting was to hide my insecurity about my own sexuality. So I know firsthand that it's very difficult to basically reverse course and especially in such a short time for someone to vocalize their change like this, you know, you've got to give them credit where it's due. It's, I think it's bold. And if people want to change, if people want to join our team and come to our side or at least form an alliance or a ceasefire to team up and take on Donald Trump, that's fine. So, you know, this is certainly a fascinating article. I'm glad he wrote this article because I was genuinely curious. Like we all kind of joke about the newly woke Peter Dow. But I think that to get this insight is very interesting. So, you know, credit words do Peter Dow. My respect for him went up substantially because of this to be able to vocalize your changes, even if you know it's going to lead to criticism from your former allies. You know, it's a bold move. So, you know, I respect him for this.