I appreciate your progressive stance, and I share them, but I’m a 75 year old white male with contacts from across the country. I grew up in Michigan working my way through college building machinery in a tool shop that went into GM assembly lines, and I’ve been an active unionist in blue and white collar occupations. While polls show the majority of Americans approve of progressive policies, there is a very large gap between what folks will say they want and their real notion that government is too large. I’ve seen 55 years of GOP policies that harm working women and men, and increasingly these working class folks fear big government and socialism. Bernie comes across as a wild-haired, frenzied dreamer, and most working people do not equate his public persona and his socialist history with a solution to their needs. They have responded yet again to the fear and suspicion of change, the loss of white male control over public policy, and the rise of non-white generations in the populace. The white religious right, in particular, is single-mindedly pro GOP whether that party helps or hurts them. The Left in the Dem party are the ones that are not reading the room. While I regret that, you and others on the left have to resign yourself to designing a message that appeals to people across the spectrum without the aggressive stance and end of the world rhetoric that the Left makes evident. I’m not happy about that, but this elections demonstrates that fact. Change has to come with the confidence that the apple cart will not be destroyed in the process. For example, folks fear higher taxes despite the statements that taxes will be on those who can afford it and who have benefited disporportionately from them. Facts don’t count, so finding a way to demonstrate gradual progressive improvements without chaos is the only way the GOP won’t sweep back in 2022.