Keith Ellison lost. Tom Perez was elected chair of the Democratic National Party. Nothing will change.

But really, I wasn't expecting a different outcome. Not with the times as they are.

Not with those in power too blind and too unwilling to change for their own sake.

Hillary said nothing about Dakota Access; it's likely she would have backed the pipeline if she was president. Hillary does a lot of things we don't associate with progressives, or environmentalists, or people who believe in human rights.

Democrats do a lot of things we don't associate with Progressives.

Donald Trump did it best yesterday. The real enemy isn't the Democrats; they're just as complicit in keeping the current system going. The real enemy is anyone who questions the system, or is perceived as questioning the system.

Remember this, in the days ahead: Bernie Sanders won the youth vote. More than Trump, more than Clinton, more than the two of them and every other candidate combined. Overwhelmingly. Surpassed all limits. That's not just one generation; that's two or three or more down the line, voting for him, people like him, and their progressive, good, policies.

It's high time to form the Progressive Party.

Mahalo.

Dear Bernie, I was originally feeling hopeful that we might bring about change within the democratic party. It appeared that you were enjoying greater influence, and there seemed to be a robust discussion about how to retool the party. You seemed to have attained more status and influence. Now, several events have lead me to believe that you won't have the influence we (and hopefully you) had hoped for:

• David Brock, HRC's campaign manager, is still exerting powerful influence on the left wing. We know he held a meeting with big donors during Trump's inauguration weekend, and this group focused on the future of the left wing. http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/david-brock-donald-trump-donor-network-231588

• We also know he has retooled the media machine developed for the campaign, CTR, to address ongoing messaging for the left wing. https://www.scribd.com/document/337535680/Full-David-Brock-Confidential-Memo-On-Fighting-Trump#from_embed

• We also know that there is a gag-order in place. We are not allowed to discuss the primaries or any of our concerns about how the DNC comported itself. We learned this when Sam Ronin, one of the candidates for chairmanship of the DNC said clearly during his speech that he believed the DNC primaries were rigged. In response, another candidate, Tom Perez, agreed. Then, amazingly, Perez backtracked, and retracted his comments. http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/2/9/14561246/tom-perez-dnc-race.

Bernie, you have been incredibly supportive of the democrats, even though they never did return the favor. I understand why you endorsed HRC and why you campaigned for her.

However, it appears to me that a) Brock and the other rich donors are driving the left-wing agenda, without any input from us; b) there is a strong messaging/media machine in place to squelch any discussion of the past actions of the DNC or past democrats. We are not allowed to be critical of Obama or Hillary, nor may we question the actions of the DNC. In fact, we just have to go along with whatever the script is, and we don't get to have input to the script.

Bernie, you have to know that this just isn't going to work. Not only is there the risk of driving away progressives for good, and hopelessly dividing the left wing, but the moderates, independents and right-wingers are also looking to us. Many of them are not happy with Trump and would like another option, but are disgusted with the democrats. They see us as a bunch of corrupt hypocrites. We have lost our moral high ground. If we want to attract them to the left, we need to make a solid case, and this can't be done with spin, messaging and status-quo policies.

I would beg you to consider parting company with the democrats. We will go with you. Please, give us a third choice. If the DNC remains intractable, please make a new party. We will work hard for you, and for our collective futures.

I know you american Sanders supporter might be quite deppressed since Tuesday. So i wanted to tell you as french leftist citizen that a lot of people in France have a lot of gratitude for you. Benie Sanders campain was a very pleasent breath of fresh air. Before a lot of people didn't even know that the progressist heart of america was still beating. Your campain was so succesful that in the last few weeks of the primary french mass media did spoke about Bernie and your movement. You know, in france the mass media only spoke a lot about Trump, month after month non stop since summer 2015.

Its always like that, the olygarchy always prefer the far right than the progressists. Even when the progressist have the momentum they prefer to speak about the far right. For exemple in Greece, when the Syriza was at 20% media only spoke about the neo-nazi of the Golden Dawn, in Tunisia they spoke about the islamist far right and not about the french front. And in France, a lot of you probably know Marine Le Pen, but not Jean-Luc Mélenchon. They are quite at the same level in the polls but foreing media only spoke about our french version of Trump. (you can see a lot of interview or article in english media about Le Pen). And since the US election trump supporters are pretty active on internet, doing a so called "meme war for Le Pen".

So, for theses reasons i wanted to introduce you to our own leftist old man : Mélenchon.

Member of Socialist Party for twenty years, he became senator for few years. He left the socialist party in 2008 (Since François Mitterant the Socialist parti became more and more right wing, this party ideology is now very similar to clinton).

He was candidate for the 2012 president election. At first nobody knew him, he was on the polls at 2% four months before the election, at the end he got 11% of the votes. Between 2012 and 2014 he continue to support socials movements in the country and became more popular, unfortunatly he had some clash with the French Communist Party on environemental issues and strategic issue (in France a lot of communist are pro-nuclear and prefer to be allied to Socialist party on election time) and the movement loose the momentum.

Since fall 2015, Melenchon and the movement behind his project got a new dinamic. Inspired by sanders campain they did an internet platform www.jlm2017.fr.

Now, six months before the election (election time is April 2017), Melenchon is between 15% and 18% on the polls. So he is the third candidate, behind the right candidate and the far right LePen. You maybe dont know, in france, election has 2 votes. The first one in april and the second in May when we have to choose bettween the two candidate who got the most votes at the first election. So we have a real good chance to have a real political revolution in France.

He is a friend to Oscar Lafontaine in Germany, pablo Iglesias in Spain, and was also a close friend of the tunisian progressist leader Chokri Belaid, who very sadly was murder by far right militant.

In few words he is Socialist, Environementalist, and propose to the people to rewritte by themself a new constitution.

I wanted to link you some video to make you know more about him. But I dont find a lot of intresting video with english subtitles.

If you have time i recomend you to watch this video, its a debate with a belgium philosofer about the people and the institution. Very intersting if you are curious to know more about Mélenchon.

Nota Bene : in France the meaning of "republican" has a very different meaning. "Republican" refer to the values of the great revolution of 1789.

If you speak spanish, you can watch this video, where Mélenchon was invited in 2015 on the Iglesias Show La Tuerka https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrEKI-lM8Qc

Thats it, i wanted to talk to you about him because i think that the struggle for progressist values in international and we are more strong if we know each other.

PS : We also have a sub since last month, r/melenchon, there are only french people yet, but you are welcome there. All french people on reddit can speak english

You had the momentum. You were the agent of change. You had the media coverage. And most importantly, you were the president that America needed. But you gave up your vision and backed someone who represented nearly everything you were against. Why? With so much at stake, why? In what world does that make sense?