Unity isn’t an option.

Letting bygones be bygones lets Republicans get away with it.

Moderate Democratic politicians like to talk up things like “unity” as the only way out of this mess, as we enter the Biden Presidency. They seem to forget Obama tried this, it let Bush people off for war crimes, allowed the banks to get away with financial arson, and let the GOP seize back the agenda because the Democrats had been so passive in taking on vested interests or really fighting for working people. So perhaps, this isn’t the strategy we want to replicate.

There are elements of Trump’s support that we can win back. People who feel disillusioned and disenfranchised. People who fell into the vortex but at heart aren’t alt right bigots. People who an amalgamation of progressive left populism could bring back into the fold, and deradicalize. These people shouldn’t be looked down upon, or sneered at; those who do so further divisions.

However, we can’t unify and pander to people who don’t believe in election results. People who don’t view black votes as legitimate, who see racial justice as a threat, who see Trump’s currently and chaos and embrace it. People who fly the confederate flag and embrace modern day neo-Nazis political sects. A Republican party that’s full of gerrymandering, democracy denying, bigoted, backwards, oligarchs.

Unity is something we’d all love. But Democrats have to focus on delivering for their own people. When Republicans take power, they break everything to deliver on key issues for their core support, and it works! Democrats must do the same for their progressive constituents, keeping them energised, or they doom themselves yet again to a repeat of the Obama years.