Dear brothers and sisters who Felt the Bern:

The primary campaign was long, contentious and intense. People — including many who should've known better — said things in the course of the war of ideas that were harsh, bitter, unkind and unfair.

But when all is said and done, the truth is that Bernie's ideas and your passion made a huge difference. They changed the path of the election. They pushed Hillary Clinton, now the Democratic nominee for president, to the left on many key issues: Healthcare, education, the minimum wage, the TPP. But the fight has really only just begun. Because for these, the results of the hard battle that Bernie and you fought, to come to fruition, two things have to happen: Hillary needs to get elected, and she needs to be held to her promises.

And for both of these, we need you. We know you're not happy about the outcome of the race. Some of you talk about the race being rigged, purposely designed to benefit party insiders like Clinton over maverick outsiders. There's some truth to this — the party created certain checks and balances (like superdelegates!) in the hopes that the path to nomination would be organized, frictionless, a means of gathering funds and electoral momentum around a single individual. They didn't do this to squelch dissent or silence marginal voices, but to create a platform designed to groom and arm a candidate for the only fight they saw as really mattering: The one against the GOP candidate.

Because the Republicans have so many other advantages: Grassroots activists (Tea Partiers and evangelicals). Massive billionaire donors. Control over hugely influential and ideologically aligned media. State legislatures that have twisted districting and voter law to benefit far-right candidates across the board. It was believed that putting a bloodied, embattled candidate out against that kind of coordinated machine was like a suicide mission.

But the net effect has been to make it difficult for unexpected voices to rise up and to take the reins of the party. A young senator from Illinois managed to do so in 2008, and has been our president for the past seven and a bad years. Bernie came a lot closer than anyone might have expected. We have to have a conversation about how to balance the need to field a competitive candidate against the need to be as inclusive as possible.

First, though, we need to overcome a common enemy. A generational enemy—of democracy, not just the Democrats. A demagogue and overt racist, a nativist and xenophobe, a fatuous narcissist and bully, a white supremacist and barely veiled fascist. We need to defeat Donald Trump.

So let's do this. We, the undersigned, apologize for all of the ugly words and nasty exchanges that occurred between Bernie and Hillary supporters. We are sorry that the campaign inflamed emotions and left many of them raw. We ask your forgiveness for the haters in our midst, the triumphalists and establishmentarian gavel bangers who made you feel like you didn't belong. We're sorry for our own moments of weakness, when we showed our frustration and said things we regret.

Let's put that behind us until we make sure the orange monster is not going to be anywhere near the White House. Not now, not ever.

And then let's sit down and have a talk. Over craft beer or kombucha or herbal tea maybe! Because we all have a lot more in common than we have different, and none of us want to stop pushing for what's right and just and good once Hillary is president of the United States of America.