It's not about Bernie. It's about the way he wants to change the party.

[DanTex]

22. No, he is not "100% committed" to social issues.

Yes, he is a social liberal, but his commitment is less than 100%. If it were, he wouldn't have made excuses for anti-choice Dems. Can you imagine him making excuses for a Democratic candidate that was in favor of eliminating the minimum wage or repealing banking regulations? No. Me either. So let's not pretend he is equally committed to both.

I do agree that in his own voting record, he is very strong on social issues, with the exception of guns. And that is commendable (with the exception of guns). But I'm talking about his vision for the party. And that vision is one with a strong and stringent commitment to economic populism, along with flexibility on social issues in order to run electable candidates that can support the economic agenda in red states.

That, in a nutshell, is "Sandersism".

One more thing I'll add. In politics there are tradeoffs. Sanders understands that. This is the reason he is pushing the economic-for-social tradeoff. Yes, if it were possible to build a national majority with a party where everyone voted like him or Elizabeth Warren, he would be in favor of that. But it's not. There are red states. He knows that.

And so Bernie's calculation is that it is preferable to trade flexibility on social issues for holding the line on economic issues. And, sure, a lot of people agree with him on that. But a lot don't.