Bernie backers' attacks on Democrats infuriate the party

[Ken Burch]

222. Bernie doesn't run the Vermont state government or rule the state as his personal fiefdom.

Your argument is the equivalent of arguing that LBJ had no right to fight for a federal civil rights bill because the State of Texas hadn't already ended Jim Crow within its borders.

Bernie is just one figure in Vermont politics. It doesn't discredit him or disqualify him from fighting for single payer that the governor of Vermont, the person who was governor from 2011 to 2017 and was the only person who was governor for that whole time, went back on his promise, a promise he was morally obligated to keep, to implement the single-payer bill that was already passed. There was nothing Bernie could have done that would have made any difference, and there was no good reason for the governor to settle for nothing beyond simply setting up an exchange in the ACA-an approach that means Congress can leave Vermont with no healthcare at all by repealing the ACA.