Bernie Sanders makes it clear: He’s playing this game to win

[JDPriestly]

28. If Bernie wins or even comes close, and the superdelegates "sink him," it will weaken if not

divide the party for a long, long time. That is what happened in 1968. I hope the party leadership learned from that.

The party leadership needs to respond and welcome the dissent that Bernie's candidacy represents. It is not going to go away.

Bernie's campaign is not about Bernie. It is about the issues Bernie is talking about, issues that mainstream Democrats have shied away from and are weak on.

So the fissure in the Democratic Party is not just about Bernie, great as he is. It runs much deeper than that, and those who support Hillary need to recognize that there is a deep problem in the Democratic Party. Many Democrats feel that Hillary and the powers that be in the Third Way of the Democratic Party do not represent the interests of grassroots Democrats. We barely vote for the more conservative among them. Why bother to vote at all if neither the Republicans nor the Democrats have your interests in mind or will represent you.

Democrats have stood by while corporations have written trade agreements that have resulted in jobs moving overseas and products moving into the US. Lost jobs mean disillusioned, impoverished, unhappy Democrats. The Democratic Party has yet to really face and deal with that fact.

2016 is ours, Democrats', to win. But we will only win it if we are united. And Hillary's candidacy while broadly supported within the Democratic Party, is a divider because Hillary cannot be a Third Way, corporate and wealth supported candidate and still win the votes of the disillusioned, disenchanted wing of the Democratic Party. That wing has grown since 2000 and continues to grow. Most of all, Hillary will not win our enthusiasm.

Hillary is not dealing with a lot of issues very wisely. Social Security is one of them. The cap has to go up. It has been where it is far too long. She is, like Obama, asking for far too little in terms of the increase in minimum wages and other things that working people desperately need. She sets the starting offer of the Democratic Party on economic issues too low. That is not right and as a negotiating tactic is precisely the same mistake Obama has made.

And in foreign policy, she is a sure step to unwinnable wars. We have to be smarter in our foreign policy. Yes. ISIS has to be stopped. But Bernie is right. We have to figure out precisely which countries are supporting ISIS and get them to see that terrorism in the Middle East that ISIS represents is not in their interest. Someone, some country or countries, are channeling funds and helping ISIS, and that country or those countries are the route to stopping ISIS. Direct strikes will help some but will not root out the real cause of the ISIS phenomenon. We have to persuade ISIS supporters in the world that terrorism and religious dictatorship are not the way to a good future for their countries.

We will either have a schism in the Democratic Party that will lead to a lot of Democrats staying home or the superdelegates will have to be inclusive and supportive of the Bernie branch of the Democratic Party. We do not want a repeat of 1968 where it was my way or the highway by the conservatives in the Party.

And if Bernie wins, the same holds true for Bernie supporters. We have to be an inclusive party. I can see Bernie supporters being inclusive, but I see Hillary supporters as very exclusive.