TAD DEVINE Still working for Bernie Sanders

[Hortensis]

46. Don't think he'll be able to run as a Democrat

as the remaining faction of his early following in the party becomes increasingly hostile to mainstream Democrats.

Hopefully the current trends will reverse as the Mueller report and prosecutions climax, but right now this nation is developing factions who fight Russia (Democrats and a minority of conservatives) and those who either merely welcome Russia's assistance in their fight against Democrats and/or those who actively ally with Russia (Republican Party, other conservatives/libertarians, and some left-wing groups).

For a long time Sanders himself has been straddling those sides, occasionally siding with Democrats against Republicans, fighting to unseat Democrats from office, and presumably only tacitly accepting Russia's assistance in trying to weaken the Democratic Party.

Now that Sanders has ditched his temporary identity as a Democrat, though, many of his harder-core followers have ditched any straddle and deepened their antagonism toward the mainstream of the Democratic Party. As this type goes more extreme, the differences between them and the extreme right grow narrower.

Ohio's OR types endorsed Dennis Kucinich, a long-time apologist for Russia who's become a Fox commentator, endorsed Hannity's claims of a Democratic "deep state" out to get Trump, cast Michael Flynn as a victim, and at one point called Trump's Russia problems "a bunch of nothing." Many details in Kucinich's behavior have even lead some to speculate that he might have been compromised by Russia in yet another "how else to explain it" phenomenon.

So many examples, but a rather frivolous one that nevertheless sticks is the Our Revolution chapter that somewhat bizarrely was going to protest at a Hillary Clinton speaking engagement a couple months ago, something that must have made sense to them. Sanders dissociated from their actions, but that they chose to attack Clinton instead of any of dozens of corrupt, fascistic and even treasonous Republicans in their region is indicative. As is these types' pervasive hostility toward us on social media wherever they gather.

This type would, of course, support Sanders running as a Democrat as long as they saw it as a hostile incursion into the party, but as they become increasingly known for hostility, I really doubt we'd allow this in 2020. Hopefully, their enemy-of-my-enemy support for Russia will become too damaging to continue by then, but it could also instead increase.