2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: I have a theory on why Sanders is not conceding or endorsing at this poinjt [View all]YouDig
(2,280 posts)What matters now is getting the Bernie people on board to vote for Hillary in November. Bernie's goals (whatever they may be at this point) are not mutually exclusive with that, but they certainly compete with each other.
Whenever he makes a decision to forward his other goals, he is not doing everything he can to make sure Hillary wins. Doing everything he can to help Hillary means endorsing her wholeheartedly and without reservations, the way Hillary did Obama. It means making it very clear that he doesn't believe any of the conspiracy theories about the election being "rigged", that he understands that the people chose Hillary, it wasn't the DNC or open primaries or whatever. And it means, day in and day out, making the case to his supporters that Hillary would be a great president, not just "lesser of two evils", and also that Trump would be a disaster, and that voting for her in November is if highest importance.
So, you say, he can do that part of the time, and the other part of the time push his other goals. Yeah, but if he does that, then half of his efforts are going towards something other than the most important thing. And also, everytime he suggests that there was something unfair about the primaries, he makes his angry supporters more angry and more likely to sit out the election. Same thing everytime he implicitly criticizes Hillary's policies. And, yes, when he says that the Democratic party needs to change and start representing working people instead of big banks, that is a very clear implicit criticism of Hillary. Don't pretend it's not.
And other Democratic politicians understand that perfectly well. It's not about having a beer, it's about being a team player, putting the greater good ahead of himself. If Bernie goes rogue and puts the presidency at risk, and then next year wants the very same Democratic party he's now crapping on to cooperate with him on his legislative agenda, I don't see why they would be very receptive to that.