Bernie Sanders, a self-righteous candidate who when he isn’t yelling speaks like he’s reading from a stone tablet, has come perilously close to emulating Donald Trump.
Trump, a sometimes Republican, warned the party that if he felt that he was unfairly denied the nomination, his supporters might riot. Sanders supporters, at last Saturday’s Nevada Democratic caucus, came close to rioting – by some accounts chairs were thrown, female officials were called filthy names and speakers were shouted down.
His “Bernie Bros” and others were incensed by the seeming, and in some ways actual, unfairness of the party rules and the power of its chairwoman, who received hundreds of hate messages that included death threats to her and her family. Sanders had stoked the fires all along by constantly describing the election process and party rules as unfair.
Sanders is more artful in his complaints than Trump – he is a master of innuendo – and his apology for his supporters’ actions left much to be desired. While decrying violence and thuggish behavior he simultaneously used his response to continue criticizing the Democratic Party’s rules and process, as well as states that only allow party members to vote in that party’s primary.
Those have long been the rules and Sanders, 74, became a Democrat of convenience just last year after decades of criticizing both parties. He should be the last person to object to the rules of a party he refused to join.
Sanders and his supporters decry the existence of superdelegates, whose vote in close contests can determine the outcome. But superdelegate status is granted to party members who’ve earned it, usually by decades of work in the trenches and their status as Democratic candidates or elected officials. They also diminish the chances that a party can be hijacked by an outsider or demagogue. That’s the way it’s been for a long time, and Bernie knows it. Of the 4,764 delegates in Philadelphia, 713 will be superdelegates.
Instead of doing all he can to prevent chaos at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia this summer, Sanders is virtually guaranteeing it unless he gets his way.
“I will not allow them to be silenced at the Democratic National Convention,” Sanders wrote. “If the process is set up to produce an unfair, one-sided result, we are prepared to mobilize our delegates to force as many votes as necessary to amend the platform and rules on the floor of the convention.”
Sanders has earned the right to battle until the end. After that, presuming Clinton wins as polls predict, Sanders will either be the outsider who risks sinking the party in its contest with Trump or unites it against him.
Sanders has said that Trump will become president “over his dead body,” but he’s not acting like it. He continues to denigrate Clinton, though his chance of winning the nomination is virtually nil.
He has said he will support the nominee, but it will take more than that. The test of who he really is and the role he will deserve to play will come at and just after the convention. The majority of Americans, including Hillary Clinton, largely share his goals: tax reform; affordable and universal health care and education; the reduction of the role in politics of Wall Street, big corporations and lobbyists; and more. He and Clinton differ only by degree and in their assessment of what is achievable.
The army of supporters Sanders has brought into politics could, eventually, do much to determine the future of American politics. That is, if they participate in a political party, run for office and work to achieve what they believe in.
Sanders should tell them that.