Grievance, Demands, and Tantrums; the Unhappy End of the Sanders Campaign
When Chuck Todd on Meet the Press makes plain that Bernie’s final argument is just not logical, and actually hypocritical, the Inner Bernie can’t hear it. The Inner Bernie doesn’t even see how ridiculous his argument is, depending on the Superdelegates to swing to him, even if Clinton has won more votes and pledged delegates in the primary season, just because they ought to now decide based on polls that Sanders might have an easier time defeating Trump.
The real danger in all of this is the poisonous idea that the Democratic primary process was rigged. These are the taunts of a child, not of a grown up who can actually see reality. But it fits with the theme of “revolution,” which instead of offering a viable set of issues and plans is simply a call for a national temper tantrum.
It’s dangerous to feed young voters such a steady diet of grievance and anger, to raise their hopes for victory long after that victory has gone out of reach. To make them believe that the only way Sanders could have lost is that the system must be rigged. To make them believe that it is easy to give everyone a free college education, that it is easy to give everybody the same kind of health care system that is used in Europe, if only the evil Establishment hadn’t rigged the system against Bernie.
And it is dangerous to continue to fan the flames of grievance by calling out good progressive Democrats like Barney Frank, the first openly gay member of Congress to chair a committee, or Governor Dannel Malloy of Connecticut, who has waged a courageous battle against the gun lobby, as being somehow “too biased” to be fair at the Convention. That argument, taken to its logical conclusion, makes the entire Democratic National Convention just an exercise in “bias against Bernie.” It is the same childish view that led to violence by Sanders supporters at the Nevada State Democratic Party Convention. It remains telling that Bernie Sanders could not unconditionally condemn that violence, turning to arguments about the imaginary “rigged” system that somehow, in his mind, provoked death threats being sent to the head of the Nevada Democratic Party.
Hillary Clinton and the dreaded “establishment” have been too kind to Senator Sanders and his crusade. They have pulled their punches against him all campaign season, which is why he can brag about having low negative ratings in the polls. They have given him concessions in the Convention that no previous loser ever claimed. They do not say in public what they know in private, trying not to antagonize Bernie and his supporters. But you can’t really reason with a child, and Senators Sanders has given his Inner Child, his Inner Bernie, the keys to his emotional car, while his wife and campaign staff cheer this on. At some point, there won’t be enough concessions to appease him, and the Democratic Party is just going to have to wait for the more sensible Sanders supporters to come back and be Democrats. So fasten your seatbelts. There’s nothing short of victory that will make Bernie happy now. It’s going to be a bumpy ride, but this too shall pass.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/monica-bauer/grievance-demands-and-tan_b_10261262.html
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