Jay Bookman: It’s time for Bernie Sanders to rethink his end game

[wyldwolf]

It's time for Bernie Sanders to rethink his end game, because he and his followers are treading dangerous ground;

Bernie Sanders lost any chance at the Democratic nomination a long time ago. He didn’t lose because the system was rigged against him, he didn’t lose because of a conspiracy within the Democratic Party. He lost it fair and square.

He lost it in the voting booth, where he trails Hillary Clinton by more than 3 million ballots. He lost it in the delegate count, in which Clinton leads 2,291 to 1,528. If you want to exclude superdelegates from the count, fine. Sanders also lost it in the earned delegate count, where he trails Clinton by 279, with no chance of making up that margin in the remaining few primaries.

In short, he lost.

Nonetheless, despite the clear verdict of primary voters and caucus attendees, Sanders and at least some of his followers appear to believe that the nomination ought to be given to them anyway. Judging from their rhetoric, they believe that they deserve it because they believe that they are very very right and everybody who disagrees with them is very very wrong and also corrupt and stupid.

I don’t like that kind of arrogant self-righteousness coming from the right, and I don’t like it any better coming from the left. I also don’t like the outburst of personal threats, misogyny, abusive language and attempted intimidation that came from Sanders supporters in wake of last weekend’s Democratic state caucus in Nevada.

Back in February, Clinton won the actual Nevada caucus by more than five percentage points. Based on that margin, it was estimated at the time that she had won 20 delegates and Sanders 15. But Saturday, at the state convention called to finalize that delegate count, the Sanders campaign attempted to overturn the voters’ decision. After considerable maneuverings, heated rules fights and protests, they lost that battle too. The final delegate allocation was 20 for Clinton and 15 for Sanders, an outcome that fairly reflected the choice of caucus attendees.

Sanders supporters found that not just unacceptable, but a monstrous outrage and evidence of the duplicity that they claim is stealing the prize they deserve. Afterward, the state party chair was attacked viciously on Twitter, in emails and phone calls. Her employer was threatened, as were her family and grandchildren. Physical violence was threatened repeatedly, and in explicit terms. “I think people like you should be hung in a public execution,” one caller said in one of the milder reactions.

Such behavior has no place in politics and ought to be condemned strongly. But given the chance to do so, Sanders has declined.

In a statement released this week, he noted almost in passing that “Our campaign of course believes in non-violent change and it goes without saying that I condemn any and all forms of violence, including the personal harassment of individuals.” But the remainder of his lengthy statement — basically a rehash of his campaign’s grievances — reads as an attempt to justify what had happened and explain why it was necessary.

There can be no such justification, and Sanders is treading dangerous ground here. A leader is responsible for what his followers do. That’s the essence of leadership. And a half-hearted condemnation in passing can easily be read by followers as an implicit form of permission.

To this point, Sanders has earned a considerable amount of respect and has succeeded in shifting the internal Democratic debate in a direction that it badly needed to go. He has accomplished a lot, but he is placing all that and more at risk now. He says that he still has a message that he wants to communicate, and that’s fine. But if you are more interested in “sending a message” than you are in the real-world consequences, if you indulge yourself in conspiracy theories to explain away your own failure, then those who do care about the consequences have every right and indeed the obligation to oppose you. Because the consequences are real.

The consequences of Ralph Nader’s destructive vanity campaign in 2000 — the election of President George W. Bush, the subsequent invasion of Iraq and perhaps the economic meltdown of 2008 — were very real. The consequences of a Donald Trump presidency would likely be far more traumatic.

As a leader, Sanders has the obligation to himself, his cause, his followers and his country to rethink where this thing is headed, and to take a wiser course.

http://jaybookman.blog.myajc.com/2016/05/18/its-time-for-bernie-sanders-to-rethink-his-end-game/

[virtualobserver]

1. Hillary is therefore responsible for the assault her celebrity endorser made....

based on this article.

[wyldwolf]

2. The 'progressive' movement has revealed themselves to be the spoiled kids we all knew they were

[Armstead]

4. Someone agrees with you

[BillZBubb]

6. Thanks for the opinion of the right wing of the party.

And right back at you.

[KingFlorez]

5. Where is that Field Poll with Bernie up 7%?

With that said, isolated incidents with individuals are a lot different than concerted efforts to disrupt the convention and extremely disturbing threats made toward people.

[SidDithers]

3. DU rec...nt

Sid

[betsuni]

7. K&R

[BillZBubb]

8. When he lied about what happened in Nevada, he lost all credibility.

If was the Hillbot temporary chairman who hijacked the state convention. That set in motion the need to protest her actions. And no it wasn't a violent protest contrary to the lies of the Hillbots and their toadies.

[sheshe2]

9. KnR

[JackRiddler]

10. Who is Jay Bookman and who cares?

I hope Sanders will listen to the millions voting, working and paying for him, not to the sophistry of blogger x.

[Zen Democrat]

11. Who the fuck is Jay Bookman? Just another Third Wayer with an opinion.

[Blue Meany]

12. He lost if fair and square?

On the one hand he wants Hillary delegates to be representative of the votes she got at the local caucuses. This sounds great until you realize that this is not in accordance with the rules put in place by the Nevada Democratic Party, which parses them out in three separate sets of meetings: local caucuses, district, caucuses and the state convention. The rationale, I am told is that the mood of the electorate changes over the course of the election, so this process is intended to reflect that. Whatever. Those are the rules the everyone was playing by, although the Hillary campaign did break at least one rule when the owner of the casino where the largest caucus was held, who was a Hillary supporter, allowed his staff to participate in the caucus with pay and they were ushered en masse into the caucus without registering, all voting for Hillary of course. We don't even know if they were all eligible to vote. But hey, the system was stacked against him or anything.

Then, playing by the rules Bernie made some gains in the second tier--the district caucuses, when he had more delegates show up than Hillary. He gained a couple of delegates, as a result.

Before the State Convention, the Democratic Executive Committee decided to initiate a rule change at the State Convention that would get those delegates back for Hillary. In the temporary rules that were introduced to for a vote at the convention, there was a clause to remove delegates allotted at the second level and go with the caucus level votes. The Convention and the votes for this was schedule for 10:00 am, but the Hillary supporters were privately advised to get there at 9:00. At 9:30, while many of Bernie's delegates were waiting to register, the chair, a Hillary supporter, called for a vote. In the meantime, almost 60 of Bernie's delegates were not seated or allowed in for reasons that have not been explained. But we know that the day before, the Executive Committee had removed the chair of the credentials committee at the behest of the Hillary campaign, and, mysteriously a large number of Bernie delegates could not be credentialed. At 10:00 am, the closed and locked the doors and would not allow in anyone who arrived late, which many more Bernie delegates did because the parking lots were full and they had not been advised to get there by 9:00 am like Hillary's supporters. But, hey, nothing was stacked against Bernie, right. The fact the rule changes were rushed through so fast they could get the required quorum at the rules committee shouldn't matter, right?

During the Convention, of course everything was fair and square, except they no motions were not allowed, the biased chair person refused to do head counts and always found voice votes came out the way she wanted. When someone asked for a vote on having her removed as chair, she cut of his microphone. When a vote was requested on the rule and the delegate count, she refused, because under the rules shoved through on a voice vote before the Convention began, she was given all authority over the Convention.

But, hey, if the roles were reversed, and Bernie supporters did that to Hillary supporters, they just say it was all fair and square, right?

And, btw, there was no violence, and it is really not right to try to smear millions of people with an incident that occurred under extreme provocation. That kind of smear would not be fair and square.