A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis, serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. © James Conner.

8 June 2016

It’s up to Hillary to win the support of Bernie’s partisans

Hillary Clinton’s substantial victory in California yesterday probably was a mortal wound for Bernie Sanders’ campaign.

 Updated at 16:28:21 MDT.  Events may now move quickly. Sanders, at his own request, meets with President Obama late tomorrow morning. At the moment, Sanders is being defiant in defeat — we should neither expect nor accept anything less — but he’ll support the Democratic nominee. Update. Late today, Sanders published on Facebook The Struggle Continues.

So will the overwhelming majority of his supporters — if they are treated with respect and patience by Clinton’s campaign and her supporters. She had gracious words of praise for Sanders last night, but more than a few of her supporters are determined to deny Sander’s supporters a face saving way (that is, a way that preserves their self-respect) to support and work for her. Instead, they want Sander’s supporters to feel pain, to come crawling back to the party, their faces burning with shame, begging forgiveness, and to gobble down a plate of warm road apples with a smile and an affirmation that what they’re eating tastes like strawberries and cream.

In Montana, an example of that patronizing, taunting, approach to Sanders’ supporters was published on 4 January 2016 at Montana Cowgirl by Joshua Manning, then writing under the nom de plume Secret Squirrel. A more recent example by 2008 Clinton press spokesman Jay Carson disgraced the editorial page of the New York on Monday.

This approach will infuriate Sanders’ supporters, especially the younger men and women to whom he gave hope that the Democratic Party would once again become the party of economic opportunity and justice. Sanctimonious calls for unity (one from the Democratic National Committee arrived in my email traffic last night before the votes in California had been counted) accompanied by smirking admonitions to “get over it” will send a lot of votes to Jill Stein and the Green Party.

Whether Bernie’s partisans come home to the Democratic Party, or defect to the Green Party, or just don’t bother to vote, is entirely up to Hillary. Bernie can urge his supporters to work and vote for Hillary, but he can’t compel them to do so. She must make the case herself, and she — and those gloating, bullying, sycophants of hers — must make it in a way that preserves the dignity and enthusiasm of the millions of progressives who rallied to Bernie’s banner.