Weekend At Bernie’s

The rest of the Democratic Presidential nominating process is hereby officially re-titled “Weekend at Bernie’s.”межвенцовые утеплители, как сделать оптимальный выбор

In that film, 20-somethings discover the title character Bernie has died and spend the rest of the time trying to prop him up to convince people he’s still alive.

Truth is, it didn’t matter whether she won all five or not. Though the symbolism is nice, it’s just extra dirt on the gravesite. Bernie fans should not (and won’t) worry about drowning—as Butch Cassidy once noted, it’s the fall that’ll kill you, and the elected delegate totals are the fall (we won’t even mention the superdelegates, who’ve become almost completely irrelevant, as they usually are).

Reverse Illinois and Missouri and the fall is only about an inch less.

But the process will still go on as before.

Why?

Hillary Clinton has a “campaign.”

Bernie Sanders has a “movement.”

A normal “campaign” operates by the rules outlined by Kenny Rogers in “The Gambler.”

If Sanders had a “campaign” it would right now be engaged in knowing exactly when to fold ‘em. If this were a “campaign” it would right now be evolving through the Kubler-Ross process.

But mere loss of any possibility of victory won’t stop a “movement.”

Jesse Jackson had a “movement” and fought out every last primary long after he’d reached the point of no return. Many of his followers kept on wearing their buttons into November and beyond.

But daunting facts on the ground will not stop a crusade built on the idea that the facts on the ground don’t matter.

Talk about the current GOP lock on the House and Bernie starts singing “Talk About a Revolution.”

But, as my precious 13 year old recently noted, “I’m a Socialist and Bernie ain’t the guy who’s bringing Socialism to America.”

Social Democratic Revolution will not come to America when 84% of African Americans oppose it.

Game, Set and Match.

This Revolution Will Not Be Televised; its’ been cancelled because of bad ratings in “Urban Markets.”

Given the facts on the ground, the options for “progressive” social change are 1) snail crawl incrementalism or 2) a better year.

For the former, Hillary is the best option. She knows every trick in the Executive Branch bag of tricks and is coldblooded enough to chill a bruin’s gonads.

She is ready for trench warfare.

But there also is the latter course.

The Millennial share of the vote will grow every year. Perhaps Bernie can try again in 2024.

Under that option, it may be better, “IN THE LONG RUN,” that the lesser evil (if the “evil corporatist warmongering bitch” even qualifies as such) be defeated.

Who can blame anyone for thinking that the prospect of more of the same, with incremental improvements, is somewhat unenticing?

Who can blame them for passionately wanting something better; even if the facts on the ground won’t permit it?

By contrast, on our side the passion is largely lacking.

For us, the Hillary campaign is not a glorious crusade, but a not particularly pleasant necessity, like taking our insulin.

Electablity is surely not the only reason to prefer Clinton over Sanders, who hasn’t the faintest interest in leading the Free World, but it will suffice.

Forgetting for a minute that this election will determine who has control over thousands of little administrative decisions that determine things like the quality of our water and air, or even who decides where we will invade on Wednesday, a matter on which Bernie’s default answer is “just say no,” the winner of the next election could determine control of the Supreme Court for the rest of my life.

For me, that is a run long enough.

More importantly, people don’t need health care, or food or shelter or an abortion in THE LONG RUN.

They need them NOW!

And the ability of many people to obtain such perceived necessities may hinge upon the success of the lesser evil.

2008 may have been about “Change We Can Believe In,” but 2016 is about “Change We Can Avoid.”

Anyway, the race will go on, and Bernie will undoubtedly win a few more, but the contest is all but over.

Unlike others on my side, I do not think Bernie needs to get out. I’ve no problem with everybody getting to register their choice, and I anticipate he has a few impressive victories ahead.

But he can’t win. Much of his race has been run against math as a public policy (a quality he shares with almost all of the GOP) and he’s had his victories, because since they were kids, the public has mostly hated math.

But while one can beat math as policy, you can’t beat it as a reality.

So it ain’t time to quit; but it might be time to start dialing down the vitriol.

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  • Larry Littlefield

    The only reason to vote for Hillary Clinton, or at least vote against her opponents.

    http://www.firesigntheatre.com/papoon/

    Someone should sell bumper stickers and buttons:

    “Vote for Grandma Clinton: She Not Insane!”

    There is no better person to manage our decay and postpone collapse until Generation Greed makes it to the grave.

    Trump and Clinton. Hey Woodstock generation, these are YOUR Presidential candidates!

    No I’m not for Sanders. Back in the recession, at a time when the income of people of working age was plunging, he complained in Roll Call magazine that Social Security recipients were not getting a cost of living increase in a year when the cost of living went down.

    “It’s a disgrace that seniors on fixed income aren’t getting these increases they’ve been getting all these years” he was quoted as saying. Until I wrote in the comments asking if he actually said that or they were trying to make him look like an idiot, and his quote (and my comment) disappeared.

  • Harringtonian

    GATEMOUTH Misses the Point!

    As he has throughout this campaign, Gatemouth misapprehends the underlying agenda of most serious Sanders’ campaign supporters (at least the sanest of us).

    My dialectics may be rusty but I see no inherent contradiction between supporting Bernie now – PRECISELY because he represents THE POSSIBILITY OF A LONG TERM MOVEMENT – AND supporting Hillary this November. Indeed, some of us would argue (as would the person for whom my pseudonym is named after) that those of us committed to a viable Democratic Left project have no other choice.

    At best, a third Clinton (or for that matter, Obama) term will be a necessary pre-condition for the creation of a genuine majority Democratic Socialist (or at least an openly Social Democratic) movement. That, of course. ain’t chopped liver. But without that (or something like it) as a core objective, Gatemouth is merely engaging in what Nietzsche once famously described as “this mania for counting noses.”

    BTW, in 1988, this writer ran for Alternate to the 1988 Democratic convention pledged to Jackson in a Congressional District Jesse won by 2 to 1. Alas, so did six other candidates.