It is a well known fact that Bernie was very popular with specific groups in the Democratic party, like white liberals and young people.
His populist message resonated with them and his rallies were filled with passionate supporters looking for hope and change. Many people who had earlier been resigned to accept Hillary suddenly had an alternative. His movement was truly based on grassroots campaigning. He went from having only 3-4 percent support in the polls to breaking 40 percent by the start of 2016. Millions of people supported him, including myself. They all "felt the Bern," and they knew that exciting things were about to happen.
It's July 2016, and much has happened since then. Bernie held his ground against Hillary and it was a very tense, dramatic campaign up until April. Bernie had the edge among white liberals and young people, but Hillary had the edge among women and minority voters. And, in April, this edge proved to be the key to her victory. She won New York by double digits, effectively crushing Bernie’s chances of a comeback. But Bernie kept chugging along, even though it was effectively hopeless for him to ever catch up with Hillary in delegate counts. And his supporters remained just as fanatical, thinking that they could flip super-delegates to Bernie’s side. Others, like me, quietly left the movement and looked towards the general election, when Hillary would need our support against Donald Trump.
Even after the primary season finished and Hillary had the majority of delegates needed to secure the nomination, Bernie kept campaigning, but he was now focused on making the Democratic party platform more progressive. He also held out hope that Hillary would get indicted, which would likely force her to dropout and give him the nomination by default. He and his supporters managed to get on the committee and achieve change through compromise with the establishment; Democrats now back a pathway to legalizing marijuana, abolishing the death penalty, reinstating Glass-Steagall, and raising the minimum wage to $15/hour. After this, Bernie officially suspended his campaign and endorsed Hillary at a joint event on July 12th.
This ended up angering a lot of Sanders supporters, who felt that he has betrayed them and the cause. Some called him a “sellout”; others held out hope that he was merely bluffing. Still others continued to believe that he could still magically clinch the nomination at the convention, despite the massive delegate advantage in favor of Hillary. Even after Hillary wasn’t indicted and FBI director James Comey recommended not to pursue charges against her, they still thought that Hillary was a crook who had committed a crime. This happened even though Comey has a reputation for being tough and objective, even though he opposed the Bush administration’s NSA surveillance program, even though he supported Attorney John Ashcroft when officials came to the guy in the hospital and tried to convince him to authorize it. Even after all that, they are unwilling to trust the professional opinion of a guy who makes a living investigating things like this.
Bernie supporters also think that dumping Hillary and not voting for her is worth it. They seem to be unaware of who the GOP nominee is. It’s a guy who is egotistical and arrogant. It’s a guy who wants to ban Muslims and Mexicans from entering the country. It’s a guy who views the whole election campaign as a game and wants to sate his ego. It’s a guy who has flip-flopped between Democrats and Republicans and supported Hillary’s campaign earlier. It’s a guy who’s filed for bankruptcy four times and thinks he’s a successful businessman. His VP pick, Mike Pence, opposed same-sex marriage and denied climate change. Not to mention that if Trump won, the Republicans would probably hold uncontested power over the entire federal government, and the country would be at the mercy of the Tea Party. Hence preventing Trump from winning should be the progressives’ number one goal.
That requires laying down one’s pride if necessary and voting for Hillary. Or at least voting for Democrats in congressional races if one feels like writing in Bernie or voting for Jill Stein. Bernie supporters need to understand that while they lost the battle, they won the war. The Democratic party is gradually shifting to the left and becoming more and more progressive. A strong progressive movement has already been born, and chairwoman Debbie Schultz is going to lose her reelection campaign. Keeping the party divided and fragmented is not the way forward; it is not even necessary when the platform is the most progressive it has been in years. I’m supporting Hillary because its what is best for the progressive movement; I like Bernie a lot better than Hillary but I understand that Hillary won the primaries fair and square. There was no DNC conspiracy, there was no organized system of voter fraud to keep Bernie away from the nomination.
