On June 6, Hillary Clinton became the presumptive presidential nominee for the Democratic Party, surpassing the 2,383 delegates needed to clinch the nomination.
To most people ardently following politics, it was hardly a surprise. Clinton had held the delegate lead from the very beginning and despite almost sweeping the plain states Bernie Sanders could never surpass her. From the very beginning, it was Clinton’s to win and she did so decisively.
Even though Clinton is walking away with the nomination, Sanders ran an admirable campaign. When Sanders joined the race, he was seen as a fringe candidate. Most thought that a self-identified Democratic Socialist had no shot at garnering support. He was too far left of center, and began the race polling in the single digits. The fact that he made it this far is surprising, and actually incredibly impressive.
After Clinton won the nomination, Sanders had a chance to end his campaign with his head held high. He could have left with an impressive legacy for his campaign, successfully implementing his agenda into the Democratic platform and pushing Clinton further and further left. Finally, the Democratic Party had to take Sanders and his policies seriously.
However, Sanders damaged his legacy when he didn’t drop out of the Democratic race after Clinton became the presumptive nominee.
Let me continue by saying that in no way is this a pro-Hillary article, but no matter what your views are, the day Clinton became the Democratic nominee was historic. It was monumental that after over almost 250 years into our country’s history, we finally had a female nominee for President. It was a historic event that Sanders simply ignored.
Over the past month, Sanders has become his worst supporters in an attempt to revitalize his campaign and pull off an impossible comeback. He went from starting a “political revolution” to complaining about the smallest details of the election cycle.
One of Sanders most popular complaints was that the system is rigged for Clinton, but the math just doesn’t add up. Under any system imaginable, Clinton would have the delegate lead. Under the current system, she has the nomination. Without super delegates, she still has a 250 delegate lead. If every state gave out delegates proportionally, she would be up by 400. If every state were winner-take-all, she would have a 1,200 delegate lead, and under the GOP rules she would be winning by 1,000. There is simply no math to put Sanders ahead of Clinton. The only possible way to do this would be to gain an overwhelming majority of super delegates, and even if this happened, Sanders would be winning in a way that he described as undemocratic.
There has also been much talk about closed primaries, and how this is unfair to the Sanders campaign. To me, this seems ridiculous. How is it controversial that registered Democrats get to decide the Democratic nominee? Opening the primaries can cause Independents or even Republicans to skew the results.
Many Sanders supporters also claim that the elections were unfair, and that Sanders isn’t doing well because the elections were rigged. This is absurd. Even if the elections favored Clinton, (which is a wild assumption) there is no way that any voting changes could seriously affect the election. Clinton won the popular vote by over 3.7 million, and even generous counts could mean maybe 10,000 more votes in Sanders' direction.
Quite simply, Sanders lost. And his inability to admit that has made him something that you never want to be in politics, a sore loser.
The best thing that Sanders could do would be dropping out of the race and endorsing Clinton. Even though his fan base demonizes her, they must realize that it’s her, or Donald Trump. The sooner he endorses Hillary, the better chance she has in November.
Despite his loss in the primary election, Sanders' story is not over. He could choose to keep going down this bitter path of denial, holding on strongly to the little hope he has left, or he could help Clinton lead the fight against Trump and impact the Democratic platform for years to come. Unfortunately for Democrats, I do not know what he will choose.
