Most Presidential candidates, when they’ve reached the moment of defeat or futility, can simply step down and get back to their lives. They can resume being Senators, enjoy being rich again, start getting rich, get out of debt and then into the private sector, or go onto TV and wait for phone calls about appointments.
But what does a Bernie Sanders do? He’s a combination of Jed Bartlett (“I’ll give some speeches and then we’ll all go home”) and Stackhouse from The West Wing: he never expected the kind of success he attained, and built a movement that was bigger (and angrier) than anyone could have predicted. He’s built a coalition that is demographically and philosophically different from but maddeningly close to the Democrat mainstream (or many people’s memories of it) and the campaign has unleashed (or scaled) a form of political energy not seen in decades.
An exit now is more than stepping out of the race for the good of the party – it’s stepping out of the race while maintaining momentum. It’s being an alternative voice to a deeply conflicted party while supporting its deeply flawed candidate. It’s being a Senator while figuring out how to stoke and transfer the momentum of a movement that not everyone likes. It’s straddling the anger and idealism, the realpolitik and the vision.
Not at all easy. I hope he is as deft about this as he has been at his best moments.
In at The End of The World 
You nailed what’s unique about the end of Bernie’s campaign. Not sure I can remember another campaign that ends with so much promise for affecting the future of Democratic politics and policy. Maybe Jesse Jackson in 1984? Will be fascinating to see what comes next. I assume one of the things he is negotiating now is the content of what he can say when he’s out stumping for Hillary. He’ll rip into Trump. He’ll fire up his supporters. But, he’s going to ask for specific policies that he can campaign for on Hillary’s behalf.
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I’ll just note that in the distorted (I hope!) online world I’ve created for myself during this process, where I follow both rabid Clinton supporters and rabid Sanders supporters, almost all I see right now is mutual vituperation. The best efforts at expressing reconciliation from Sanders people run along the lines of: “great, now to stop Trump, I will be forced to vote for the most corrupt candidate ever to seek high office in the United States.” On the young (and often female) left, there’s “I’m not happy about Clinton making history because a war criminal by definition isn’t a true feminist.” Bhaskar Sunkara, editor of “Jacobin,” watching HRC’s speech last night, tweeted: “If Hillary Clinton had a profoundly different personal history and platform this would be an incredibly inspiring moment.” On the Clinton side, I see much resentment (loaded word?) of HRC’s having been called a racist in ’08 when she didn’t bow quickly enough to Obama’s victory; also much pushback against the idea that she’ll have to make nice with Sanders, not be bossy, the kind of stuff men are never expected to do in the moment of victory. Meanwhile, I guess, the real politics goes on, the stuff you guys are talking about in the post and comment here.
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And I just posted something celebrating the moment.
Wow. “War criminal”? Really? Which war? Libya? “Most corrupt?”I guess these are young people. It’s obviously a good thing that a younger generation of women take their empowerment for granted. But, I have to think that any woman over 40 has a little smile on their face today.
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These are young people. UPDATE: Mostly, that is. And our dismissing their dissent on that basis is one of their issues. There really is some generational warfare here, and I think it’s significant.
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All of which just maybe suggests some of the hard — and strange — work Bernie will have to do now, per the original post. Because if he really is going to start stumping for HRC, how does he bring on board the fervent supporters who wanted him because she’s supposedly fundamentally disqualified by Wall Street corruption, etc., and he’s not? It’s different from Pop Bush calling Reaganomics “voodoo” and then back-pedaling, as everybody always does after a primary: Bernie can’t say “It was a tough fight, it’s politics, you say stuff, but in the end we’re as one”: the very appeal of his candidacy was to pose an ideology of fundamental dissent from everything HRC represents. He can blast Trump, of course, so they’re lucky in that way, but that kind of “common cause” won’t satisfy either of their bases. Hm.
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All good points. I am definitely on the other side of that generation gap. And many others. Agree, that Sanders is not like the usual defeated candidate. Thus, the visit to the White House tomorrow. How he supports Hillary and consolidates his support into an ongoing political force will be fascinating to watch. And good for the country. Kind of a drag that he’s 75 years old. And, I’m sure he’s as angry about that as anyone. His hand would be even stronger if he was a threat to run again. I suppose the 66 year old Elizabeth Warren would be his likely successor. Which, suggests to me that if Sanders wants to have a lasting legacy, he should start to cultivate some of his younger followers to run for state senate or congress.
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