2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: I have a theory on why Sanders is not conceding or endorsing at this poinjt [View all]YouDig
(2,280 posts)By the way, I would not object at all to Bernie pulling the party left. I'm not with him on everything, but movement towards more progressive would be good in my opinion. Of course, we also need to win seats in red states, so unlike a lot of Berners, I also see the value of having less pure progressives in the party too.
What for sure I object to is "doomsday machine" blackmail, which it really feels like sometimes. Especially when Weaver is on TV. And people respond to me and say "are you scared" to which I say yes I am scared. Even without Trump I would be: GOP controls congress, SCOTUS is looming. And if a GOP president steps in, everything Obama did with executive actions ends on day one. Scary, yes it is.
But maybe Bernie knows exactly what it will take to get his supporters on board, and maybe a normal endorsement speech isn't the thing, maybe he needs to go through this whole thing he's doing and at least give the appearance that the DNC is bending to his wishes. If he's got the master plan, that would be great. But there are a few things that definitely would not help unifying the party.
1 If his delegates boo any of the other speakers at the convention, especially if they boo Hillary.
2 If Bernie's convention speech is full of implicit criticisms of Hillary
3 If there are huge protests outside the convention that take attention away from the speeches
None of that is good. I guess we'll see.