And the reaction to the vanquishing was akin to the petulant mewling of a baby who had been pampered until the moment he first was told no, wailing with no purpose other than to be loud, And just like an infant, the Sanders folks wanted it to be all about them.
This is an M.O that comes from the top: We are pure; you are not. You are with us or you are corrupt Establishment criminals. If you challenge us, we will call you names, bully you, threaten you. This is not all Bernie Sanders supporters. In fact, it's a minority; many truly believe in the cause, in income inequality destroying the fabric of America, in universal health care being a universal right, in all of it. Fine. But there were no great policy debates on the floor of that convention; they weren't even debating emails servers or Wall Street transcripts.
This was raw fury, nasty enough this weekend in Las Vegas to disrupt a convention in the name of … what? What is the endgame here? Take over a state party that may be the best in America? Stop Hillary Clinton from winning the nomination? Make a lot of noise, eat a lot of pizza and look down on everyone? These are small-picture people. Instead of accepting the plain facts that Clinton won the caucus and out-hustled Sanders at the state convention, they want to talk about arcane rules being imposed, whether chairs were really thrown and if anyone should make a fuss out of chalk on walls and sidewalks (even if the messages were hateful).
These are people who think it's fine to scream obscenities at a sitting U.S. senator, Barbara Boxer, believe it's part of their First Amendment rights to call a state party chair corrupt and who insist they are cheated out of something that was never theirs. If this is the Sanders revolution, give me the Establishment.
Sanders had a chance Tuesday to apologize to Lange, to concede his supporters were out of hand, to try to calm his troops stirred up by local troublemakers. That would have been leadership. Instead, he behaved like a – dare I say it? – Establishment politician, more concerned about, as another Clinton once said, maintaining his viability in the political system. I seriously doubt he can put out the fire he has set. All things considered, my guess is there won't be much brotherly Democratic love in Philadelphia.
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