Bernie Sanders Calls On Supporters To Vote For Clinton-Kaine. It Does Not Go Well

Bernie Sanders broke a few hearts before the opening of the Democratic National Convention today, delivering a speech in which he reviewed his campaign's successes, and called on his supporters to move forward with changing American politics. Oh, and he also re-endorsed Hillary Clinton, which was a major buzzkill.

Sanders started out by congratulating his adoring throng, which is really the only kind of throng there is, congratulating them on a well-run campaign and saying all the nice things you say to supporters. "We showed you can run a successful national campaign without begging billionaires for donations." All without a super-PAC, and with average contributions of $27. He also touted the success of his supporters in pushing changes to the platform, and reducing the number of superdelegates for 2020 from 715 to 250. Woohoo! Not surprisingly, there were huge cheers for the resignation of Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

Then he got to the "what happens next" part, which is where he started losing people. First, the white tofu for his progressive crowd: We have to transform the system, get rid of income and wealth inequality, and demand the wealthy pay their fair share in taxes. Cheers! Minimum wage increase. Cheers! No TPP, establish single payer healthcare, rebuild the infrastructure and create jobs. Cheers! Climate change is real and already doing damage, and we need sustainability. More cheers! "We have got to defeat Donald Trump" Oh, yes,cheers! 

"And we have got to elect Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine."Boos!So many boos, all the boos, angry boos, NOTHING BUT BOOS. No, they were not shouting "Boo-ernie."

The New York Times reports some even chanted "Lock her up!" which we didn't hear, but don't doubt. Pardon us while we extract our forehead from our keyboard.

The crowd reacts to @BernieSanders saying: "We have got to elect Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine" pic.twitter.com/7v3puhTdLM 

— POLITICO (@politico) July 25, 2016 

Bernie tried to use that "reasoning with them" thing liberals are supposed to like: "Brothers and sisters, this is the real world that we live in. Trump is a bully and a demogogue. He has made bigotry and hatred the cornerstone of his campaign." Still boos. Bernie listed all the groups Trump has insulted and would be bad for, and the crowd was still booing. Bernie has sold out to the corporate shills. Maybe if they yelled "Go, Bernie Go!" and chanted "We want Bernie!" loudly enough he would unsay the words he said! And then MSNBC had to cut away for an update on whether Debbie Wasserman Schultz would still gavel the convention to order -- the news was that we don't know. Thanks, MSNBC! (Dominic the Intern checked CNN -- all we missed was a line about conservatives not liking Trump either. So Bernie didn't secretly say, "Oh, OK, let's burn this motherfucker to the ground." In case you were wondering.

Once they got back to Bernie, he was saying, again, "Donald Trump must be defeated, and I intend to do everything I can to see he is defeated." Mixed cheers and boos, still much disappointment, but then Bernie moved on to what could come next if people really do build a movement beyond one campaign year: getting progressives elected to offices from school boards and county commissions to the U.S. Senate, the way the right wing has done since the 1980s, although he didn't point that out. Bernie was loved again. By the time he got to "This campaign has been a fantastic beginning -- a beginning, and from this day onward, we continue the fight. Thank you all very much," it was mostly cheers again. Also, he didn't say God Bless America, so maybe the DNC was right! 

After that, MSNBC found some idiot Bernie-supporting lass to talk to, and she said a bunch of dumb that made us want to hurl, like how superdelegates need to not throw their votes away on Hillary, who's a Republican anyway, because that's democracy. Why not just have four years of Trump, who is somehow less dangerous than Hillary, and then in 2020 elect a REAL progressive, assuming the radioactive fallout isn't too deep.

Sanders supporter: "I would prefer Donald Trump...I do think that Trump is less dangerous [than Hillary Clinton]." https: //t.co/Bmd3g3pJxJ 

— MSNBC (@MSNBC) July 25, 2016 

Or maybe, MAYBE, Bernie will switch his support from Hillary to Jill Stein, and then unicorns will fart rainbows across the sky. Sounds like a plan.

[ LAT / NYT ]