And at this point, it really doesn’t matter. Somewhere around 80% of his supporters already support her, and he missed the crest of whatever wave of influence he might have had. All this hoo-hah about the platform is just silly. He already got most of what he wanted (because it was mostly the same thing Hillary wanted, anyway) and he’s turned off a lot of his own former supporters with this kind of self-serving parsing.
In other words, he’s reduced himself to a historical asterisk. And personally, I find it really annoying that 1) a non-Democrat considers himself to be the only expert on the Democratic party, because a lot of good Democrats have fought hard for the same working Democrats Bernie thinks he discovered and 2) that Donald Trump now regularly quotes Bernie Sanders to attack Hillary as corrupt.
Oh good grief! Let’s take’em one at a time. If the Democrats have been on the right side of working class issues then there’s nothing to worry about and Sanders is simply herding splintered constituents. Donald Trump is quoting Sanders on the proposition that money corrupts. Ergo it must not? The carried interest rule just happened. Something tells me that Clinton can handle the argument that Trump is in the bag too. I agree that Sanders is an asterisk in Democratic politics going forward, I just don’t happen to think it’s a good thing.
At this point none of the Democratic operatives or Clinton supporters think Sanders is a good thing. What is sad is that he’s squandered a good thing. He now appears every inch the sore loser. He is still questioning the character of the only person who can stop Trump and that is NOT doing everything he can to stop Trump.
I disagree. I think Bernie will endorse Clinton at the convention, as soon as she is no longer the “presumptive” nominee but the actual nominee of the Democratic Party. Trump can and will quote and misquote Bernie — but I don’t think anyone other than his die-hard supporters care. The mainstream media/collective wisdom meme repeated ad nauseum that Hillary is untrustworthy is far more damaging than anything Trump says.
And Bernie does not seem to be bashing Hillary now. Does he want the party to move from the center? Yes. Doe he want the party platform to be more bold and left-leaning? Yes. But so do many of his supporters, and there are a lot of Democratic Party voters who support those things (without any regard to whether Bernie has been or is a member of the Party — many of his supports have been and are). For example — http://www.inquisitr.com/3264386/bernie-sanders-refutes-trump-i-do-not-hate-secretary-clinton-as-campaign-begins-to-rally-around-hillary/