As next week’s California and New Jersey primaries bring the Democratic nominating process to a climax, crisis and denouement we Democrats seem, instead of gearing up to combat the very real specter of a Trump presidency, rather to be fighting each other ever more fiercely. A recent photo of a Sanders rally showed a large banner reading “Hillary for Prison”. Liberal journals are repeating and retracting false stories accusing Clinton of racketeering charges. Can you imagine what the Republicans will do with that one in a general election? “See”, they will say, “even her own people think she is crooked”. Whatever Bernie supporters held that flag, well, I will simply ask you how are you going to feel waking up in November to see President-Elect Donald Trump gloat? Because unless we have a focused, UNITED and energetic campaign moving forward as Democrats together, that is very likely what you are going to see.
We have played this game before. In 1968 the democrats were widely split, perhaps with some valid reasons, but they played that out with such chaos in the convention and in the streets, that the country turned to a man who promised order, and we handed Nixon a presidency. Nixon may have won anyway, but views as disparate as those expressed in the Wall Street Journal and NPR view the division among democrats as a large factor in his victory. This time we won’t get a Nixon. We will get Donald Trump.
I suppose there are still some Sanders supporters who think their man might win. Let’s look for a moment at the numbers. At present (and I got these numbers from AP today), Hillary Clinton has a total of 2310 delegates, including pledged and super-delegates. 73 short of the nomination. There are 913 still outstanding. This means that for Sanders to overcome the lead at present, and go into the convention as the democratic nominee, given his current total of 1499 delegates, he would have to win 841 out of 913, or 92% of the remaining votes. Not really likely, is it?
Let’s take the super delegates out of the equation. For him to catch Hillary on pledged delegates alone, he would have to win 67% of all remaining contests. 67 to 33 is not, obviously, absolutely mathematically impossible, but he has, Vermont aside, never done that. Now, even if he wins an almost unprecidented 67% of the remaining states, coming in with 2026 pledged to her (then, imagined) 2025 pledged delegates, she would still have the nomination clinched by over 150 votes.
To win then, he has to win all of the remaining super delegates. But he would also have to convince a large number of super delegates who have already committed to Hillary Clinton to change sides.
In other words, what this means is that for Sanders to win the nomination, he has to win more of every remaining state than he has in any preceding state (Vermont aside), he has to further win over every remaining super delegate, and he has to convince 200 of the 520 Super-delegates who have offered their support to Hillary Clinton to renege on that commitment.
From the standpoint of us Hillary supporters, the fact that the Sanders camp is still counting on this math to happen is exactly what we fear about him in the first place. The numbers do not add up.
So what does this mean? It means that Bernie Sanders and his supporters are now just damaging the (virtually) inevitable democratic nominee, just when the Republicans are coming together united behind an increasingly palatable Donald Trump.
There is no question that Sanders and his supporters can make things quite messy at any democratic convention trying to present itself as the party of the adults in the room, more capable of governing. And we have been given easy targets in the Republicans and their Nominee. But we can, and seem to be, easily giving it away.
Americans at this point seem to like Bernie Sanders, personally, more than they ‘like’ either Clinton or Trump. Fair point. But how much do they like Socialism? Polls consistently find that the majority of Americans will not support socialism. And countries in which socialism is tried tend to do badly. Look at Venezuela.
Those countries which Sanders supporters point to as Socialism Working are, in fact, Capitalist countries with a social democracy, in other words a good safety net. No one in the democratic party disagrees that we need a stronger safety net, but why call it Socialism? Finland, Norway, Sweden all have more than their share of the worlds major billion dollar private industries, and at least their share per capita of billionaires. It won’t take long for the Republicans to point out that places which have elected a socialist, like Greece and Venezuela, end up regretting it. They would beat Sanders. He’s popular now because the Republicans have tried desperately not to attack him, hoping we might run him. If we do, they will make it a contest between Donald Trump, American, and Joseph Stalin/Karl Marx/Hugo Chavez, wait and see. Call me crazy, but I think an electorate which has moved steadily and increasingly to the right or at least to the center over the past 8 years is not going to now elect a Socialist. Politics, they say, is the art of the possible. Let’s consider what is possible.
There is no question that Hillary Clinton has created some of her own difficulties, and few disagree, including Mrs. Clinton herself, that the email server was a serious error in judgement and decorum. However, let’s take that in context. What she has essentially done was to interpret rules, probably a little too loosely, to her own advantage, and then to represent the facts, a little too loosely, also to her own advantage. This is wrong. Yes. It was poor judgement. Yes. But, in the context of almost every president in my memory, from Johnson through Nixon, perhaps not Carter, but Reagan, Bush and Clinton, it is not completely outside of the normal.
Still, it is a problem. Not only because of the honesty issue, but also because it shows she has a tendency to minimize threats. A concern, I admit.
But is it enough to allow us to usher in the Trump era? Taken as a whole, her career has been solidly pointed in the direction of providing opportunities for those who have fewer of them, and developing the breadth and depth of knowledge and experience to be able to have a chance to provide them. Are these warts enough to cause us to elect a President Trump?
Because that is what our choice will be. Barring a flat out criminal indictment, and even possibly with one, she is going to be our nominee. And should be. The nation has moved steadily to the right over the past eight years. Yes, we might sudden pull a One eighty turn and elect a socialist. But it is so unlikely that it seems far too dangerous to risk this election on. Sanders, as well meaning as he seems to be (or at least during the early parts of his campaign seemed to be) is so polarizing that he wouldn’t get what he wants done if if given a chance.
If we, as Democrats, accept, embrace and champion Hillary Clinton, if we unite behind her, and send her off from the primary season with a rousing unified support, we have a chance of winning in November. That contest, despite earlier unfounded glee and optimism, would still probably be at best an even shot. But divided, weakened, crippled with inner strife and discontent, with her own party calling her names and tearing her down, the outcome will be very different.
I believe there is a very real fear that the progressive wing of the democratic party, those for whom Hillary Clinton is too conservative (!?!) may celebrate their voices being heard so loudly in July, only to have them soundly crushed in November.
And then this lost opportunity will seem like a very bad dream. And the dream will be even worse for those who will bear the full burden of a Trump presidency.
Sanders and his supporters have provided a very important voice, raised critical issues and placed very important points into the national dialogue. He should be applauded for that. You should be applauded for that.
Now, however, it is time for us to recognize that our best chance, perhaps our only chance, of having any of that agenda put forward means choosing someone who can find in our nation enough common ground to begin to to work together. There is someone who still, with good well and our strongest support, has some chance of doing that.
Let us give her a resounding endorsement to take that fight forward.
If you see the merit in this argument, please pass it on to your friends and colleagues in California and New Jersey. We don’t have much time left.