Sur­pris­ing­ly, this week’s prize for ​“Stu­pid­est Polit­i­cal Com­ment in the Pres­i­den­tial Race” does­n’t go to Don­nie Trump or Ted Cruz.

Sanders is the oldest candidate in the race—yet, politically, he's the youngest candidate, exuberantly putting forth an FDR-sized vision and agenda to lift up America's workaday majority.

Rather, the hon­or goes to the clue­less cognoscen­ti of con­ven­tion­al polit­i­cal wis­dom. These pun­dits and pro­fes­sion­al cam­paign oper­a­tives have made a uni­lat­er­al deci­sion that Bernie Sanders must now quit the race for the Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­na­tion. Why? Because, they say: ​“He Can’t Win.”

Actu­al­ly, he already has. Sanders’ vivid pop­ulist vision, unabashed ide­al­ism and big ideas for restor­ing Amer­i­ca to its own peo­ple have jerked the pres­i­den­tial debate out of the hands of sta­tus quo cor­po­ratists, revi­tal­ized the class con­scious­ness and rel­e­vance of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, ener­gized mil­lions of young peo­ple to get involved and proven to the Demo­c­ra­t­ic estab­lish­ment that they don’t have to sell out to big cor­po­rate donors to raise the mon­ey they need to run for office.

Bernie has sub­stan­tive­ly — even pro­found­ly — changed Amer­i­can pol­i­tics for the bet­ter, which is why he’s gain­ing more and more sup­port and keeps win­ning del­e­gates. From the start, he said: ​“This cam­paign is not about me” — it’s a chance for vot­ers who have been dis­re­gard­ed and dis­card­ed to forge a new polit­i­cal rev­o­lu­tion that will con­tin­ue to grow beyond this elec­tion and cre­ate a true peo­ple’s government.

From coast to coast, mil­lions of vot­ers have been ​“Feel­ing the Bern.” That’s the cam­paign slo­gan that grass­roots sup­port­ers cre­at­ed to express their pas­sion for the uncon­ven­tion­al pres­i­den­tial run being made by Bernie Sanders.

Yes, pas­sion—an out­pour­ing of gen­uine excite­ment that is (as we say in Texas) ​“hot­ter than high school love.” All this for a 74-year-old Demo­c­ra­t­ic Social­ist who is open­ly tak­ing on the cor­po­rate plu­toc­ra­cy that’s been knock­ing down the mid­dle class and hold­ing down the poor. Sanders is the old­est can­di­date in the race — yet, polit­i­cal­ly, he’s the youngest can­di­date, exu­ber­ant­ly putting forth an FDR-sized vision and agen­da to lift up Amer­i­ca’s worka­day major­i­ty. And, guess what? It turns out that worka­day Amer­i­cans real­ly val­ue democ­ra­cy over plu­toc­ra­cy, so that’s where his pas­sion­ate sup­port comes from.

Need I men­tion that the mon­eyed pow­ers — and the politi­cians hooked on their mon­ey — hate this affront to their cozy pol­i­tics-as-usu­al/ busi­ness-as-usu­al sys­tem? Espe­cial­ly shock­ing to them is that Sanders’ sup­port­ers have found their way around the usu­al Wall of Big Mon­ey that the estab­lish­ment always throws us to thwart pop­ulist cam­paigns. This time, though, a counter-force of com­mon folks has cre­at­ed a wide­ly-suc­cess­ful cam­paign fund of their own to sup­port their Bernie Rebel­lion. How suc­cess­ful? A whop­ping $182-mil­lion has been raised in mil­lions of small dona­tions. How small? They aver­age $27 each.

That’s a rev­o­lu­tion, right there! Every rev­o­lu­tion needs a slo­gan, so here’s one that used to be on the mar­quee of a vin­tage, local­ly-owned motel just down the street from where I live in Austin: ​“No addi­tives, No preser­v­a­tives, Cor­po­rate free since 1938.” That per­fect­ly sums up the unique peo­ple’s cam­paign that Bernie-peo­ple have forged for themselves.

The keep­ers of the Estab­lished Order fear this grass­roots upris­ing by no-name ​“out­siders,” and they know that this year’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­na­tion is still very much up for grabs, so they’re stu­pid­ly try­ing to shove Sanders out before oth­er states can vote. But Bernie and the mass move­ment he’s fos­ter­ing aren’t about to quit — they’ll orga­nize in every pri­ma­ry still to come, be a major force at the Demo­c­ra­t­ic con­ven­tion, and keep push­ing their ideals and poli­cies in the gen­er­al elec­tion… and beyond.

As Sanders puts it: ​“I run not to oppose any man or woman, but to pro­pose new and far-reach­ing poli­cies to deal with the cri­sis of our times… It may be too late to stop the bil­lion­aire class from try­ing to buy the pres­i­den­cy and con­gress… But we owe it to our chil­dren and grand­chil­dren to try… We need to face up to the real­i­ty of where we are as a nation, and we need a mass move­ment of peo­ple to fight for change.” That’s what real pol­i­tics should be — not mere­ly a vac­u­ous cam­paign to elect a per­son­al­i­ty, but a momen­tous demo­c­ra­t­ic move­ment fight­ing for the com­mon good.