Jon Ralston

All things considered, I’d rather not be in Philadelphia.

And by late July, I’d bet a lot of other Democrats will be saying the same about the national convention as the ongoing, roiling fratricide in Nevada threatens to be a harbinger of trouble to come in the City of Brotherly Love.

Judging from the intensity of the feelings, and with a minority of Bernie Sanders supporters unwilling to accept reality, Philadelphia could be the venue where Donald Trump becomes the favorite to become the next president.

It’s not so much what will happen on the floor there, even if it mirrors the raucous mindlessness and rampant vulgarity we saw Saturday in Las Vegas. It’s what happens afterwards and toward November, if the Berniebots’ revolting threats of physical harm to state Chairwoman Roberta Lange and their conspiracy-theorizing and revisionist history takes hold of a significant number of voters.

Nevada Dems’ convention turns unruly

In swing states, that is. Like … Nevada.

This comes as many Democrats believe they have a dream general election candidate to run against, a man who has achieved a miraculous upside-down showing with almost every demographic and who practices the politics of subtraction better than anyone. With Hillary Clinton planning a replay of Harry Reid 2010 – I’m manifestly unpopular, people really don’t like me and I have so many negatives that it’s all about YOU – Trump is the perfect target for a unified Democratic Party. Now about that unity …

What happened at the Paris Hotel was worse than any New Year;s Eve bacchanal on the Las Vegas Strip, but just as uncontrollable: It was a group of delegates, stirred up by Sanders operatives, determined that the deck was stacked against them and they were going to be cheated.

The kindling had been lit long before they arrived at that ballroom – by Sanders and his team. They sued the state party over meaningless and baseless nonsense, quickly thrown out by a judge. And even after Reid persuaded Sanders to put out a unity statement on the eve of the convention, his supporters – or a core of them – didn’t care. They had one goal in mind: disruption.

The Vermont senator here and elsewhere has tapped into a real anger in the grassroots, but he started a wildfire he cannot control. Nor, according to a defiant statement he put out Tuesday, does he have any intention of doing so.

Sanders defiant after flap about Nevada Dem convention

I won’t bore you with the minutiae of what happened at the convention – it was an exaggerated version of the usual meaningless squabbles over rules, bylaws and credentials. The simple story is this: Sanders lost to Clinton by 5 percentage points in the Feb. 20 caucus and has been working to reverse it ever since. He pushed more delegates to the county conventions a few weeks ago but his team was out-organized by Clinton’s Nevada contingent on Saturday.

Team Sanders left almost 500 delegate spots unfilled at the Paris, allowing Clinton to reassert the caucus results. Sanders lost, plain and simple; the rest is white noise (like yelling the loudest for a voice vote) and sour grapes (like complaining an election you lost was stolen).

Yes, Reid controls the state party and the chairwoman. And, yes, Reid wants Clinton to win and did even before he officially endorsed her, all the while being as fair to Sanders as he could before he helped her in the caucus.

But even Reid did not know how many delegates would show up for either side at the Paris; he and his team knew the Sandersistas planned to destabilize the event and they wanted to try to control it.

Even if the Sanders folks were right on every complaint and won every vote they lost – and they weren’t and couldn’t – maybe the senator would have picked up a few delegates. But he didn’t. He lost.

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.

Hillary Clinton wins Nevada caucus

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.

Jon Ralston has been covering Nevada politics for more than a quarter-century. See his blog at ralstonreports.com and watch "Ralston Live" at 5:30 p.m. weekdays on KNPB.