(Kelvin Kuo/AP)

Political ideologies are generally judged by the loudest voices who articulate them. Unfortunately for Bernie Sanders’ movement, the loudest voices who remain invested in Bernie 2020 are being obnoxious — again. For some reason, in the name of party unity, traditional Democrats are expected to turn the other cheek and accept criticism from the cynical left so we don’t alienate the vast majority of Bernie supporters who handled his exit and endorsement of Biden with grace. Those folks are Democrats and they don’t deserve to be included in the criticisms of their worst members. That being said, the Democratic Party is waging a war against an authoritarian, neofascist regime. Anyone inhibiting our ability to fight this war is an ally of the Republicans. After Bernie Sanders exited the race and endorsed Joe Biden, his campaign left an ideological vacuum. “Bernie or Bust” has again joined in on the attacks against the Democratic Party’s efforts to fight the regime; utilizing the same tactics and methods used by the Republicans.

Unlike Sanders himself, Bernie or Busters have chosen to respond to his exit and endorsement of Biden by indirectly joining forces with the Trump campaign to vilify Joe Biden and smear the Democratic Party. They’ve given up on the fight against the President who banned immigration and the party who tried to take healthcare from 20 million Americans (over 70 times) because Joe Biden doesn’t pass every purity test they give him. Thomas E. Mann of the left-leaning Brookings Institution and Norman J. Ornstein of the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute have studied partisan politics for years; each of them offering a fair analysis from each side of the aisle. Together, they wrote a bombshell 2012 op-ed titled, “Let’s Just Say It: The Republicans Are the Problem.” In the editorial, they argue that following the Tea Party revolution, the Republican Party had been fully absorbed by a politics of extremism. As they put it, “The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.”

So, lets just say it: Bernie or Busters are the Republicans of the left.

(AP Photo/John Minchillo)

Cynicism and Conspiracy

Bernie Sanders’ candidacy rested on a basic argument: Bernie would bring waves of young, nontraditional voters — first-timers and those who generally stay home — into the fold of the Democratic Party to compensate for his lack of support amongst traditional Democrats. Of the 14 states that held primaries on Super Tuesday, participation by voters younger than 30 didn’t exceed 20% in any state. His hypothesis failed; the revolution did not show up. Bernie said himself the candidate should be whomever could amass the plurality of delegates. His clear defeat in Michigan indicated he did not have a path to pass Joe Biden’s delegate lead, so he dropped out. Rather than reflecting on the mistakes made by the Sanders campaign to broaden the coalition, the hardline leftists sought to blame imaginary bad actors in a conspiracy plot to justify the failures of their would-be revolution.

Here’s what they need to understand: middle aged (and older) black voters are the base of the Democratic Party. Not the young, white progressive left. Black voters aren’t a monolith — all black people aren’t passionate Democrats — but black Democrats decide the direction of the party Bernie Sanders decided to join for his two bids for President. The DNC did not execute a secret plot to take Sanders down or silence his supporters. Black voters, the base of the Democratic Party, chose to support Biden. Donald Trump blames his failures on his imaginary enemy, the “deep state.” Bernie or Busters have an identical invisible enemy, but they refer to it as “the establishment.” To attribute the success of black voters to nominate Joe Biden as the result of low information voters fighting against their own interests or sheep controlled by “the establishment” is to completely dismiss the legitimacy of black America’s political power.

Bernie’s campaign was flushed with cash, dwarfing Biden’s numbers every quarter. Going into Super Tuesday, Bernie had the money and Joe Biden had broad support of the party. Moderate candidates lining up behind Biden isn’t the work of “the establishment”, it’s the logical extension of where the party was heading. Bernie supporters and surrogates on Twitter routinely attacked supporters of Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris — hour after hour, day after day throughout the campaign. Biden supporters and surrogates, on the other hand, found common ground and asked for their support. They got it.

If Bernie was the more electable candidate, the delegate totals would have reflected as much. It’s that simple.

The Bottom Line

In his 2006 book, “The Audacity of Hope”, Barack Obama described what he saw as the misguided approach by some on the left to reform the Democratic Party. He explained their logic by saying, “The Republican Party has been able to consistently win elections not by expanding it’s base but by vilifying Democrats, driving wedges into the electorate, energizing it’s right wing, and disciplining those who stray from the party line. If Democrats want to get back into power, then they will have to take up the same approach.” This description follows the 2020 playbook of the faction of the Bernie coalition that remains headstrong as “Bernie or Bust.” When Bernie’s lead was threatened, they would attack his Democratic opponents. Pete Buttigieg was a secret Republican, Elizabeth Warren was a snake, Kamala Harris was a racist cop, and Joe Biden had dementia. Rather than making an appeal to more moderate voters, they sought to further energize the far left wing against their “establishment” enemies. Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and even Noam Chomsky were vilified for urging Bernie supporters to back Biden. Republicans represent the beliefs of old, white, conservative Christians and Democrats represent the beliefs of everyone else. Nobody will have the opportunity to elect a President with whom they agree on every issue because our party is too ideologically diverse to please everyone.

Bernie Sanders has suspended his campaign and endorsed Joe Biden. The Bernie supporters who remain steadfast against Biden, creating conspiracy narratives about election rigging and DNC puppeteering, are missing the forest for the trees. The hostile politics of “Rose Twitter” — young democratic socialists and social democrats online whose goal seems to be the erosion of the Democratic Party, identified by a rose emoji — breeds cynicism and distrust of our institutions. It leads people to believe that their vote doesn’t count, elections are fixed, and there’s no use in participating. This cynicism benefits the far right and hurts everyone else seeking political power — including Bernie Sanders and his movement.