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There will be nothing but talk now about how the Democratic Party has to smooth over its intramural Twitter rage and come together to face the common threat to our democracy that is He, Trump. (And I, for one, would give anything to be a fly on the wall Thursday when Bernie Sanders drops by the Oval Office to chat with the president.) Much of that talk will be shallow and useless, and it will be off the point entirely.

The reason for unity against He, Trump is not to be found in an inevitable Politico piece that can nearly deafen you with the sound of axes being ground. ("The candidate was nuts. Please hire me now.") Neither can it be found in a New York Times piece that finds it offensive that Sanders does not think like The New York Times believes he should think. It could not even be found on Tuesday night in California, or New Jersey, or Montana, or both Dakotas, where the combined results fired Hillary Rodham Clinton into history on afterburners.

No, the most fundamental case for unity came in two other places—on a sidewalk in Anacostia and in a room full of bankers in Manhattan.

We dealt with the former on Monday. Paul Ryan, the zombie-eyed granny starver from the state of Wisconsin and first runner-up in our most recent vice presidential pageant, announced his Better Way on poverty, shining up old ideas as though he thought them up a month ago. (Apparently, block grants are now "opportunity grants." Yes, they will give, say, Rick Scott in Florida the opportunity to shovel federal money to his cronies.)

But the latter event rather snuck under the radar. Representative Jeb Hensarling, the Texan who heads the House Banking Committee, went before the Economic Club of New York to pitch his new plan to disembowel the reforms that were put in place after the people who fund his campaigns wrecked most of the world economy and then stole what's left. From the Times:

Mr. Hensarling's plan, called the Financial Choice Act, builds on longstanding Republican hostility to the financial reform law, rolling back significant provisions and limiting the role of regulators in overseeing the country's biggest banks. But it also advocates stronger penalties for financial fraud and puts a focus on capital buffers for large banks. "Simply put, Dodd-Frank has failed," Mr. Hensarling said in remarks to the Economic Club of New York. "It's time for a new legislative paradigm in banking and capital markets."

Senator Professor Warren seems unimpressed so far with the new legislative paradigm.

"We've only seen a summary of the bill so far, but even from that, it's clear that Congressman Hensarling and his fellow Republicans think that the poor Wall Street banks have suffered too much under the new rules, and it's time for them to return to the good old days before the 2008 crisis, when these banks could run wild," Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, said during a hearing of the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday. Senator Warren called the bill "Congressman Hensarling's wet kiss for the Wall Street banks."

I think my favorite part of the new legislative paradigm is Hensarling's plan to defang the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau by turning it into something as toothless as the Federal Election Commission.

The plan also takes aim at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the brainchild of Ms. Warren. Mr. Hensarling proposes to restructure it and other agencies as bipartisan commissions and subject them to congressional appropriations.

Yeah, that'll work.

(In case you missed it, the CFPB's latest contribution to the public good was a report that pretty much demolished the payday loan industry. The report was so scathing that Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the mysteriously still-employed chairperson of the Democratic National Committee, in the face of a primary challenge focused heavily on her previous support for these scamsters, has completely flipped and flopped on the issue.)

Justin Sullivan Getty Images

These two events, which occurred far from the hurly-burly of the campaign, taken together are the best arguments for unity among the people opposing He, Trump. Give him the chance and he would sign both of these retrograde plans into law without thinking about it for a second, either because he demonstrably doesn't know fck-all about any major issue, or because he demonstrably doesn't care about any of them.

This is why Bernie Sanders has to get on board. He can take his time about it, as long as he's there by the Democratic National Convention. Regardless of what his most fervent followers may believe, the current president has a solid record of progressive achievement that is completely at risk if the elections in November go the wrong way. Sanders is not stupid. He knows this. Give him time and he'll come around.

This is why Bernie Sanders has to get on board.

As to primary night, well, I went to bed immediately after Brian Williams on MSNBC made the following statement: "First, we'll go to Nicolle Wallace, and then we'll go to Steve Schmidt, and then to Ben Ginsberg, and finally to Chuck Todd." In response to a historic speech by the first woman nominated by a major party for president, the liberal network on my electric teevee set gave me the two puppet-masters behind Sarah Palin's attempt to become vice president, one of the head ratfckers of the Florida heist in 2000 who also made a cameo appearance during the Swift Boat ratfck four years later, and a newsman who has made Both Siderism into a kind of fundamentalist creed.

Yeah, I went to bed.

She gave a strong, important speech, probably the best one I've ever heard her give, both in content and in delivery. Her attacks on He, Trump were specific and they were telling. She turned his only real policy proposal into a club to beat him over the head.

Make America Great Again is code for let's take America backwards. Back to a time when opportunity and dignity we reserved for some not all. Promising his supporters an economy he cannot re-create. We have a prosperity that lifts everyone who has been left out and left behind including those who may not vote for us but who deserve their chance to make a new beginning. When Donald Trump says a distinguished judge born in Indiana can't do his job because of his Mexican heritage or he mocks a reporter with disabilities or calls women pigs, it goes against everything we stand for. Because we want an America where everyone is treated with respect and where their work is valued. Donald Trump attacked the press for asking tough questions, denigrated Muslims and immigrants. He wants to win by stoking fear and rubbing salt in wounds. And reminding us daily just how great he is.

(I get the feeling that she's been spoiling for this fight for a while.)

And, if there was just a touch of triumphalism to it, well, she's rather earned that. In 2008, as the winter book favorite for the Democratic nomination, she took a phenomenon right in the teeth and still wound up as Secretary of State. It happened again this time, but she seemed more than ready for it. For all her built-in advantages, it still took a good politician to beat Bernie Sanders. It took a better politician than I thought she was. And I think she's a good enough politician to realize that there is no possible way for her to lose the nomination now, so allowing Sanders to go on as long as he wants, to keep energizing his voters on issues of importance, isn't necessarily a bad thing. And, if letting Sanders continue prevents her from listening too closely to the banal voices advising her to "move to the center," that can't hurt, either.

It still took a good politician to beat Bernie Sanders. It took a better politician than I thought she was.

But the best thing about the speech was the fact that it was a stark contrast to the rhetoric from the other side. We learned last night that, when He, Trump tries to sound conciliatory and humane, he sounds like he's been hit with a tranquilizer dart. As opposed to this passage, in which HRC spoke of the magnitude of the moment.

I learned this a long time ago from the biggest influence in my life, my mother. She was the rock until the day I was born until she left us. She overcame a childhood marked by abandonment and mistreatment and somehow managed not to become bitter or broken. My mother believed that life is about serving others. And she taught me never to back down from a bully which it turns out was pretty good advice. This past Saturday would have been her 97th birthday. She was born on June 4th, 1919 and some of you may know the significance of that date. On the the very day my mother was born in Chicago, Congress was passing the 19th amendment to the constitution. That amendment finally gave women the right to vote. And I really wish my mother could be here tonight. I wish she could see what a wonderful mother Chelsea has become and could meet our beautiful granddaughter Charlotte and, of course, I wish she could see her daughter become the Democratic party's nominee. So yes. Yes, there are still ceilings to break for women and men for all of us. But don't let anyone tell you that great things can't happen in America. Barriers can come down. Justice and equality can win. Our history has moved in that direction. Thanks to generations of Americans who refuse to give up or back down.

She never will be my ideal candidate. She wasn't in 2008 and she wasn't this year. Her foreign policy is too hawkish and I do dread the possibility that she will listen to the deadening rhetoric of centrist "inclusion." The Wall Street money is a problem, and she still has too much of a sweet-tooth for New Democrat solutions that are simply old Republican ideas in sheep's clothing.

Three people stood on the stage Tuesday night. Three people delivered speeches. Hillary Rodham Clinton was the only president out there.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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