Let me speak to an ossified political hierarchy that has lost its way. Hey, Democrats, remember the days of the monogram presidents — FDR, JFK, LBJ — when you actually stood up for unions, which in turn stood up for a strong, broad middle class? Remember when you used to formulate great ideas such as Social Security, Medicare, Civil Rights and Environmental Protection? That’s the old Democratic Party.

In the 2016 presidential election, there were 63 million votes for Trump; 66 million votes for Clinton; and 110 million who didn’t vote, mostly young people and minorities. Democrats, that is your base; it’s no wonder you seem to lose all the close ones. It’s no wonder Republicans are bending every effort to keep them from being counted. Guess who gets those nonvoters to vote? Bernie.

So it seems passing strange that when Bernie Sanders wins, rather than celebrate a robust return to core Democratic values, all of your leadership and punditry are lighting their hair afire and making comparisons to the fall of France in World War II. I suspect your concerns are less about a better world for humankind and more fixated on how this will affect fundraising. Too bad.

Democrats, the unions were always there for you, but you weren’t there for the unions. Now you’re so used to small-ball pay-to-play politics you don’t know any other way. We don’t need a social corporatist party versus a predator corporatist party. We need a social democratic party. Don’t buck Bernie; back him.

Jeffrey Hobbs, Springfield