Former failed presidential candidate Bernie Sanders (affectionately dubbed Our Lord, Patron Saint Bernard Sanders by the Bros for America podcast panelists) sparked the ire of CNN political commentator Bakari Sellers on Thursday after Sanders made seemingly disparaging remarks regarding President Barack Obama on a speech meant to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination.

Sanders loyalists were quick to defend the statements, opining that they were taken out of context and that the critics were purposefully stoking racial divide (for what purpose Sellers would be interested in creating racial discord is as-of-yet unclear).

Nevertheless, after Sanders gave a speech in which he basically minimized Barack Obama as a “charming guy” who oversaw a massive failure to govern, Sellers took to Twitter to proclaim that the Senator from Vermont had just put the nail in the coffin of his 2020 presidential aspirations.

Y’all can defend Bernie all you want. On #MLK50 his lack of self awareness and arrogance in dismissing #44, is wild. Bernie 2020 died 4/4/18. https://t.co/W6gKZ9dUO4 — Bakari Sellers (@Bakari_Sellers) April 5, 2018

Sanders already has a problem with the little-talked-about but very-prevalent Hillary Clinton voters who are still angry with him (and the cult-like “Never Hillary” subsect of his following) for his contributions to her electoral college defeat. His line of attack- calling her arrogant, corrupt, implying she was crooked- played into Mr. Trump’s hands. At times during their general election kerfuffle, Trump would recite Sanders verbatim in his campaign rhetoric.

While Sanders did offer his endorsement and campaign for Clinton, he never did provide the same full-throated endorsement that Secretary Clinton herself gave to President Obama following their famous primary showdown in 2008. By some measures, Clinton would go on to win the popular vote in that contest and ultimately served as Secretary of State in Obama’s first term, to great success.

Hillary Clinton won 66 million votes for president in 2016, many of which were cast by party-faithful Democrats who still greatly admire both Clinton and the former president, who remains immensely popular despite the current administration’s attempts at undoing his legacy.

A year and a half after the 2016 presidential election and Hillary Clinton has remained in the crosshairs of the alt-right media machine, constantly scrutinized and attacked by the press and social media users alike, leaving the popular vote winner to publically jest that “FOX News is always trying to impeach me.”

The Senator’s problems don’t stop there: African American women largely supported Clinton and continue to make up the backbone of the Democratic Party, as evidenced by the recent upset victory of Democrat Doug Jones in the special election for the U.S. Senate seat left vacant by Attorney General Jeff Sessions in Alabama. Black women there were the determinative game changers. Not only did they turn out, they went for Jones by a 95% margin. You read that correctly.

Sanders, though, took to the interview circuit just days after the election to send a message that he has since repeated countless times over: the Democrats should shuck identity politics (that is, to appeal to black and brown voters) in favor of the white working class.

In upcoming presidential primaries, women of color will continue to hold court throughout the West and South and will be crucial to winning the Democratic primary presidential elections for decades to come.

Finally, the March for our Lives movement will surely affect the outcome of this November’s critical mid-term elections, with gun reform at the forefront. Here, Sanders is faced to confront an issue for which he never had a clear answer during the 2016 election. His poor record when it comes to gun issues (voting down the Brady bill 5 times, the fact that the NRA helped get him elected to Congress) has always been a formidable blemish on his record. The Mothers of the Movement, who flocked to Clinton in 2016 and spoke to the Democratic National Convention to hopa e and won’t take kindly to disparaging comments made about the first black president on the anniversary of the MLK Jr.’s assassination.

Certifiedly Dead: Bernie Sanders’ presidential aspirations.

Time of death: April 5, 2018, at 5:59am EST

Cause of death: Self-destruction

Foot-in-mouth

The Voters Just Don’t WANT Him

Karma’s a bitch.



Also published on Medium.