This could easily be the shortest article I have ever written. Yesterday, former LOSING Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders said on Meet the Press;

“I worked as hard as I could after endorsing Hillary Clinton.” (Source)

He is right about that. After he finally endorsed her, Bernie did work hard for Hillary. I went to one of his speeches, and it was a barn burner. Well, it was a “barn burner” for Bernie Sanders. You see, Bernie is what we call a “one-note” candidate. I know a lot of them and I write for a lot of them – they are frustrating as hell. You see, what makes Bernie so popular with a certain faction on the left is that he’s “consistent.” They like that he “always tells it like it is” and he’s “not afraid to speak his mind.”

Do any of those sound familiar? They should. That’s how Trump’s most faithful followers describe him, as well. See, both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump have chosen a constituency and everything they say is based on appealing to that constituency. And one thing both constituencies love more than anything is taking potshots at the opposition, which is quite often referred to as “the enemy.”

In other words, when Bernie Sanders says he worked hard, what he means is, he gave speeches denouncing Donald Trump as awful. In the speech I saw, Bernie spent more than half the speech telling everyone how bad Trump was, which everyone attending a Clinton rally already knew. He denounced trump for his misogyny and for his sexual harassment history and his lack of any sort of qualifications. He barely and got around to singing Clinton’s praises, calling her qualified, six months after claiming she wasn’t qualified, a statement that was featured on the news coverage that evening. The most he said about her was that, of the two major-party candidates, she was the only one who could “move the country forward.”

This is in keeping with a pattern Bernie and his staunchest followers showed during the primary, in which Clinton was treated like “the enemy.” It is impossible for these folks to see the Democratic Party as an ally; the Party welcomed them with open arms and gave them a forum to air their views and they basically shit on the Party hierarchy. All they did for TWO YEARS was trash Hillary Clinton as “establishment” (a word that has no meaning these days, anyway) and trash the Democratic Party and call them a bunch of cheaters, who “rigged” the election in favor of Hillary. I mean, for Chrissakes, the same people are STILL ragging on Hillary and STILL trashing the Democratic Party, in the name of “unifying” it.

Here’s a clue, Bernie Hardcores and “progressive independents”; about 95% of actual progressives and liberals are MEMBERS of the Democratic Party and they have enough brains to not belong to a political party that is screwing them as much as you claim. People of Color are not stupid. Immigrants are not stupid. Women of Color are not stupid. Latinos and Latinas are not stupid. “Bernie Bros” are disenchanted white people who seem unaware that white people don’t run politics any longer. Most of them went off to turn the Republican Party into the whitest party in US History. The GOP has recruited every right wing racist white person into its fold for a half-century now; anyone who is stupid enough to imply that the Democratic Party is no longer “the Party of the People” seems to have been comatose for the last half century. There are no “DINOS.” There is not a single Democrat in office anywhere who will do most of the shit the GOP does as a matter of course.

By the way, the only “neoliberals” out there are the “progressive independents” who think their shit has no odor and who demand that every other liberal adopt their way of thinking or they’ll go off in the corner and sulk and vote for Jill Stein or no one until they get their way. Sorry, but adults just don’t act like that. If you want to be taken seriously “Unity Committee” or whatever the hell you’re calling yourself this week, then act like fucking adults. And given that we have two viable parties in this country and one is batshit crazy, it’s also not adult to act as if you have many choices. Adults in politics realize that you only get what you want when you win. Dear Millennials; when do you plan on winning something? Unless you work WITH the Democratic Party and not against it, that will never happen.

Getting back to Bernie and his “hard work,” well, no. He’s not lying completely – he did work hard for Hillary once he endorsed her, but for Chrissakes; look how long it took to endorse her! He endorsed her just before her speech at the Democratic National Convention, which was way too late. I mean, that was in late July, and she had him beat way back in March. Yes, that’s right, Bernie Stans, she absolutely destroyed him on the first Super Tuesday and from then on, the math was against him. That was on March 1 and it took him almost FIVE MONTHS to realize what everyone with a brain knew on March 1. He kept after her for FIVE MONTHS after he’d lost it. He and his staunchest followers spent FIVE MONTHS trashing her and basically passing on fake stories that dovetailed nicely with the Trump “crooked Hillary meme. They also trashed the DNC and claimed that the Party had cheated somehow and “rigged” the primaries in favor of Hillary. They even insinuated “voter suppression” in several states with closed primaries. Hell; just a few weeks ago, a number of Bernie Stans got together to propose more caucuses, claiming they’re more “democratic,” which has to be a joke. In essence, they’re now trying to cheat in Bernie’s favor.

So, Bernie Sanders gave a series of speeches for several months touting Hillary Clinton. Good for him. His endorsement was half-assed and what he never did was to even try to rein in his staunchest followers, who undermined his efforts in her favor, anyway. Even after they were given unprecedented access to the Democratic platform and got about 80% of what they wanted, they continued to disrupt HILLARY CLINTON’S CONVENTION and proceeded to undermine her campaign up to and through November 8.

In any case, does three months of variations of Bernie Sanders’ standard stump speech, even if the speeches had been good, really make up for everything he did to undermine her for the two previous years?

The answer is an emphatic NO.

Bernie Sanders did NOT work nearly as hard FOR Hillary Clinton as he worked AGAINST her during the 2016 election season.

Also published on Medium.