Bernie Sanders left his meeting with President Obama Thursday, his refusal to exit the Democratic race garnering him a great deal of attention, both positive and negative. That attention is, more and more, the only justification conceivable for the continuation of his campaign.

It was amazing when he didn't quit two months ago, after it became nearly impossible that he could win the nomination. It was astonishing when he didn't quit on Tuesday, when it became actually impossible for him to win. And Thursday, after the President and the leader of his party asked him to throw his support to Hillary, it has become borderline insane that he won't call it. Suddenly, a new and freshly horrifying question has appeared on the horizon of this election:

What if the Democratic Party becomes as batshit as the Republican party?

Now, obviously, on one level, that's impossible. A reasonable person has currently been selected as the Democratic candidate, whereas the unhinged-ness of the Trump candidacy continues to surprise despite a solid year of nasty surprises. Trump's newly minted plan to take New York, a state that has not leaned Republican since 1984, is the latest bit of pure nonsense to emerge from his unplanned "campaign." The man he hired to win New York is John McLaughlin, subject of a 2014 Washington Post profile entitled "How Wrong Must You Be to Never Work Again?"

Of course, it shouldn't be that much of a surprise that Trump has no strategic ability as a political operative. He is disconnected from any other reality than the one he spins from his head. The disconnection provokes the essential fear that runs throughout this election like a chill down the spine. Certainly the worst thing that could happen to the Republican party is for him to win the general. Why else would his campaign be subject to repeated attacks from prominent members of his own party? One gets the sense as we drift toward the election that Trump, himself is afraid that he could win. The only possible reason to plan a massive campaign in New York is to lose in such a way that it would subsequently help his brand in the major media markets.

What if the Democratic Party becomes as batshit as the Republican party?

The Republican insanity is why it is so important that Bernie Sanders throws in the towel. It's not that he doesn't have an important voice on the American left. It's that, to stay in, he has to deny the existence of math. And really, in this election, the denial of math should belong to one political party. If both parties are in the fact-denying business, they might seem equal. And that is one madness too many. As the Republican party collapses under the weight of the deals it has made with so much American chaos, the Democratic party is more or less synonymous with the application of data. To squander that position—in pursuit of what?—would be catastrophic.

There is another, subtler problem with Sanders not joining in with Hillary right now. He represents the possibility that the American left, at its moment of complete intellectual triumph, at the moment when the right has basically ceded the ground of policy and debate in favor of tribalism, will seek out aggressive and radical positions that cannot work, for which the American people have no appetite. Bernie did not lose by accident. His opponent has offered one of the most coherent packages of policies of any candidate in American history. He did not lose to a personality. His policies lost. The danger for the left is taking more pleasure in being right than in doing right. Bernie Sanders is flirting with that line right now.

Sanders has vowed to fight with Clinton to prevent a Trump White House. "These are the issues that we will take to the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia in July," he said. It's not enough. The time for leading is over. The time for following has arrived. Say the words, Bernie. You'll feel better. The Democratic Party will feel better. America will feel better. The world will feel better. They're very simple: "I lost."

Stephen Marche Stephen Marche is a novelist who writes a monthly column for Esquire magazine about culture.

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