Bernie Sanders predicted Monday that the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia could be "messy" as he pushed the party to adopt his progressive agenda, but added, "Democracy is not always nice and quiet and gentle."
The Democratic presidential candidate said in an interview with The Associated Press that his supporters hoped to see a platform at the July convention that reflects the needs of working families, the poor and young people as opposed to one that represents Wall Street and corporate America.
The Vermont senator said he will "condemn any and all forms of violence" but his campaign was bringing in newcomers to the process and first-time attendees of political conventions. He said the Democratic Party could choose to be more inclusive.
"I think if they make the right choice and open the doors to working-class people and young people and create the kind of dynamism that the Democratic Party needs, it's going to be messy," Sanders said. "Democracy is not always nice and quiet and gentle but that is where the Democratic Party should go."
Asked if the convention could be messy, Sanders said: "So what? Democracy is messy. Everyday my life is messy. But if you want everything to be quiet and orderly and allow, you know, just things to proceed without vigorous debate, that is not what democracy is about."
So the question to be asked is "How messy will it be?"
Part of the answer to that question might be suggested by this Jake Tapper tweet from yesterday.
Okay well I think we all know that there is NO way that Hillary is going to give Bernie Sanders any say over who she appoints to her cabinet. And demanding that she do so is guaranteed to cause conflict.Reporter: Sanders wants say over Clinton cabinet picks https://t.co/VWi0gkPKFq - @jmartNYT & @JFKucinich on #TheLead— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) May 23, 2016
Of course the pressure that Bernie wants to apply to Hillary to get her to bend to his will is the promise of endorsing her and sending his army of supporters to cast their votes for her in the general.
However as it turns out that support may be nontransferable.
Courtesy of the New York Times:
Mr. Sanders has drawn enthusiastic support from young people, a common pattern for outsider candidates. But here, too, the impression of ideological commitment is mostly illusory. While young Democrats in the January survey were more likely than those over age 35 to call themselves liberals, their ideological self-designations seem to have been much more lightly held, varying significantly when they were reinterviewed.
Moreover, warm views of Mr. Sanders increased the liberalism of young Democrats by as much as 1.5 points on the seven-point ideological scale. For many of them, liberal ideology seems to have been a short-term byproduct of enthusiasm for Mr. Sanders rather than a stable political conviction.
Perhaps for that reason, the generational difference in ideology seems not to have translated into more liberal positions on concrete policy issues — even on the specific issues championed by Mr. Sanders. For example, young Democrats were less likely than older Democrats to support increased government funding of health care, substantially less likely to favor a higher minimum wage and less likely to support expanding government services. Their distinctive liberalism is mostly a matter of adopting campaign labels, not policy preferences.
The illusory progressive ideals of Sanders' supporters combined with the rabid anti-Hillary rhetoric that permeates his movement, and their absolute certainty that the system is rigged against their candidate, means that counting on their votes in November may be a waste of time and resources.
The Bernie supporters who are actually Democrats will vote for the Democrat in the race, but the ones who showed up only for the revolution, well those folks will be the ones outside arguing with the cops and screaming that the whole system is rigged.
So if Sanders has really nothing to bargain with, why bargain?
By the way for those still clinging to the idea that Sanders had this nomination stolen from him, you might want to read this post from Kos.
Source http://ift.tt/1YWTkQ7
