Okay. I accept that Hillary's going to get the nomination. I actually 'knew' that as a matter of course all along, because... because 'The Establishment' always wins. Party politics, we chose the party that best represents us even knowing that it's just politics and we're never going to get everything we want/need. Lord knows if we didn't know it before, we learned quite well from Obama.
I'm older. I remember clearly not getting everything I wanted/needed from Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton either. Hell, I'm pretty far left of all of 'em. But what Obama (and Daily Kos) taught me most clearly was that I am not alone in my frustration with 'The Establishment'. And short of a new party arising to represent those of us who are honestly on the left side of the political spectrum - as our party has drifted ever rightward - the best thing we could hope for was to somehow impress upon the party and its establishment that we mean business. FORCE it back to the left. And the only way we could do that was to demonstrate in no uncertain terms that we can no longer be taken for granted.
We "dirty fucking hippies" are sick to death of being ignored by the centrist/center-right establishment. Who of course comfortably assume that we sure as hell won't vote for a Republican, so they can do as they please and we'll vote for them anyway. Today in my state of North Carolina, 40% of North Carolina Dems/Indies who voted cast their ballot for Bernie Sanders (totals aren't entirely in yet, but that's the range). That is more than a third, close enough to half to count big time, in very important ways.
Of course we (or, most of us) will vote for Hillary in the general. But first we are going to get some important say in the party's policy platform. Hillary's victory speech tonight sounded quite a bit like Bernie. There's an excellent reason for that, and the foremost Dem "Power Couple" of 3 or more generations understand innately how this works. They are consummate politicians, above all. And this is the nitty-gritty of how politics works.
The Democratic Party can no longer ignore and/or insult progressives as some kind of insignificant fringe group that has no choice but to vote Dem (or go Green or other insignificant fringe party). No legitimate political party in this country can safely ignore and/or continually insult more than a third of its membership and expect to keep those voters long term.
What Bernie can do - and must do, IMO - is to stay in until the convention. Rack up as many progressive votes as he possibly can, to add to our clout. And progressives need to keep right on voting for him in upcoming primaries, even if just to log the percentage of Democrats in their states who ARE progressives, and who do expect action on our issues. That clout determines how those policy planks are planed and hammered into the platform, and how much attention they'll get in the coming administration.
Bernie is carrying our clout, and our votes for him mean the party's going to have to take his positions seriously.
Anyhoo, that's my take on the night. Congrats to Hillary and Bernie both, and to us all. It's a campaign season for the ages (and fixing to get a whole lot weirder), us political junkies are going to have a blast on the way to the White House and firm control of the Senate!