Note: political cartoon removed by Greg Dworkin, based on comments and feedback. Thanks for your input.
The pundits are not being nice to Bernie. This selection is the tip of the iceberg.
NY Times:
For weeks, some current and former Sanders campaign workers have privately acknowledged feeling disheartened about Mr. Weaver’s determination to go after the Democratic National Committee, fearing a pitched battle with the party they hope to support in the general election. The intraparty fighting has affected morale, they say, and raised concerns that Mr. Weaver, a longtime Sanders aide who more recently ran a comic book store, was not devoted to achieving Democratic unity. Several described the campaign’s message as having devolved into a near-obsession with perceived conspiracies on the part of Mrs. Clinton’s allies.
Democratic leaders said they wanted to do everything possible to avoid having Clinton-Sanders tensions send the Philadelphia convention into the sort of chaos they had expected to mar the Republican convention. So far, though, Mr. Sanders has not indicated that he would ask his delegates to support Mrs. Clinton, as she did in 2008 for Barack Obama.
SacBee:
One would think that Sanders, the man who continues to insist he’s the only Democrat who can beat Trump, would speak up forcefully to condemn the actions of his supporters in Nevada. If nothing else, it’s the right thing to do.
Instead, much like Trump when pressed about the violent streak within his ranks, he has largely weaseled out of his responsibility to make it clear to his supporters that this is not acceptable behavior.
The Sanders campaign has been noticeably silent about the events on social media – the main way the candidate communicates with his supporters.
When asked by reporters, his campaign spokesman, Michael Briggs, insists that Sanders does not “condone violence or encourage violence or even threats of violence.” Then in the next breath, his campaign abdicates all responsibility for what happened in Nevada, offers excuses and shifts the blame.
Briggs says the campaign “had no role in encouraging the activity that the party is complaining about.” He even implied to The New York Times that Democratic Party itself is partly responsible for the tense atmosphere because it’s not doing a good enough job of being welcoming to “people who have been energized and excited by (the Sanders) campaign.”
Adding fuel to the conspiracy fire, the campaign still is considering whether to challenge the outcome of the Nevada delegate count.
This continues to generate bad press for the Sanders campaign. If you’re going to play hardball, get yourself a rule book and read it. Otherwise, you’re going to lose at the game you asked to play.
NY Times:
Senator Bernie Sanders’s campaign assailed the head of the Democratic National Committee on Wednesday, accusing her of blatantly favoring his rival, Hillary Clinton, during the party’s increasingly tense nominating battle.
The criticism comes amid growing fears about the prospects for party unity, as supporters of Mr. Sanders have been enraged by how they were treated at a state convention in Nevada last weekend and directed violent threats at the Democratic chairwoman there.
National party leaders, such as the D.N.C.’s chairwoman, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, have criticized how Mr. Sanders has handled the unrest, adding to the frustration within his campaign.
I hate to break it to you, but this is neither a movement nor a revolution. It’s a campaign, and they’re losing. Team Sanders is under pressure, not handling the pressure especially well, and that pressure is starting to get ratcheted up. Hey, but why look at yourselves and what you’re doing when you can blame DWS, the Nevada state chair, a rigged system, and outside forces for everything that goes wrong? It can’t possibly be you. Think that’s unfair? Read the Sanders statement abut Nevada.
I said the other day the NV thing would not play well in the press for Bernie, let alone the Democratic Party. Pretty clearly, it hasn’t.
Jonathan Bernstein:
The Bernie Sanders Trainwreck
At this point, the best thing Bernie Sanders’s supporters can probably do for his reputation is to vote against him in the remaining primaries and caucuses.
Hillary Clinton long ago wrapped up the nomination. Tuesday’s results -- her narrow victory in Kentucky and his win by about 10 percentage points in Oregon -- doesn't change anything: It's over. If you include super-delegates, Clinton is only about 100 delegates away from clinching, and with Democratic proportional allocation she is basically guaranteed to get there.
Yet the closer Clinton gets to her official victory, the more Sanders and his campaign act as if the nomination was unfairly stolen from him -- that somehow the doors of the party have been unfairly closed against his followers. This culminated in an ugly scene in Nevada last weekend, with Sanders supporters threatening Democratic Party officials there.
The result? Liberals have turned on Sanders, urging him to get out of the race now or, at least, to change his tone.
Dave Weigel:
All of it seems to have come to a head in recent days, as bitterness on both sides has boiled over and prompted new worries that a fractured party could lead to chaos at the national convention and harm Clinton’s chances against Trump in November. Two realities seem to be fueling it all: The nomination is for all intents and purposes out of Sanders’s reach, yet his supporters are showing no signs of wanting to rally behind Clinton.
“If you lose a game that you put your heart and soul into, and you lose squarely, you can walk off the court and shake someone’s hand and say, ‘Well done,’” said Rep. Diane Russell, a Maine legislator and Sanders supporter. “If you don’t feel like the game was working fairly, it’s hard to do that.”
On the other side is this view: It’s also hard to win a general election with a protracted, divisive primary battle that won’t go away. “The way he’s been acting now is a demonstration of why he’s had no support from his colleagues,” said former Massachusetts congressman Barney Frank.
Charles P. Pierce (Bernie supporter):
The Sanders people should know better than to conclude what has been a brilliant and important campaign by turning it into an extended temper tantrum.
I voted for Bernie Sanders ... But if anybody thinks that, somehow, he is having the nomination "stolen" from him, they are idiots.
Ed Kilgore:
One thing is largely indisputable: Bernie Sanders himself could help clear the air by informing his supporters that while there are many things about the Democratic nomination process that ought to be changed, no one has "stolen" the nomination from him or from them. Perhaps a thousand small things gave Hillary Clinton an "unfair" advantage in this contest, but they were mostly baked into the cake, not contrived to throw cold water on the Bern. And the best step Sanders' supporters could take to promote their long-term interests in the Democratic Party would be to get a grip before they wind up helping Donald Trump win the presidency. And Bernie Sanders himself has a responsibility to talk his devoted followers off the ledge.
The Slot with a truly interesting piece:
We called up Bernie fans Who Threatened Dem State Chair and Asked Them to Explain Themselves
They found three of them, who came across as rational if a bit misguided. They wanted to make a statement, not actually suggest violence. Weird, but within the range of what you’d expect from frustrated (if poorly informed) humans. It’s completely unacceptable, mind you, but in this case an apology would probably suffice.
Politico:
Bernie Sanders' campaign manager unequivocally said on Tuesday that there would be no violence or serious conflict at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia in July, while also describing the chaos at last Saturday’s Nevada Democratic convention as an "aberration."
"There's not going to be any violence in Philadelphia, Wolf, I guarantee that," Jeff Weaver said in an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer. "We hope for a fair and orderly convention. I think whoever the ultimate nominee is we want to unify the party on the back of the convention so we can all go out and defeat Donald Trump in the fall."…
"What happened in Nevada, I think, is an aberration in large part driven by the way that that party handled itself," Weaver continued. "We've been involved in conventions all across this country, in states from one end of the country to the other. Nothing like this has happened and so this is really anomalous, but this is really tied to what happened in Nevada itself."
Jeff Weaver has not been an asset to the campaign. But I’ll take him at his word.
Mediaite:
On the subject of party unity, [Bernie surrogate ] Nina Turner said that the onus to reach consensus was on both sides, and it was not merely the responsibility of Sanders supporters to simply walk into the party fold. “This is a disruption election on both the left and the right. And when I say disruption, I don’t mean in a violent way. Again, violence and threats of violence cannot be tolerated. But people are not, Tamron, going to simply roll over the way that some leaders think. They have to earn and win over these folks,” she said.
When [Tamron] Hall challenged Turner to account for the fact that Clinton had won more votes, Turner said, “It’s obvious she has more votes, but the process is not over,” adding: “This is not just about math and I think that’s what’s missing in this entire debate.”
“If the math doesn’t matter to you, and it appears the math will be on her side, is the campaign considering Sen. Sanders running as an independent?” Hall asked. Turner said that would be Sanders’ decision.
Just as, in my view, Jeff Weaver has been Bernie’s worst surrogate, Nina Turner has been his best. They should have her on more and him on a lot less.
WaPo:
Sanders is quickly becoming a figure every bit as divisive and polarizing among Senate Democrats as Ted Cruz is in the eyes of his Republican colleagues. He may not have forced a government shutdown, but his obstinacy may yet imperil HRC. His defiance is burning bridges, which will make it harder for him to be an effective member of the Senate going forward.
-- We’ve reached another pivot point in the race. The donnybrook at the convention has been a wake-up call for many liberal commentators, who have viewed Bernie positively because of his success at pulling Hillary to the left. But a new mindset has begun to take hold: If Trump becomes president, Sanders will deserve a big share of the blame. Take this sampling of commentary that posted overnight:
The Atlantic:
The incident is nevertheless sure to fuel broader concerns that Sanders supporters have been raising throughout the primary contest. Many believe the election has effectively been bought and paid for by the Democratic establishment. But while Clinton opened up an extremely large early lead over Sanders in superdelegates, she has also won far more votes—3 million more than the senator so far. “The system is not rigged,” said Josh Putnam, a political-science lecturer at the University of Georgia. “The simple truth is that Clinton has won this nomination—and fair and square at that.”
David A Hopkins:
Liberals are particularly susceptible to process arguments for two reasons. First, liberal concerns about social equality more generally make it easy for left-leaning critics to accuse any disliked procedural attribute of being "unfair" and therefore unacceptable. For example, the Democratic National Committee's "Fairness Commission" prohibited the use of winner-take-all delegate allocation in primaries in the 1980s, on the stated egalitarian principle that delegates should properly be awarded in proportion to the popular vote, while Republicans—who are less deferential to claims that internal procedures are undemocratic—continue to allow states to use winner-take-all rules if they hold primaries after early March.
Second, and perhaps more fundamentally, liberals tend to view themselves as self-evidently standing for the rights and interests of "the people" against the elites
Paul Waldman:
This is the moment of truth for Bernie Sanders and his supporters. It’s the moment that determines whether everything they’ve accomplished to this point is translated into real power and real change, or fizzles into nothing, leaving behind only bitterness and resentment. And right now, the latter course is looking much more likely.
What happened in Nevada over the weekend was an expression of some key features of the Sanders campaign, even if it involved only a small number of Sanders supporters taking things to an extreme that most of them would never contemplate. It showed just how hard it’s going to be to convert the campaign into a lasting enterprise that has any influence over American politics. And at the moment, Bernie Sanders himself — the one person with the power to shape where this movement goes from here — hasn’t shown that he understands what’s happening or what he ought to do about it.
Here’s my advice, Bernie supporters. Stop complaining about everyone else and everything external. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves.